New Haven Independent

Beginning this summer, digging will take place on the crescent facing the gymnasium, to put in new utility lines. It’s the first step in reconfiguring the interiors of the two colleges with more spacious fitness, art, and other communal spaces, many of which will be located underneath the present courtyard.

While the exterior architecture has received top marks, over the years students have given less than rave reviews to the accommodations. Back in the ’60s, apparently, students preferred hotel-like single rooms off corridors, while they did their communing on the streets and when they occupied buildings to end wars. The new planned insides will feature suites, and, of course, all kinds of technical upgrades.

David Yaeger, Yale’s principal architect for the residential colleges, explained to commissioners that in a second phase of the renovation, which will occur between spring of 2009 and 2010, one of the lanes of Tower Parkway may have to be closed down.

These are the last of Yale’s residential colleges to be renovated. Click here for Yale’s report on two more future residential colleges planned for around Prospect Street.

New Signage for Doctors and Farmers

In other Yale-related news, City Plan Commissioners approved a new generation of signs for the medical district. All 18 signs in the area will be taken down, two at a time, repainted and refurbished over the next three months.

Their replacements will have two new features: not only directional messages pertaining to the new additions to the medical district’s structures, such as the new cancer center. On the back of six of the 18 signs, there will also be directions providing pedestrian routes to go from medical place to medical place.

Joy Ford, of the City Plan staff, said, “I’m particularly pleased that this aspect of the new signs is in keeping with the pedestrian emphasis we are trying to give to the ongoing development of the city.”

The work will begin next month and conclude by May.

Finally, the commissioners also authorized the placement of banners in the vicinity of the three neighborhood farmers markets — Wooster Square, Edgewood Park, and Quinnipiac River Park in Fair Haven - to promote these venues as part of a larger marketing program organized by CitySeed, which coordinates the farmers markets’ presence in New Haven.

The whole marketing program, which includes not only banners, but also new brochures to increase visibility of the markets including vendors’ acceptance of Food Stamps, depends on the city’s winning a grant, with CitySeed, from the state department of agriculture.

If the city and CitySeed are successful, the banners would be displayed for four two-week periods from June to September 2008.