Finding a petrolhead with a car in NYC can be quite the task among the crazy taxi drivers, pothole-pocked roads, and the aggressively singular A-to-B mindset of everyone and their dented up city commuter cars. It’s a place that deters one from owning any kind of specialty vehicle within Manhattan and for many, the other boroughs that make up the five. That being said, there are a few city slickers who are fully enveloped in the car community despite the drivability out here, and they want to enjoy a nice Cars and Coffee on a Sunday morning just as much as the rest of us do.
Jeff Einhorn is definitely one of these people whose passion for cars is strong enough to overcome such obstacles, and last weekend he organized a lovely Sunday morning event for the New York City car community. CarPark NYC as it’s being called, celebrated its first official show at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and even with the potential for thunderstorms on the radar leading up to the event, the thought of canceling wasn’t a possibility.
Once the 8AM start time neared I began to hear engine notes echoing off the surrounding buildings as the cars approached the 15th Street entrance. The gloomy morning didn’t seem to deter anyone from showing up either, thankfully, and we were soon bearing witness to a Maserati 300S, a Lamborghini Countach, and a Toyota 2000GT arriving to the same parking lot. As the vendors set up and the three-piece band began to play it was easy to see that this was going to be a slightly different version of the Sunday meet-and-greet we’re used to.
With smaller shows such as this, it was nice to see that almost every car that arrived brought something unique to the equation of style and taste. Even with a large number of BMWs and Porsches covering the sides of the Park’s access road, no two cars were really alike. Thanks to the reduced numbers but high quality of the cars on display, attendees had much higher likelihood of meeting the owners and talking cars—what else?—and the setting provided for an entertaining morning that was more than simply staring at parked cars. With a lot of the current shows of this type being filled with cars that pop, bang, and burn out at every intersection, this was a nice break from the fuss.
A small rain cloud passed overhead about halfway through the morning, and a few of the owners quickly covered their cars while everyone else stayed put and continued their conversations. As I said, and as I hope you can see, the weather did little to dissuade the passionate New York enthusiasts, and after the rain passed the spectators were rewarded with what turned out to be a very pleasant day. As the Brooklyn locals began to walk, run, and bike through the show you could see that they were slightly confused by the unfamiliar sight of cars without rubber bumper guards drooping out of their trunks, but they seemed excited to see our gathering—it’s not often you see a beautiful bunch like this in a place like this.
The success of this show, in my mind, can be attributed to the fact that it brought in a wide scope of vehicles, but it kept the scale small enough to discourage the show-off behavior that gets these morning meets canceled all too frequently.
CarPark NYC was efficient in its use of space, and it didn’t disrupt the local community in the least, and in fact it became hard to tell who was simply passing through and who was actively in attendance for the full show. This Cars and Coffee served as an example of what a well organized and thought out version can be. With the potential for more events in the future I am very excited to see what Jeff Einhorn has in store for the New York City car community. Here’s looking forward to The Bridge in the meantime!
