Community board clears bulk of May street-event permits, stresses line control and generator noise limits

Erica, acting chair of the Street Activities & Resiliency Committee of Manhattan Community Board 2, presided over a meeting that approved a wide range of street-activity permits for May while pressing applicants to tighten crowd control, trash plans and noise mitigation.

The committee voted to recommend approval of several commercial activations, community festivals and pop-ups including the Catholic Festival of Soho (Saint Anthony feast), Fenty Beauty retail activations and taxi "photo-moment" stunt, sampling and brand events on Broadway, multiple food-truck and beverage-cart pop-ups, and larger installations such as a Design Scene/Amazon Prime container activation and the Union Square Night Market loading plan.

Why it matters: The board said it wants to avoid multi-block lines and neighborhood impacts as Soho and nearby neighborhoods see clustered marketing activations, noting repeated problems in prior weekends when lines wrapped multiple blocks. Members asked applicants to provide clearer line-cutoff plans, point-of-contact information for neighbors, and to avoid amplified sound or open charcoal cooking that could create smoke and smell issues in residential areas.

Most approvals came with conditions and requests from the committee: - The Catholic Festival of Soho organizers said the parish will extend a previously approved Friday street closure into Saturday and Sunday to support fundraising for a new kitchen and parish-hall repairs. The committee asked organizers to confirm Fridayapproval with SAPO and to maintain volunteer trash crews. Organizer Eddie Siegel described the event and told the committee it drew hundreds to a feast and procession last year.

- Fenty Beauty pop-ups: Two separate Fenty events drew detailed questioning about crowd control. Brianna, representing Shopify(which is hosting the in-store pop-up), described a timed RSVP system with one-hour slots capped by reservation; Ian Greenberg of Madison House outlined a one-day "taxi" activation in Washington Square South. Greenberg said the taxi stunt would be a surprise photo moment: "They'll take their pictures with the taxicabs and then move on," he…