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Moroccan soccer fans light up Astoria ballfield with flares, alarming new neighbors
By
Liam Quigley
Published Oct 3, 2025
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Courtesy Cynthia Morgan
By
Liam Quigley
Published Oct 3, 2025
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A meetup of Moroccan soccer fanatics at a historic Astoria baseball field roared to life with fireworks and flares on Tuesday evening, sending pink smoke wafting toward Manhattan.
The group of around 20 people unfurled a massive banner in sections, which was assembled to depict the logo of Ultras Winners 2005, a supporters group for the Casablanca-based Wydad Athletic Club. Neighbors who shared videos of the meetup on Reddit said some in the group had a brief fistfight. Then came the pyrotechnics.
“ It looked like a bomb was going off,” said Neil Herdan, cochair of Friends of Whitey Ford Field. He said he learned of the celebration from a local dog owners' group and alerted the parks department and NYPD. “There were fireworks and flares, flare guns.”
The shockwaves from the exploding fireworks caught the attention of residents in gleaming new residential towers erected in recent years between the ballfield and decades-old NYCHA housing. Longtime stewards of the park are using the occasion to push for more funding and ask for stepped up police patrols, while others said the fireworks are part of city life that highlight the friction between a growing neighborhood and the spontaneous use of public space.
A police spokesperson said there were no arrests from the gathering. Parks officials did not say if there was a permit issued for the event.
The celebration didn’t appear to correspond with a game or event in Morocco, though the nation has erupted in youth-led protests over government neglect in recent days.
The scene shocked Frank Lagg, who moved to the Halletts Point complex overlooking the park two weeks ago.
“ It was a really big ceremony and they were with sparklers, throwing their sparklers in the water,” said Lagg, who just landed in the city from Maine and works in artificial intelligence.
Abbe Risdon, 41, a longtime New Yorker who used to play sports in the field, said the surrounding neighborhood has undergone major changes over the last decade.
“It was just NYCHA housing, this was kind of a vacant area,” she said. Risdon now works as a sheet metal worker constructing some of the new developments that have changed the neighborhood.
Risdon said she saw how the celebration could be alarming, but framed it as part of life in New York.
“Fireworks are just a thing that is everywhere you go, especially in New York City, I think it's gonna happen,” she said.
Herdan said volunteers were left to pick up the detritus from the celebration on the ballfield, which dates back to 1906. “They said there were about 40 flares left on the field,” he said. Herdan said lagging response from parks enforcement officers highlighted ongoing concerns about neglect from the underfunded agency.
“They have illegal fireworks on July the Fourth, the Astoria [NYCHA] Houses, but you know, that's nothing in comparison," Herdan said. "This was massive. This was like huge explosions.”
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Liam Quigley
Liam Quigley is a reporter covering parks & sanitation for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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