Dwight

Cigars, Cupcakes & Lemonade: Black Entrepreneurship On Display

by | Mar 6, 2024 12:30 pm | Comments (0)

Lisa Reisman Photo

Hip-hop superstar Jadakiss joins the party.

Quick: Name the New Haven location where a platinum-selling Grammy-nominated hip hop superstar and coffee entrepreneur joined an award-winning cupcake maker, an up-and-coming cigar collective, and a community-minded lemonade company.

That was Dwight Street’s Cambria Hotel last week, where area entrepreneurs showcased their wares before 100 people in a coffee-tasting event featuring Kiss Cafe and sponsored by Gorilla Lemonade in celebration of Black History Month.

Continue reading ‘Cigars, Cupcakes & Lemonade: Black Entrepreneurship On Display’

Sickle-Cell Breakthrough Hailed; Affordability Push Comes Next

by | Feb 23, 2024 12:44 pm | Comments (6)

Kamini Purushothaman Photo

Biree Andamarian, James Rawlings, Cece Calhoun at Thursday evening's gathering.

A panel of doctors lauded the recent approval of CASGEVY, a gene therapy for sickle-cell disease, but called for advocacy to make the treatment affordable, especially for people on Medicaid.

Continue reading ‘Sickle-Cell Breakthrough Hailed; Affordability Push Comes Next’

Kensington Kids Envision Park Renewal

by | Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm | Comments (8)

X'Nique suggests to City Engineer Giovanni Zinn that city prioritize shade and sensory play.

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.

Continue reading ‘Kensington Kids Envision Park Renewal’

Black Corner Store Up For Sale

by | Nov 30, 2023 9:59 am | Comments (4)

Allan Appel photo

Co-owner Michael Massey with a young customer.

The Black Corner Store on Edgewood Avenue isn’t closing. For now. But it is up for sale, as Kenia and Michael Massey try to find a way to keep their neighborhood storefront afloat as both a for-profit business and a nonprofit hub for classes in financial literacy and other community resources. 

Continue reading ‘Black Corner Store Up For Sale’

Dwight Entrepreneur Makes The Hustle Work

by | Oct 6, 2023 9:18 am | Comments (3)

Allan Appel photo

Rashaan Boyd inside A Hustler's Vibe: "They’ve been looking for me so long, now [here I am!]”

Thanks to a combination of foot traffic and web traffic along with deep neighborhood roots, the newest entrepreneur on lower Edgewood Avenue is about to hit his 1,000th customer and has a new six-month lease in hand.

That entrepreneur, Rashaan Boyd, breathed new life into a vacant storefront at Day and Edgewood with his A Hustler’s Vibe clothing outlet and is going strong.

He is among the merchants the Independent is interviewing who are figuring out how to make small business work along largely residential stretches of Edgewood Avenue.

Continue reading ‘Dwight Entrepreneur Makes The Hustle Work’

Rivera Book-Travels To Puerto Rico At Troup

by | Jul 27, 2023 11:32 am | Comments (4)

Maya McFadden photo

Troup graduate and school board Prez Yesenia Rivera reads to Troup second graders.

Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera returned to her alma mater middle school on Edgewood Avenue — and then traveled with the help of a children’s book back home to the beaches of Puerto Rico — while reading to second graders at one of the public school district’s summer programming sites.

Continue reading ‘Rivera Book-Travels To Puerto Rico At Troup’

Splashing & Mulching At Kensington Playground With Ranezmay, Pat, Jane, & Friends

by | Jul 3, 2023 11:14 am | Comments (3)

Asher Joseph photos

Ranezmay (right) and her friends delight in the spouts of water on the splash pad ...

... as volunteers prepare to mulch a nearby patch of dirt.

The sound of rustling leaves merged with squeals of joy and the gurgling of the Kensington Playground splash pad as a light mist wafted through the heavy heat. Despite the stifling smog that hung in the air, neither the Friends of Kensington Playground clean-up volunteers nor the neighborhood’s kids let it deter them from rejoicing in the beauty of a recently saved public park.

Continue reading ‘Splashing & Mulching At Kensington Playground With Ranezmay, Pat, Jane, & Friends’

Seated Dance Class Finds Healing Through Art

by | Jun 28, 2023 11:00 am | Comments (1)

Eleanor Polak Photos

Kristie Entwistle leads a group in seated dance at Fellowship Place.

Six members of the Artship Artists’ Cooperative at Fellowship Place, an agency that provides therapeutic support and rehabilitation services for adults living with mental illness, sat in a circle of chairs in front of a butterfly mural. Each person had a large container in front of them and a pair of drumsticks in their hands. As the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” played on the loudspeakers, dance instructor Kristie Entwistle led the group in seated dance filled with hand-clapping, swaying, and beats on the drums.

Continue reading ‘Seated Dance Class Finds Healing Through Art’

Park Saved; New Housing Plan Dropped

by | Jun 15, 2023 2:57 pm | Comments (33)

Thomas Breen photo

Kishaun Jenkins: Celebrating "the coolest spot to be."

A Boston-based affordable housing developer has dropped its plans to buy a Kensington Street public park and construct 15 new apartments in its stead — prompting the Elicker administration to move to end a related years-long lawsuit on the grounds that the contested public greenspace will remain public and green.

Continue reading ‘Park Saved; New Housing Plan Dropped’

Officials Hustle To Cut Streetwear Shop Ribbon

by | May 31, 2023 5:09 pm | Comments (2)

Paul Bass Photo

Rashaan Boyd (shown above at center right), makes his new venture official, surrounded (from far left) by city Deputy Economic Developoment Director Cathy Graves, brother Tyson, Mayor Justin Elicker, mom Medria Givens, and partner Alonte.

Carlos Eyzaguirre hustled to squeeze in some family shopping while conducting city business Wednesday on Dwight Street.

Continue reading ‘Officials Hustle To Cut Streetwear Shop Ribbon’

Ready For College, Hillhouse Senior Persevered

by | May 5, 2023 4:07 pm | Comments (7)

Contributed photo

Hillhouse senior and aspiring future congresswoman Ma'Shai Roman.

School board student representative Ma’Shai Roman is on track to graduate from Hillhouse High School in less than two months to pursue a college degree in political science with the goal of one day becoming a U.S. congresswoman.

If you had read her that sentence two years ago, Roman likely wouldn’t have believed it — as she was in the midst of transferring to her third high school while struggling with her mental health, all against the backdrop of the isolating and education-disrupting effects of a global pandemic.

Continue reading ‘Ready For College, Hillhouse Senior Persevered’

Brennan Looks Beyond Yale, State For Budget Boosts

by | Apr 18, 2023 3:42 pm | Comments (26)

Thomas Breen file photo

Brennan (right) with Fabian Menges, Max Choulideer, and Dave Cruz-Bustamante.

Don’t rely just on bashing Yale and begging the state when it comes to raising enough money to fill city budget gaps.

Liam Brennan offered those words of caution as he pitched his mayoral campaign’s vision for how best to craft a fair share,” pro-housing budget that rethinks the bounds of permissible local government action.

Continue reading ‘Brennan Looks Beyond Yale, State For Budget Boosts’

Sickle Cell Awareness Advocate Pays Wall Street A Visit

by | Feb 27, 2023 4:05 pm | Comments (0)

Contributed photo

James Rawlings, visiting Wall Street for Founders Day.

With his feather-adorned Stetson hat firmly on his head, James Rawlings visited the New York Stock Exchange for a Founders Day” celebration of successful Black businesspeople — and returned to New Haven fired up about how to inspire a next generation of corporate leaders and healthcare advocates.

Continue reading ‘Sickle Cell Awareness Advocate Pays Wall Street A Visit’