Permits Galore

The good news: The precinct has approved our block party application!

The bad news: I have been re-reading Community Board #3’s block party application guidelines & I might need many more signatures than I expected. There are two petition pages in the application with enough space for 26 signatures total. But the guidelines say to “obtain signatures of approval from a majority of residents and merchants on the affected block.” There are probably more than 26 residents on the block, and so far I only have 5 signatures.

More useful news (if you are interested in having a block party): We have a Google spreadsheet of information for the many permits & forms you might need. Only the first two forms are necessary. We found the information for the rest of the list back when we were ambitious & wanted to have a craft & bake sale. No more! Hopefully the spreadsheet will save you some phone calls & nyc.gov surfing.

1 petition down

We have 12 business signatures & 5 resident signatures. I will be nicer to people on the street with clipboards from now on.

The responses to signing the block party petition ranged from, “Yes! We love parties!” to blank stares (“Um, you can check the ‘No’ box if you don’t want a block party in the neighborhood… No?…”)

The nicest business people on the block!:
Casanis, LES Sandwicherie, Little Giant, Spur Tree, Thai BBQ, Guss’ Pickles, The Roasting Plant

The guys who work at the Seward School are also pretty cool. They said that the municipal parking lot would cost money and that we should just stick with closing down the street. They also knew a lot about bikes.

One peppy 85-year old Asian man told me that he’s been yelled at to “Go home to China!” by people of all races. He wasn’t convinced that a block party would change anything but agreed to have his name on the petition.

This block party’s for everyone—what do you want to see at the party?

Hello!

I thought having a block party would be easy & lots of fun, but I was wrong! There is much to do. We (Zac & I) are still working the permit applications. Zac is an event producer & was thinking big. I am a print production artist & was thinking we could do everything through a computer.

The current plan is to keep this party small since we haven’t done this before & since we can’t ask for money. We have lots of ideas for fun party activities though (like a lettuce eating contest & a tricycle race)! If you’d like to help organize or participate in the party, please email us at blockpartyles@gmail.com. In fact, if you’re even *thinking* it might be fun to be a part of the block party (wanna make sidewalk chalk drawings with the kids? or donate some sidewalk chalk?), please please please email me.

I’m off to copy some flyers & then get the petition part of the Community Board Block Party application signed. See ya.