The carnival and community of New York’s block parties

“The history of the block party has never been written,” photographer Anderson Zaca says with shock, no less intense today than 20 years ago when he first heard loud music coming down the block from his apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Intrigued, Zaca grabbed his camera and hit the streets. ​“It was cool – it reminded me of Brazil and brought me home a little,” he says.

Hailing from São Paulo, Zaca arrived in New York 1995 at age 18. His mother worked as photographer Bruce Weber’s personal chef. But where Weber found beauty in fashion and fantasy, Zaca embraced the street as the epicentre of creativity, community, and connection in his work.

After The Village Voice ran his photograph of two girls on Lincoln Place made at that Crown Heights block party, Zaca returned with renewed interest after. ​“I realised: ​‘There’s something there, I gotta revisit this,’” he says.

• Read next: Celebrating Fire Island’s fabled ​“Invasion of the Pines”

Zaca went down to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in Lower Manhattan in search of an official schedule for New York City’s block party season. ​“I told them: ​‘I’m going to document block parties – how do I access that list? I know there’s a list because people are selling ice cream,’” he explains. 

It wasn’t until his third trip that Zaca finally received the keys to the kingdom: a map nestled several layers inside the website. ​“My second task was to figure it out. Was it a block party? A church event? A street fair?” he remembers. 

“By 2008, I had it figured,” Zaca continues. ​“I had to plan it out. I still have the list. I used to write them by hand and map out the neighbourhoods. So today, I’m doing East New York and depending how it goes, I’ll go further to Flatbush. No one asked me. No one paid me to go. It was just me, my money, and my Metro Card.” 

• Read next: A visual trip through 100 years of New York’s LGBTQ+ spaces

Seven years, five boroughs, and 300 block parties later, Zaca published his first monograph, Block Party: New York City Soul of Summer, an ode to the people of his adopted hometown. Weaving together photographs made between 2005 – 2015, Zaca takes us to the bouncy castles, DJ sets, grill sessions, domino games, open hydrants, inflatable pools, ping pong, and Double Dutch jump rope with the practiced eye of a veteran.

As Zaca gears up for the June 18 première of The Darkroom MC’s TV series and the publication of his second monograph, Fire Island Invasion. Day of Independence, he looks back at this early chapter with joy and pride.

“My vision has always been to capture positivity. I want to see a brighter day,” he says. ​“My journalism has always been about people doing happy things and giving back. We used to care for each other, and the block party keeps that tradition alive. We need to be out here. We need to meet up. We need to know who the fuck is on the block. We need to shake everybody’s hand.”

Purchase Block Party: New York City Soul of Summer here. Anderson Zaca is set to co-present The Darkroom MC’s, which premieres June 18 on PBS.

Miss Rosen is a free­lance arts and pho­tog­ra­phy writer, fol­low her on X.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram and sign up to our newslet­ter for more from the cut­ting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.