by
Allan Appel |
Apr 19, 2024 10:10 am
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(2)
City peace commissioners and a crew of freshmen from Albertus Magnus College ventured out to a green patch off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard with rakes, gloves, bags, and high hopes for adding a little color and joy to the world.
Should a planned new medical office building on a West River superblock be allowed to have 0 off-street parking spaces — when there’s a 700-space parking garage right next door?
Officials joined West River neighbors to celebrate the government-backed construction of 56 new affordable apartments where Urban Renewal’s bulldozers once plowed through the Oak Street neighborhood six decades ago to make way for a mini-highway.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Mar 26, 2024 3:27 pm
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(19)
Four stories of medical research will join a daycare, a 130-room hotel, and a social services center — as the last development in the decade-long construction of the Route 34 West “superblock.”
by
Laura Glesby |
Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm
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(8)
A tire swing. A skate park. “A lot of butterflies.” And toys promoting “sensory play.”
Neighborhood children eagerly offered those visions for a planned redesign of Kensington Playground, following years of adult-dominated debates over the future of the park.
The asbestos hazard signs have come down — and 56 new affordable homes are going up, now that a nonprofit development duo has officially acquired and begun construction at a cleaned-up, long-vacant strip of Route 34 land.
Jennifer Stanfield is packing to go to a place she hasn’t yet found.
She’s removed all the art from the walls. Sorted summer and winter clothes into different boxes. Set aside whole weekends to clearing every possession from the turquoise house on Parmelee Avenue where she and her husband have lived, at times with kids and grandkids, for seven years.
“I don’t know where I’m taking it,” she said, “but I’m packing.”
An affiliate of Ocean Management has sold a 20-unit West River apartment complex, which is home to a newly formed tenants union, for $2.44 million — as the local megalandlord continues to unload rental properties at prices well above what it paid to buy them over the past decade.
The pastrami egg and cheese sandwiches were flying at a George Street construction site Monday as Jillian Ledic kept a food truck moving so her moms could bring some of the trickle-down dollars of New Haven’s construction boom to Vegas.
by
Maya McFadden |
May 11, 2023 10:44 am
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(2)
Barnard sixth grader Tiranke Keita dug a hole in the bed of her school’s garden, Grace Sherman filled it in with a handful of rich compost, and Issac Oliver nestled in a starter plant of lettuce — kicking off the Derby Avenue PreK‑8 school’s latest effort in hands-on, hands-in-the-dirt learning.
City residents responded with cheers, harsh condemnation, and everything in between.
While everyone will not agree on what to do about encampments, we can agree that we would prefer to live in a community where people do not feel that long-term camping by the river is their best option.
The day after the Elicker administration sent bulldozers and a swarm of cops to clear out a West River homeless encampment, a mayoral candidate criticized the operation as an example of “cruel” “mismanagement and failure of leadership.”
Among the most difficult choices city officials need to make relate to clearance of encampments. There are no immediate or easy solutions to homelessness. The outreach teams which comprise of city staff in my department and established agencies are experts in engaging, building relationships, and connecting with unhoused individuals. They (and we all must) recognize the right of individuals to not engage with services if they are not ready – this is a core principle of “meeting people where they are.” We aspire to lead with compassion, honoring the dignity of individuals who are often in highest times of need. Yet when conditions warrant, helping people transition from encampments, particularly when the encampments are found to be as hazardous as the one we cleared this week at the West River Memorial Park is consistent with a compassionate approach.
by
Maya McFadden |
Mar 17, 2023 9:11 am
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(6)
“Secure your thinking caps tightly,” Barnard teacher Katelyn Giusti advised her classroom full of kindergartners — as they prepared to dive into a chimpanzee-focused reading assignment and test out a new school district approach to literacy.
by
Nora Grace-Flood and Paul Bass |
Mar 16, 2023 9:10 am
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(59)
Police swarmed onto the tent city off the Boulevard early Thursday morning to clear the holdout campers and bulldoze the site — and make sure the press and public couldn’t watch what they were doing.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Mar 15, 2023 4:39 pm
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(27)
The residents of a West River encampment loaded their belongings into backpacks and U‑Hauls Wednesday to comply with a public eviction notice from the Elicker Administration — as organizers pitched new tents to protest a pending, forcible clear-out of the site.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Mar 3, 2023 7:11 pm
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(21)
Marcus Williams tied up a load of litter in a black bag and dumped it beside a brand new shower shed and a well-used grill — growing a pile of “garbage” the city demanded be disposed of this week as part of an ultimatum to a self-governed encampment off the West River to clean up or move out.
People living outdoors in the so-called “Tent City” complied with the order, and will be able to stay for now, even as they push back on the city’s threatening to trash belongings they see as necessary to survive.
by
Allan Appel |
Feb 27, 2023 10:45 am
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(0)
Even if the war in Ukraine ends tomorrow, which it will not, there will remain an urgent need to rebuild the Eastern European country’s Russian-destroyed economy and infrastructure and to repatriate its citizens.
Alders signed off on more tax relief — for fewer below-market-rent apartments — for a developer team planning to build a 56-unit majority-affordable housing complex atop a long-vacant lot in West River.
by
Thomas Breen |
Feb 22, 2023 4:04 pm
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(4)
Royale Gibbs remembers well when a car speeding up Derby Avenue rammed into a tree and flipped over a triangular island and into the middle of the street.
That was before the city, in a quick-fix effort to slow down traffic, painted the pavement around the island cerulean blue and put up a bevy of short plastic delineators.
“I remember this spot. This is definitely safer” now, he said.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Jan 10, 2023 9:05 am
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(25)
Nestor hooked a tank of propane to a silver grill he had recently rehabbed — and started counting each second to see how long it would take to boil two eggs on the outdoor device, showcasing the living arrangement he set up himself to survive as comfortably as he can at a West River homeless encampment.