New Haven Independent

Hamilton was was among dozens of grateful neighbors on hand Saturday to to celebrate the groundbreaking of the reconfigured park of the future, at Bristol and Ashmun Streets in a reviving pocket of the Dixwell neighborhood. A half-court basketball area was designed at the park so younger kids like Hamilton could play their own games while the bigger kids raced up and down a full court.

The groundbreaking culminated a community-driven, four-year effort led by the Dixwell Management Team. Yale contributed $500,000 for the new amenities; it also built a new police station and community center (the Rose Center) right by the park. The housing authority chipped in by conveying land that became unneeded when the old Elm Haven projects were transformed into Monterey Place. Click here and here for previous stories detailing the effort.

And click here for Tom Ficklin’s slide show of Saturday’s event.

“We started four or five years ago,” said a delighted Roxanne Condon, chair of the Dixwell Management Team, as she and 16-year-old Moneisha Hamilton (Andre’s sister) modeled limb-stretching and squealing motions the new splash pad is going to inspire in them. If Moneisha looks a little more limber than Condon, it’s only because she studies dance at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School.

“When this project began, we went to all kinds of community groups,” Condon said, “like the kids at Wexler-Grant School, asking them what they wanted in their new park. One boy said he didn’t want splinters any more from the small wooden face. Another kid worried about cutting his feet on glass. Another kid actually asked for recycling bins to be supplied. My very favorite is one kid’s asking for a place for his lizard.”

Likely the lizards will find their own home, but what humans are providing is inspiring as well. The large grassy area in the angle between Ashmun and the Rose Center will have two play areas — one for kids up to 5, and one 5 to 12. That was one of the community’s wishes.

The swings will be moved so they face out toward the Rose Center. And an additional now grassy field from Bristol to Webster will become the baseball field. The current baseball field will be transformed into the splash pad, to be designed by City Plan landscape architect David Moser with water features showering down from above as well as spraying from below.

Everybody was saying how nice it would have been to have the water already flowing on the muggy Saturday morning. Condon is also pleased the street behind the park will be closed off and its eastern edge now forever would be the stretch of Farmington Greenway from Prospect to Starr.

She and her kids were cleaning that stretch this morning. “This is a real coming together of Yale, the city, and the neighborhood,” she said, “but foremost driven by the neighborhood.”

The grassroots spirit was captured in the groundbreaking ceremonies, said Reggie Solomon, with Yale’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs, and longtime activist and management team member Ruth Henderson.

“The mayor,” Solomon reported, “said that anybody who wanted to run for office had to consult with Ella Scantlebury [when she was alive and active in city politics]. Including him when he was first starting out. She would sit out on her porch on Dixwell at Admiral Street, starting at 7 in the morning, and from that perch she served the community.”

Others on hand for the ceremony to honor her through the re-designed park were Aldermen Greg Morehead and Charles Blango and Michael Morand, representing Yale. Barbara Stanley, Scantlebury’s daughter, joined Morand and Mayor John DeStefano for the official groundbreaking, shoveling honors, and was presented with a ceremonial set of designs.

This young man, Joshua Smith, stands on Ella Scantlebury’s shoulders, as well as dangles from this apparatus. He has been coming to the park for half his 20 years, he said. During the first half, he said he couldn’t remember any basketball court being there. Smith, who’s studying to be a math teacher at Southern, comes to the park still to play ball and stay in shape. He said he’s looking forward especially to the enlarged basketball capacity. “Lots of people, when they come, they turn away because there was only one court. Now this is an opportunity to meet a lot more people.”

Other improvements include picnic tables, benches, and a walking path ringing the entire park.

Condon said that work will begin early in September and conclude, she hoped, in the fall. “The older folks asked for a tennis court, which is still not funded. And we need an additional $10,000 for a gazebo that’s to be placed at Ashmun and Webster. Those interested should contact Roxanne Condon at 675-4575.