New Haven Independent

People were raking it in all over Fair Haven Heights on Saturday morning — not money but the Bud cans, plus leaves and the discarded detritus of our fast food lives — in an impressive neighborhood clean up organized by Alderman Alex Rhodeen and his enthusiastic volunteer crews.
Block watch activists like Marlene Napolitano (featured in the photo with Rhodeen) formed the core community groups participating in the clean-up. The chief of Block Watch 916 (there are not 916 block watches in the city, but neither Napolitano nor the alderman knew how the police choose these identifying numbers), which includes Russell, Crofton, Overlook, Cabot, and Riverview Streets, Napolitano was pleased with the beautiful day, which required sunglasses.
For the effort, Rhodeen organized 10 teams, each with a captain and a designated location. “The idea,” he said, “was to coordinate with the city so that instead of individual block watches and other groups cleaning up on different days, it would all happen today, and the City can make one coordinated pick up of all the junk”
One of the captains was Kassie Rhodeen, the alderman’s mom, working the area around the driveway at Quarry Park off Russell Street, along with Ed Gatavaski. He’s a newcomer to the neighborhood and Kassie Rhodeen a long-time resident; one of auxiliary benefits of the clean-up is how it brings residents together.
Some of the volunteers, such as Nancy Ovedovitz, who was working with Isaac Smith on a particularly nasty area, Clifton Street near the railroad overpass, said she thought the city should be doing more in terms of general clean up.
“I mean,” said the 20-year resident of the area, “if not the city, then perhaps Metro North, or maybe Dunkin Donuts, since they win the prize for most popular discarded paper product. Oh, and Newport cigarette boxes comes in a close second.”
Still, no one threatened to bag Alderman Rhodeen in one of the leaf bags the city provided for the day’s effort. The city also provided gloves, which materials were distributed to the teams on Friday night at one of the principal clean-up location targets, the Clifton Street boat launch.
All the labor and enthusiasm, however, were provided by crews of volunteer citizens, all told some 25 or 30 strong. And if you had been lucky enough, as this reporter was, to visit some of the teams in a drive through Fair Haven Heights, from Russell Street on the east down to the Quinnipiac on the west and Hemingway Street on the north, here are some views of the spiffy sites, and those who are helping keep them that way:
Further down on Russell, team captain Elinette Alicea, who was naturally wearing a cap, was working with her kids, Uniese Rivera and John Aponte. John, a first-grader, was excited to be on his first clean up although he was a little distracted by a large and friendly dog, not in the photo, who was dubbed clean-up dog for the day.
The dog belonged to Tracy Blanford, in the babushka, daughter of Mary Blanford, whose age prevented her from participating. According to Tracy Blanford, her mom, along with three other women — Florence Tomassi, Eileen Tucker, and Viola Clark —comprised the original “Women of Russell Street,” who more than 20 years ago started the block watch, which quickly turned into a neighborhood clean-up team as well.
“These strong starchy women,” said Kassie Rhodeen, “have inspired us all.”
We ran into one of these women, Florence Tomassi, near the corner of Grand and Russell, and she didn’t seem starchy at all. She was working and chatting with another longtime resident, Vincent Sabine, and, as they worked, were sharing memories. Sabine recalls a piggery in the immediate area and as a boy he also used to collect Indian arrowheads in the hills across the street.
“In the beginning, we just walked for exercise,” said Tomassi, speaking of herself and the other Women of Russell Street, and when you walk you naturally begin to pick up junk, and that’s how the block watch and the clean-up activities got started. Then some of us had heart attacks and maybe we don’t walk so much anymore, but there are others. Forty people are involved in our block watch alone. In fact they like each other too much and at the meetings there’s so much socializing, we don’t get business done.”
“I’m pleased,” added Sabine, “with the job the parks department does.”
They were discussing a mattress that had been dropped on Russell Street near Quarry Park, one of the locations historically used as a dump site for large items. “It was picked up within two days of our notifying the people at LCI (Livable Cities Initiative). That isn’t bad, but I told the mayor to his face,” Sabine said, “that they just needed more people.”
“And the mayor said it was a question of money,” added Tomassi, a former elementary school teacher in Milford and East Haven who has heard excuses in her day “So what else is new!”
Meanwhile, down on Clifton Street, Ovedovitz and Smith were continuing to rake away at the debris above the overpass. “So many beer bottles,” said Ovedovitz.
“And always Budweiser,” added Smith, who also does a lot of cleaning up for his neighbors at the Ridgeview Condominiums on nearby Judith Terrace.
“Yes,” mused Ovedovitz, “why can’t we pick up a good brand, Isaac? Why not a Sam Adams or something?”
Around the corner on First Avenue and down several blocks to Hemingway Street we traveled next. Here Francine Lombardi and Bob Henninger, of Block Watch 851(!) were cleaning up at the corner, and very proud of the tulips and the plants.
“Bob spearheaded the whole block watch and the clean up,” said Lombardi. “A few years ago, this was a mess, but now Bob covers Hemingway Street and I’m in charge of First.”
“Greenspace,” said Henninger, referring to the Yale University-City of New Haven environmental organization, “helped us with the plantings a few years ago, but we have tag sales and raise money for the signs and the flowers. We keep it going.”
“Now have a dozen other people working with us, and look: beautiful.”
Beautiful indeed, the plants and the people!