Who this helps: Lower East Side, Chinatown, East Village, and Midtown East residents who want a real say on what changes in their neighborhood — and anyone who’s heard “go testify at the community board” but doesn’t know how that actually works.
Manhattan Community Board 3 held its full board meeting on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at PS 20 (166 Essex Street), and the room made two decisions that will ripple through Lower Manhattan for the next year. The board passed a resolution supporting the relocation of the Kimlau Square Memorial Arch as part of the square’s broader redesign. Members debated whether there had been enough public engagement before the vote — and whether CB3 should hold more meetings before the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing — but a motion to send the resolution back to committee failed. The second headline: the NYC Department of Transportation extended the timeline on the Canal Street redesign and will not take the scheduled June vote. No new target date was announced from the dais.
If you live in CB3 — Chinatown, the Lower East Side, the East Village, Two Bridges, NoHo, or Little Italy — the next chance to speak directly to your board on the record is Tuesday, June 23, 2026 at 6:30 PM at PS 20, 166 Essex Street (between Houston and Stanton). It’s a hybrid meeting. You can also dial in by Zoom at zoomgov.com/j/1659871696 (Webinar ID 165 987 1696) or by phone at 646-828-7666.
How to Actually Get on the Mic at CB3
Community boards are advisory — they don’t pass laws — but city agencies, the City Council, the borough president, and the mayor’s office all weigh CB resolutions when they make decisions about your block. A resolution that passes a full board is a real document with weight. Here’s how to make sure your voice is in the record.
To speak at CB3’s full board public session, you need to sign up by 3:00 PM on Tuesday, June 23 using the online Public Session Speaker Form. If you’d rather do it the old-fashioned way, you can sign up in person at PS 20 between 6:00 and 6:30 PM the night of the meeting. The rule: four speakers per side per issue, two minutes each. Pick your two minutes carefully — that’s roughly 240 words, the length of a tight letter to the editor.
If you want CB3 to take up a new issue at its July meeting, the deadline to submit items for the July agenda is June 12, 2026.
What Kimlau Square Actually Is — And Why the Arch Matters
Kimlau Square is the small triangular plaza at Chatham Square, where Oliver Street and East Broadway meet, at the southern edge of Chinatown. The plaza is named for Lieutenant Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, a Chinese-American bomber pilot who died serving in World War II near New Guinea. The 18-foot memorial arch on the square honors Lt. Kimlau and other Chinese-American service members who died in the war. The site also holds a statue of Lin Zexu and a bust of Confucius, making the square a layered piece of Chinese-American civic memory.
The Kimlau Square Arch Reconstruction is currently a capital project tracked by NYC Parks. The CB3 vote sends a signal to the Landmarks Preservation Commission — which has jurisdiction because the arch was designated an individual landmark in 2021 as the city’s first landmark related to Chinese-American history. The LPC, not the community board, makes the final call. But community board sign-off changes the political weather around a project, and that’s why people show up.
The Other Big Calendar This Month: CB6 Manhattan
If you live or work in Murray Hill, Kips Bay, Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Turtle Bay, Tudor City, or anywhere from East 14th to East 59th between Lexington and the East River — that’s Manhattan Community Board 6. CB6 is running a packed June calendar with several items that directly affect day-to-day life in the district.
The CB6 Full Board meets Wednesday, June 10, 2026 at 7:00 PM at the Lewis Davis Pavilion, 25 Waterside Plaza, with a Zoom option. Members of the public who want to speak during the public session must complete the speaker form before 7:15 PM on the night of the meeting; the form lives on the meetings calendar at cbsix.org/meetings-calendar.
Before the full board, several committee meetings are open to the public and worth your attention:
- Transportation — Monday, June 1, 7:00 PM (Zoom): Continued discussion of the Park Avenue Vision Project, Kips Bay Water Main Project work-hour expansion, and the East 23rd Street and Second Avenue intersection traffic conditions.
- Parks & Cultural Affairs — Tuesday, June 2, 6:30 PM: Presentation on the 2026 NYC Urban Forest Plan.
- Business Affairs & Licensing — Wednesday, June 3, 6:30 PM: Discussion of CB6’s role in reviewing Community Impact Plans for cannabis licenses — a real lever if you have a position on dispensary siting in the district.
- Public Safety & Sanitation — Thursday, June 4, 6:30 PM.
- Health, Education & Environment — Thursday, June 11, 6:30 PM: Presentation by NYU Langone Health on heat stroke and how to deal with heat — useful before July hits.
- Housing & Homelessness — Monday, June 15, 6:30 PM: Presentation and discussion with HPD on affordable housing, and continued discussion on the future of the 30th Street Men’s Shelter site.
All CB6 committee meetings are hybrid. In-person space at the board office (211 East 43rd Street, Suite 1404) is limited; Zoom attendance is highly recommended.
How to Take Action
- Find your community board. Not sure which CB you’re in? Search your address at communityprofiles.planning.nyc.gov.
- For CB3 (LES/Chinatown/East Village): Sign up to speak at the June 23 full board using the CB3 Public Session Speaker Form by 3:00 PM on June 23, or in person at PS 20 from 6:00–6:30 PM.
- For CB6 (Murray Hill/Kips Bay/Turtle Bay): Visit cbsix.org/meetings-calendar for committee agendas and Zoom registration links. Sign up to speak at the June 10 full board before 7:15 PM that night.
- Write it down before you stand up. Two minutes is roughly 240 words. Read it out loud at home. State the specific block, agency, or resolution by name. End with what you want the board to do.
- Watch the recordings. Most boards post meeting recordings within a week. Watching one full meeting before you testify is the single best way to know what works in that room.
- Bring something to the July agenda. CB3’s deadline for July agenda items is June 12. If you want a hearing on a building, a vendor, a sidewalk, or a service — the form to start that process is on the CB3 calendar page.
Why This Matters
Most of what changes in a New York City neighborhood — a bike lane, a liquor license, a shelter site, a cannabis dispensary, a memorial relocation, a streetscape redesign — passes through a community board at some point in its life. The boards don’t have a veto, but they have a microphone, a record, and a relationship with the council member, the borough president, and the agency in charge. Two minutes of clear testimony from a real resident moves more votes than a thousand-word post on Nextdoor. If you’ve ever said “someone should do something about that,” June is a good month to find out you are someone.
