A whole lot of NYers feast collectively within the streets of Chelsea at ‘Longest Desk’ potluck celebration

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 celebration – the place foodies hailing from Chelsea to Harlem to New Jersey to Lithuania broke bread within the identify of fostering group connections.

“We dwell on this metropolis that’s so densely populated, and it’s simply simple 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] necessary points, once we want individuals to indicate up, increasingly individuals present up,” mentioned Hawkins, 52.

The big-scale lunch affair, held on a car-free Open Street on West twenty first Avenue between Ninth and tenth avenues, started in 2022 after the pandemic lockdown drove occasion co-founder Maryam Banikarim to seek out protected, new methods to reconnect along 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 strains,” Banikarim, one other longtime Chelsea resident, advised The Submit. 

“There’s additionally this epidemic of loneliness and psychological well being points,” she added. “Individuals have this unbelievable want, 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 out of doors meal in Egypt impressed Banikarim to arrange the same out of doors 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 individuals attending the inaugural soirée.

“Desk captains” had been designated to host tables, convey chairs and coordinate their potluck contributions — which ran the gamut from baked items to Chinese language meals to Indian delicacies to an ideal large hero sandwich.

“It’s the variety of town,” she mentioned. “Everybody’s curious what everybody else has introduced.”

The second iteration of the occasion in 2023, which amassed about 700 individuals, was even studied by school college students from Barnard to grasp the impression of the undertaking, Banikarim mentioned.

“What we discovered was plenty of the individuals got here from Chelsea, but additionally from different elements of town, it’s a microcosm of New York Metropolis,” she advised The Submit, noting that 92% of the individuals who confirmed up had been capable of join with different attendees. By the top of the occasion, greater than 60% felt much less lonely, she mentioned.

Banikarim stories that, in her personal neighborhood, the undertaking has fostered extra communication and serving to arms, from borrowing ladders to facilitating conversations about new initiatives within the space — similar to Vanderbilt College’s current takeover of the site of the General Theological Seminary.

“Extra individuals 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 largest shock [moving] right here was the group,” Ilma Tiki, 41, a Chelsea resident who moved from Lithuania two years in the past, advised The Submit throughout the Sunday afternoon soirée. “That is the rationale why you need to dwell 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 provide her final identify. “Chelsea can get very divisive … to get everyone collectively, it’s actually nice.”

“In a metropolis the place it’s so arduous to seek out group 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, advised The Submit. “And it occurs to be on probably the most stunning 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 accessible on-line.

Chelsea residents George Duval and Lisa Lindo-Duval recreated the undertaking in Harlem final week, and plan to convey the desk to underserved neighborhoods in Manhattan and Bronx.

Lindo-Duval can be planning the same occasion in her mom’s dwelling metropolis of Kingston, Jamaica.

“It’s not only for a way of group, but additionally for security,” Lindo-Duval mentioned. “It’s so everybody can get to know one another, in order that they’ll name on one another.”

Banikarim says she has large goals of someday 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 12 months.

“Wouldn’t or not it’s an attractive factor,” she mused, “to share meals and are available collectively to have a good time humanity?”