I was extremely excited to call Jo Hamilton today because I felt like this would be the conversation that would put this block party over the top.

The phone conversation, however, did not go as planned. Ms. Hamilton said that she has an upcoming community board meeting (regarding the public space in Gansevoort plaza) and that she didn’t want to discuss TOPP’s block party till that meeting is over. She said that she would get in touch with me soon.

I guess I should give her the benefit of the doubt and expect a call back. However, given my past experiences with this community board, I am not optimistic.

Jo Hamilton responded to my email today. Apparently she hadn’t received my last one. She gave me her phone number and told me to call her so we can brainstorm for the party. I plan on calling her on Monday.

I really have no idea who to contact next, so I am going to send another email to Jo Hamilton.  Maybe my old email got caught in her spam filter?  Anyway here goes nothing:

Dear Ms. Hamilton,

I wrote to you the following email on June 5th and I still have not
heard a response:

I am an employee of The Open Planning Project and I met you at a
community board meeting a few weeks ago.  At the meeting, I proposed
the idea for a TOPP sponsored block party on Gansevoort St.   My
proposal was rejected.  I have had some back and forth with Amanda
Kahn and she suggested that I talk to you.  I was wondering if you
could put me in contact with people in the neighborhood so I can
discuss my ideas for the block party.  I really want to have a block
party that people in CB2 would enjoy, and I think talking to them
would be the best way to do this.  Thank you so much for your help.

Please get back to me as soon as possible.

Thanks,
Anil Makhijani

And now the city’s rejection of our block party (it arrived via snail mail today):

Given that Jo Hamilton still hasn’t responded to my email, I really have no idea what steps to take next.

Our block party was officially rejected by the community board today. This was the letter that I got in the mail:

I am dissapointed, but obviously not surprised.  My favorite line of the rejection is when the community board suggests that “the applicant … work with the neighbors and return to the committee if and when a neighborhood-driven proposal is formed”.  Unfortuantely, the leaders of the neighborhood do not respond to emails.

I just sent an email to Jo Hamilton.  This is what it said:

Dear Ms. Hamilton,

I am an employee of The Open Planning Project and I met you at a community board meeting a few weeks ago.  At the meeting, I proposed the idea for a TOPP sponsored block party on Gansevoort St.   My proposal was rejected.  I have had some back and forth with Amanda Kahn and she suggested that I talk to you.  I was wondering if you could put me in contact with people in the neighborhood so I can discuss my ideas for the block party.  I really want to have a block party that people in CB2 would enjoy, and I think talking to them would be the best way to do this.  Thank you so much for your help.

Sincerely,
Anil Makhijani

I finally got a response Amanda Kahn today!  She told me to contact Jo Hamilton, who is Vice-Chair of CB.   I plan on sending Jo an email as soon as possible so I can get the ball rolling on this TOPP blockparty.

I still haven’t gotten a response from Amanda Kahn. Maybe I don’t have the correct email address? I just called Community Board 2. They said that though they wouldn’t give me her email address, they could pass a message on to her. I told the community board to pass the following message to Amanda:

Please Forward this email to Amanda Kahn. Thank You.

Amanda,

I wrote you an email a few weeks ago asking you for information about
the blockparty that The Open Planning Project is trying to throw. I
still haven’t heard back from you. I wanted to remind you that I
still need contact information for leaders within the our community.
Since I want to throw a block party for the community, I would like to
know what kind of activities they would like for the party to have.
Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Anil

I emailed Amanda Kahn today. This is what the email said:

Amanda,

My name is Anil Makhijani and I met you at the Community Board meeting
last week. Just to remind you, I filled out an application for a
block party that is supposed to take place on June 28th. You
recommended that I talk to the neighborhood leaders as I continue to
plan for this party. I was wondering if you could give me the contact
information for these leaders. Thanks you so much.

Sincerely,
Anil Makhijani

Today Rebbecca and I went to our community board meeting. If I had to use one word to describe the experience it would be “frustrating”. This is how the events of the meeting transpired:

Rebbecca and I arrived to the meeting at 6:30 took a couple of seats on the left side of the room. The room was already packed. At about 6:40, the meeting started. Amanda Kahn, the head of the street activities & film permits committee, presided over the meeting. After passing out the agenda, Amanda announced that the schedule would be changing. Theory Corporation, a clothing company that is headquartered in the West Village, had the leave early, so she would be honoring their request to go first.

This was when things started to get interesting. Amanda Kahn mentioned something about a need for guidelines for future street activities taking place in this community. A man in the back of room made a joke about Google. All the board members broke out in laughter. Rebecca and I gave each other dumbfounded looks, not understanding what was so funny.
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