MANHATTAN — Guitarist and performer David Ippolito has strummed his last chord at Hudson River Park.
The popular singer, who has led thousands of folk song sing-alongs in the past decade at Pier 45, has been fired from performing at the Hudson River Park Trust's Sunset on the Hudson series after he scolded the parents of children who he says were disrupting his shows.
Ippolito — who goes by the moniker "That Guitar Man" — says the trouble started June 24, at his second-to-last show on the pier. A few dozen people gathered despite the rain and humidity. A man with a two or three-year-old sat in the front.
The child ran back and forth in front of Ippolito, "doing his kid thing," he said.
Finally, Ippolito said something to the parent off-microphone.
"I used my standard line, 'I think he's getting a little bit late for the playground,'" Ippolito said.
The parent scooped up his son, got on his bike and left.
A few days later, Ippolito says he fielded a call from the trust about a complaint made against him for kicking out a child. Ippolito said the trust asked him to be sure nothing similar happened again.
Two weeks later, at a Sunset on the Hudson performance on July 15, several sets of parents and at least five children set up their blankets in front of Ippolito, he said.
As he started to play, the kids started up a game of tag. A trust employee who was present asked parents to prevent their children from playing near the wires, for their safety, Ippolito said.
"It was if the parents had told these kids, 'Have at it.' They were running back and forth right in front of us. These incredibly inconsiderate people were letting their kids do gymnastics as we played," Ippolito said.
One mother chased her child back and forth in front of the performance. Then, the child tripped on Ippolito's monitor cable. He stopped playing in the middle of a song.
"Hey parents, can you just make sure your kids are not being inconsiderate to the people around them?" Ippolito said he asked, using the microphone.
The families left after about an hour, and then the night was "one of the most fun nights we've ever had," Ippolito said.
A few days later, he received a call from the trust telling him he was being let go.
The Hudson River Park Trust, which operates the pier, which is just north of Christopher Street along the Hudson River, defended their decision to fire Ippolito, saying he acted inappropriately.
"Our decision was in response to repeated complaints from park users that [Ippolito] made them feel unwelcome and embarrassed them by singling them out over an open mic when they or their children made noise in the park," the trust said in a statement.
According to the trust, Sinclair Jennings Jr. & Max Gallico Acoustic Soul Duo will play in Ippolito's usual Friday night slot.
Andrea Sluchan, an Upper West Side resident who was at Ippolito's final show on the pier, disputed the trust's claims that he was rude.
"I can assure you, I've never seen him be rude to anybody," Sluchan said, noting that she had seen him perform at least a hundred times.
West Village resident and social worker Rhea Sohne, 63, said that Ippolito brought a diverse crowd to visit the pier, which has been a hangout for LGBT youth for decades.
"David's folk singing appeals to baby boomers, and this was one of the few times that you would find from 7 to 9 p.m. a baby boomer group there. It was quite wonderful," she said.
Ippolito said he thinks the trust used him to help bring more locals to the pier.
"They figured they'd stick a guy with an acoustic guitar at the end of the pier on a Friday night and it might help change the demographic," he said.
Ippolito said that while he will miss performing on the pier, he would not perform there again if he were asked.
"There are rude and inconsiderate and entitled people, and there always have been. If the Hudson River Park Trust is going to acquiesce to these people, who wants to work for them anyway?
"You remember when you read a while back in People magazine about The Me Generation? They grew up and [had] kids," Ippolito added. "They're raising the next generation of rude people."
Sluchan blamed his dismissal on a generation of parents who think everyone should be entertained by their children.
"It's this generation of see-my-child parents who think everyone wants to see Facebook photos and YouTube videos of their kids," Sluchan said. "People think it's not their job to parent their child."
