Anderson Zaca captures carnival and community at NYC’s block…

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.