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.

So, as I said, Theory was up first. Theory wanted to shut down Gansevoort Plaza, put a massive stage, and have a performance of the songs from Hair. Theory’s presentation (which was put on by 5 of their top executives) was well rehearsed, slick, and superficially well thought out. They had covered their asses in all the obvious areas, but didn’t have an answer to some important questions. The biggest concern was that they only had seating for a few hundred people and had no contingency plan if a few thousand people showed up. Furthermore, when a board member asked Theory what they have done for the West Village community, they had no answer. Despite all of this, the board seemed extremely supportive of this production of Hair.

After two more presentations, it was my turn. I started by talking about what The Open Planning Project is and what we have done for New York City and the West Village. It seemed like many of the board members had heard about us and respected our role in the community. I also went into detail about our block party, why we wanted to have it at night, why we wanted to have it on June 28th, and why I thought it would be great for the community. My presentation didn’t get the easy treatment that Theory’s got. Here were some of the comments and questions that I got:

• Question: “Are you going to have amplified sound?”
  My answer: I told the community board that we were going to have amplified sound, but it would only be two 450-watt speakers. This low wattage would guarantee that the sounds would remain contained to a small area and not spread throughout the entire neighborhood.
• Comment: “This is not your normal community. Most of the blocks are very commercial. This is not a traditional community that needs or wants a traditional block party.”
  My answer: I was so shocked by this comment that I couldn’t find the words to answer it during the meeting. I couldn’t believe a community board, whose responsibility it is to foster a sense of “community”, was flatly telling me that they didn’t believe in block parties for their neighborhood.
• Comment: “Did you know this is the same weekend as the gay pride parade? The West Village is going to be really crowded and the party might get out of control.”
  My answer: Yes I did know this. But wouldn’t the gay pride parade being in the neighborhood during this weekend be a good thing? It would give the West Village a great opportunity to show off its great public spaces to visitors.
• Comment: “You don’t seem to have a sophisticated security plan like Theory.”
  My answer: This was another shocker. It seemed like my community board was telling me that you have to be a corporation to throw a block party. If anything, I thought the board would try and encourage and empower individuals to take over and re-imagine their streets.
• Comment: “Your party seems to be rushed and now well thought out.”
  My answer: We intentionally did not want the party to have a strict plan. Rather, we wanted it grow organically as partygoers showed up. We thought this would be the best way throw a party for the people by the people.
• Question: “Have you talked to the residents in the neighborhood? If you are throwing a party that is supposed to be for the people, shouldn’t you get input from the people who actually live in the community?”
  My answer: No we actually didn’t. This was a really good point. We did talk to the businesses that would be affected by our party, but we didn’t talk to any residents. Part of the reason we didn’t was because I didn’t know how to go about this. Should I just start knocking on doors? Or is there a phone number list that I can access? I should have done more research.

After the board grilled me, 5 more organizations got their chance to present their ideas. After all of the presentations were over, the board started voting on whether to approve or reject each of the proposals. Except ours, all of the proposals were approved. Ours were rejected on the grounds that it was a bad weekend because of the gay pride parade and because not enough planning had gone into it. I was annoyed, but still not demoralized.

I stayed till the meeting was over and intercepted Amanda, the head of the committee. First, I asked her about why earlier in the meeting the man had joked about Google. She told me a few weeks ago Google had thrown an event in Gansevoort Plaza that was obnoxiously loud. If it seemed like the board members were out for blood, this was the reason why. I also brought up the point that it seemed like the community board was discouraging non-corporate block parties. Amanda was in agreement with this. She said something like, “This is such a busy community board with so many events, that we don’t need anymore. Its your party doesn’t have a theme and isn’t anything special, then we just rather not have it.”

I asked Ms. Kahn how to get in touch with members of the community to rally support for TOPP’s block party. She mentioned that she had contact information for a number of “leaders” within the community, and if I had their support, I would have no problem getting the party approved. I jotted down Amanda’s email address, and told her I would email her to get the contact information of the community leaders.

All in all I was completely frustrated by the meeting. I was expecting the community board to be supportive and forward thinking rather than aggressive and reactionary. I have to admit, however, they made the right call by rejecting us. We claimed that we were throwing the party for the people, and we did not thoroughly consult the residents of the neighborhood.

So the saga continues. Time to meet our neighbors!