Attempt reaching throughout this desk for the salt and pepper.
A whole lot of New Yorkers congregated at a metropolis block-long desk in Chelsea Sunday afternoon for the third annual “Longest Desk” potluck lunch occasion – the place foodies hailing from Chelsea to Harlem to New Jersey to Lithuania broke bread within the title of fostering neighborhood connections.
“We reside on this metropolis that’s so densely populated, and it’s simply straightforward to stroll by people who find themselves simply having a ‘how’s the climate’ dialog,” mentioned longtime Chelsea resident and occasion volunteer Nathaniel Hawkins.
“I really feel like now [with] essential points, after we want folks to point out up, increasingly folks present up,” mentioned Hawkins, 52.
The massive-scale lunch affair, held on a car-free Open Road on West twenty first Road between Ninth and tenth avenues, started in 2022 after the pandemic lockdown drove occasion co-founder Maryam Banikarim to seek out secure, new methods to reconnect together with her Chelsea neighbors.
“I passingly knew my neighbors [before], however throughout COVID I actually acquired to know them as a result of we had been one another’s life traces,” Banikarim, one other longtime Chelsea resident, instructed The Put up.
“There’s additionally this epidemic of loneliness and psychological well being points,” she added. “Folks have this unbelievable need, notably post-COVID to attach with one another in actual life … [The Longest Table] modified my expertise within the neighborhood.”
A photograph circulating social media of neighbors sharing an enormous outside meal in Egypt impressed Banikarim to arrange the same outside eating expertise, with the assistance of about eight volunteers. Information of the occasion unfold on neighborhood-based social media web site Nextdoor — with a whopping 500 folks attending the inaugural soirée.
“Desk captains” had been designated to host tables, carry chairs and coordinate their potluck contributions — which ran the gamut from baked items to Chinese language meals to Indian delicacies to an ideal huge hero sandwich.
“It’s the range of town,” she mentioned. “Everybody’s curious what everybody else has introduced.”
The second iteration of the occasion in 2023, which amassed about 700 members, was even studied by school college students from Barnard to know the affect of the challenge, Banikarim mentioned.
“What we discovered was plenty of the folks got here from Chelsea, but in addition from different elements of town, it’s a microcosm of New York Metropolis,” she instructed The Put up, noting that 92% of the individuals who confirmed up had been capable of join with different attendees. By the tip of the occasion, greater than 60% felt much less lonely, she mentioned.
Banikarim stories that, in her personal neighborhood, the challenge has fostered extra communication and serving to arms, from borrowing ladders to facilitating conversations about new tasks within the space — equivalent to Vanderbilt College’s latest takeover of the web site of the Basic Theological Seminary.
“Extra folks find yourself talking to one another, after which they are often there [for each other] in moments of want,” she mentioned.
Each newcomers and returning attendees appeared to agree that the bustling occasion helped New Yorkers get to know each other higher.
“The most important shock [moving] right here was the neighborhood,” Ilma Tiki, 41, a Chelsea resident who moved from Lithuania two years in the past, instructed The Put up in the course of the Sunday afternoon soirée. “That is the rationale why you wish to reside within the neighborhood and this metropolis … this was a must-thing to do.”
“I’m so excited to be right here,” mentioned Chelsea resident Eleanor, 82, who declined to offer her final title. “Chelsea can get very divisive … to get all people collectively, it’s actually nice.”
“In a metropolis the place it’s so laborious to seek out neighborhood or [where] generally you don’t know who your neighbor is, this is a chance to fulfill all of your neighbors – assembly them in a enjoyable, unorthodox setting,” Council Member Erik Bottcher, who represents Chelsea, instructed The Put up. “And it occurs to be on one of the lovely blocks in Chelsea.”
Since its inception, the Longest Desk has been replicated in different cities from Kansas Metropolis, Mo. to Paris, France utilizing a web based toolkit Banikarim has since made obtainable on-line.
Chelsea residents George Duval and Lisa Lindo-Duval recreated the challenge in Harlem final week, and plan to carry the desk to underserved neighborhoods in Manhattan and Bronx.
Lindo-Duval can be planning the same occasion in her mom’s residence metropolis of Kingston, Jamaica.
“It’s not only for a way of neighborhood, but in addition for security,” Lindo-Duval mentioned. “It’s so everybody can get to know one another, in order that they will name on one another.”
Banikarim says she has huge goals of sooner or later bringing the Longest Desk over the Brooklyn Bridge to attach the boroughs – and one other one uniting the coasts for America’s 250th anniversary subsequent yr.
“Wouldn’t or not it’s a lovely factor,” she mused, “to share meals and are available collectively to have a good time humanity?”
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