North End Inspired Exhibit Celebrates the Immigrant Roots of the Neighborhood

By Joey Acla

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Hartford, April 8 2026

The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History recently unveiled a new art exhibit that draws rich stories of Hartford's historic North End neighborhood. Through a graphic-novel style, the five-part exhibit journeys through the various aspects of the North End neighborhood, highlighting the cultural melting pot that many immigrant communities call home. 

Hartford artist Samuel Ferri’s installment titled Drawn Here: A Community Story is prominently featured as a part of this exhibit. He focuses on the “intangible culture” of Hartford's North End—the social and cultural glue that holds the community together across generations. 

“Kindness, empathy, and an appreciation for the strength and beauty found in diversity,” said Ferri describing his intent to evoke the "vibe" and daily lived experience of the North End.

Five contributing artists weaved both fiction and nonfiction stories for separate categories that describe the history and heritage of the North End – neighborhood, family, faith, leadership, and community. Each room of the display is littered with artifacts from the neighborhood to supplement the overarching comic book-style stories.

Ferri’s section mainly focuses on the narrative that highlights several prominent community pillars of the North End, walking the reader through the neighborhood's finest restaurants while also incorporating stories of music and sports. Success stories of current and former members of the neighborhood like Moshe Paranov, George and Pauline Scott, and Bobby Knight build the backbone of Ferri’s storyline, pulling back the curtain on what it means to be a part of the North End’s legacy.

A wide-angle view of Ferri’s section of the exhibit, displaying both the graphic novel storyline on the wall and the gathered artifacts in the glass casing.

Ferri said, “We are living in a time in which there are powerful people loudly spreading fear and misinformation about immigrant communities.  I want to help remind an audience of the narratives being overshadowed, the overwhelmingly positive contributions of those that journeyed to our country, often overcoming great hardship to enrich the whole of America.”

The museum got the ball rolling on the exhibit at the start of 2024 and marked it finished around the start of 2026. The exhibit was opened up to the public on February 12th, a day that drew over three hundred spectators to the museum to take it all in. During the two year creation process, the museum worked with five different artists as well as a group of twenty-four students in the enrichment program from the nearby Classical Magnet School. Between the children's and artists' creativity and the museum's resources, the creators sought to deliver heavy historical information in an easily digestible format.

Another key contributor to the development of the exhibit is Katie Heidsiek, who works as the Director of Exhibitions at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History. Heidsiek worked behind the scenes as the driving force to pull together the piece, spearheading its development over the course of the past two years. 

In terms of pulling together the North Ends stories with the greater Hartford area as a whole, Heidsiek said “I think that helping every community who comes through our space, see how they’re connected to all the other communities' stories is part of that process”. She continued to say, “Our goal is to be a platform so that other groups can tell their own stories and because of that this becomes a really dynamic storytelling place”.

Heidsiek also went on to say that she hopes that people can learn from the stories of the community's past in hopes of building a stronger today and even a stronger tomorrow for the historic North End district, as well as the city of Hartford as a whole. 

A stand filled with artifacts from Mary Shepard, a former member of the North End community on display in the exhibit

Ferri is deeply agonized by the dehumanizing policies that have led to the violence and separation of families in recent times. He finds solace in being a part of this project that tells stories about the strength of the community. He adds, “I am grateful for the opportunity to help be a voice for a reality that rings more true to me and what I want my son to see."

Tickets to see the display can be purchased on the CT Museum of Culture and History website. The exhibit is slated to remain on display until sometime in early 2027.