NXTHVN Block Party & Car Show
Henry Street
Aug. 29, 2026
Part of Henry Street felt like it existed in the past and the present all at the same time as the arts organization NXTHVN closed off the block for an end-of-summer car show, party, and celebration of the closing of its GLORY exhibit.
The event featured DJs, vendors, food, people going in and out of the gallery, and a lot of cars that have been around longer than most of the people admiring them.
I was drawn to the cars first. It's hard not to notice them. They have large bodies, shiny chrome features and interiors that reflect an era when automobiles used to be actual pieces of art.
One car, a black '60s-era Mercedes owned by NXTHVN co-founder Titus Kaphar, drew a crowd as Kaphar stood next to it sharing stories and showing it off.
New Haven Sketchers (pictured above) were doing something that interested me even more. They weren't just taking photos of the cars with their phones and then leaving; instead they sat on the side of the road and sketched them.
Inside NXTHVN (above), the exhibit focused on Black living rooms and domestic spaces and how these spaces hold memories, identities, family histories and everyday life. Outside, the same thing was occurring with the cars. Objects that were constructed decades ago were now being brought back into society through restoration and display. A new group of people will now be able to decide what these objects mean to them.
After about two hours, their sketches were laid side by side on the sidewalk. As I looked down at them, I saw the same cars that I had taken pictures of minutes earlier. Each sketch showed the cars differently. The proportions varied; some details were missing while others were emphasized. A single item created multiple versions of itself.
This seemed fitting for an afternoon that marked the end of GLORY.
I started thinking about how little of the past remains consistent.
We restore it. We exhibit it. We sketch it. We photograph it. We tell stories about it. Each time we do, we create another version.
As the day progressed, the sun began setting low enough to cast long shadows over Henry Street. People walked among the old cars, sketchpads, music and gallery.
For a brief period of time, the past didn't seem so distant.
In fact, it seemed like something that people were still actively creating.
