Self-described advocates of the First Amendment have been in a tizzy since news emerged last week that the city parks department is putting in writing a rule that limits the size and number of large events on the Great Lawn in the park. In past years the host to luminaries ranging from the pope to Pavarotti, the lawn has always shown the strain after large rock concerts, opera performances, and papal Masses. But millions of dollars of privately raised funds having been spent in the late 1990s to restore this section of the park, the city has been cracking down.

Sponsors of such large gatherings have always had to post a bond to cover at least part of the cost of fixing any damage the crowds might inflict on the terrain. But it’s not just an issue of money. As our suburban readers know, re-seeding a lawn requires sitting on the sidelines for weeks, or even months, before the patch of land is usable again. In Central Park, that time is reckoned in cancelled softball games and lost afternoons of summer sunbathing for the city’s lawn-starved residents.

Meanwhile, there isn’t a compelling free-speech argument against the restriction. The First Amendment is a prohibition on the Congress that simply guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. It’s mute on where. The government already restricts the location of many protests in many places. Just consider prohibitions on assembling within the White House fence, or requirements that abortion protesters keep their distance from clinic entrances. Likewise, the parks department isn’t silencing protesters. Anti-war protesters last summer didn’t have any trouble finding places beyond the Great Lawn to express their views during the Republican convention.

But that’s all moot in this case, anyway, since the Great Lawn isn’t even an ideal location for many large gatherings. The Parks Department points out that there are many other spaces throughout the five boroughs, some of them in other parts of Central Park itself, that are able to accommodate even larger crowds than can comfortably fit on the lawn. We reckon we’re as attached to the First Amendment as the next person, or more. But we also prefer playing Frisbee over watching grass grow. There’s no reason that New Yorkers should have to choose between the two.