Hundreds of NYers feast together in the streets of Chelsea at ‘Longest Table’ potluck party

Try reaching across this table for the salt and pepper.

Hundreds of New Yorkers congregated at a city block-long table in Chelsea Sunday afternoon for the third annual “Longest Table” potluck lunch party – where foodies hailing from Chelsea to Harlem to New Jersey to Lithuania broke bread in the name of fostering community connections.

“We live in this city that’s so densely populated, and it’s just easy to walk by people who are just having a ‘how’s the weather’ conversation,” said longtime Chelsea resident and event volunteer Nathaniel Hawkins.

“I feel like now [with] important issues, when we need people to show up, more and more people show up,” said Hawkins, 52.

The large-scale lunch affair, held on a car-free Open Street on West 21st Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, began in 2022 after the pandemic lockdown drove event co-founder Maryam Banikarim to find safe, new ways to reconnect with her Chelsea neighbors.

“I passingly knew my neighbors [before], but during COVID I really got to know them because we were each other’s life lines,” Banikarim, another longtime Chelsea resident, told The Post. 

“There’s also this epidemic of loneliness and mental health issues,” she added. “People have this incredible desire, particularly post-COVID to connect with each other in real life … [The Longest Table] changed my experience in the neighborhood.”

A photo circulating social media of neighbors sharing a massive outdoor meal in Egypt inspired Banikarim to set up a similar outdoor dining experience, with the help of about eight volunteers. News of the event spread on neighborhood-based social media website Nextdoor — with a whopping 500 people attending the inaugural soirée.

“Table captains” were designated to host tables, bring chairs and coordinate their potluck contributions — which ran the gamut from baked goods to Chinese food to Indian cuisine to a great big hero sandwich.

“It’s the diversity of the city,” she said. “Everyone’s curious what everyone else has brought.”

The second iteration of the event in 2023, which amassed about 700 participants, was even studied by college students from Barnard to understand the impact of the project, Banikarim said.

“What we learned was a lot of the people came from Chelsea, but also from other parts of the city, it’s a microcosm of New York City,” she told The Post, noting that 92% of the people who showed up were able to connect with other attendees. By the end of the event, more than 60% felt less lonely, she said.

Banikarim reports that, in her own neighborhood, the project has fostered more communication and helping hands, from borrowing ladders to facilitating conversations about new projects in the area — such as Vanderbilt University’s recent takeover of the site of the General Theological Seminary.

“More people end up speaking to each other, and then they can be there [for each other] in moments of need,” she said.

Both newcomers and returning attendees seemed to agree that the bustling event helped New Yorkers get to know one another better.

“The biggest surprise [moving] here was the community,” Ilma Tiki, 41, a Chelsea resident who moved from Lithuania two years ago, told The Post during the Sunday afternoon soirée. “This is the reason why you want to live in the neighborhood and this city … this was a must-thing to do.”

“I am so excited to be here,” said Chelsea resident Eleanor, 82, who declined to give her last name. “Chelsea can get very divisive … to get everybody together, it’s really great.”

“In a city where it’s so hard to find community or [where] sometimes you don’t know who your neighbor is, this is an opportunity to meet all your neighbors – meeting them in a fun, unorthodox setting,” Council Member Erik Bottcher, who represents Chelsea, told The Post. “And it happens to be on one of the most beautiful blocks in Chelsea.” 

Since its inception, the Longest Table has been replicated in other cities from Kansas City, Mo. to Paris, France using an online toolkit Banikarim has since made available online.

Chelsea residents George Duval and Lisa Lindo-Duval recreated the project in Harlem last week, and plan to bring the table to underserved neighborhoods in Manhattan and Bronx.

Lindo-Duval is also planning a similar event in her mother’s home city of Kingston, Jamaica.

“It’s not just for a sense of community, but also for safety,” Lindo-Duval said. “It’s so everyone can get to know each other, so that they can call on each other.”

Banikarim says she has big dreams of one day bringing the Longest Table over the Brooklyn Bridge to connect the boroughs – and another one uniting the coasts for America’s 250th anniversary next year.

“Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing,” she mused, “to share food and come together to celebrate humanity?”