Neighborhoods

fREsh-taurant Community Kitchen Launches

by | Feb 5, 2024 2:10 pm | Comments (1)

Lisa Reisman Photo

fREsh-taurant crew at Pitts Chapel; Marcus Harvin, in yellow shirt, left center.

(Updated) You can speak all you want into somebody’s ear. If their stomach is growling, they can’t hear it. 

Those were the words of Marcus Harvin, the visionary founder of Newhallville fREshSTARTs, at Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church on Friday night. The occasion was the grand opening of the fREsh-taurant, a food recovery initiative that will provide free hot, nutritious meals for the community, either eat-in or take-out, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. Everyone is welcome. 

Continue reading ‘fREsh-taurant Community Kitchen Launches’

Will She Live In "Winchester Green"?

by | Feb 1, 2024 12:46 pm | Comments (53)

Laura Glesby Photo

Carlota Clark at Wednesday evening's open house at Science Park.

A rendering from Pine's presentation: Apartments up to $4,500 a month on Winchester Ave.

As Science Park developers presented renderings of a housing complex soon to rise on Winchester Ave., Carlota Clark wondered if one of the 283 apartments would someday be hers.

Continue reading ‘Will She Live In "Winchester Green"?’

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’

Street Signs To Bear Teachers' Names

by | Nov 22, 2023 8:32 am | Comments (4)

Lisa Reisman File Photo

Alder Troy Streater, who petitioned for Geneva Pollock Way, on the block between the two renamed corners.

Geneva Pollock and Pearlie Napoleon were friends who both dedicated their lives to their students and their Newhallville community. So it’s fitting that the street corners soon to be named after them will be located just one block apart.

Continue reading ‘Street Signs To Bear Teachers' Names’

New Mural Brings Flowers To Fair Haven

by | Nov 15, 2023 7:30 am | Comments (4)

Lisa Reisman photo

Kwadwo Adae (center) with friends at Grand-Blatchley mural unveiling.

For nine weeks, they painted, enduring darkness of night, thick humidity, and driving rain.

The result: Las Flores de Esperanza, a mural color-saturated with flowers that spans 50 feet of concrete wall at the corner of Blatchley and Grand, and the latest street-beautifying creation of the Ghanaian-American visual artist and muralist Kwadwo Adae.

Continue reading ‘New Mural Brings Flowers To Fair Haven’

Sign Installed As Kimberly Park "Friends" Keep Cleaning

by | Nov 14, 2023 9:16 am | Comments (8)

Maya McFadden Photo

Hill youngsters and Crystal Fernandez install signage at Kimberly Park.

Ten-year-old Cristian Estrada and his brothers Joshua, 9, and Jeremiah, 5, took turns plunging a shovel into the dirt on Kimberly Avenue to bring more beauty to their neighborhood park — this time in the form of installing a Friends of Kimberly Park sign.

Continue reading ‘Sign Installed As Kimberly Park "Friends" Keep Cleaning’

Grand Ave. Housing Transformation Gets Green Light

by | Nov 9, 2023 4:25 pm | Comments (48)

A rendering of the new apartment building at 873-897 Grand.

Prospective builders of 112 new apartments have gotten the go-ahead to help fill a blighted stretch of western Grand Avenue — despite opposition from neighbors convinced that a six-story complex would wreck the corridor’s character rather than revitalize it.

Continue reading ‘Grand Ave. Housing Transformation Gets Green Light’

GED Classes Come To The Q House

by | Nov 3, 2023 2:31 pm | Comments (1)

Maya McFadden Photo

Toni Thorpe, Royce Hatfield, Richard Cowes, Sara Gonzalez, Latoya Armstrong, and Stephanie Paris-Cooper.

Every day last spring, Latoya Armstrong dropped her daughter off for camp at the Q House. 

One day in April, on her way out she scanned a flyer QR code to learn about the programs at the Dixwell community center and found a perfect fit for herself: GED classes by the New Haven Adult & Continuing Education Center.

Continue reading ‘GED Classes Come To The Q House’

Build-Denser Zoning OK'd For Long Wharf

by | Sep 27, 2023 10:35 am | Comments (19)

City of New Haven Rendering

A rendering of a proposed "walkable" Long Wharf.

Thomas Breen photo

Cannabis dispensary, now under construction at ex-Long Wharf Theatre site.

Given the increasing likelihood of more frequent and severe storms, should we as a city pull back from the shoreline, or should we allow more development in coastal areas?”

Westville Alder Adam Marchand posed that question to his fellow local legislators — and successfully urged his colleagues to choose the latter vision and rezone Long Wharf to become more walkable and densely built.

Continue reading ‘Build-Denser Zoning OK'd For Long Wharf’

3rd Annual Beaver Hills Block Party Pulls Out All The Stops

by | Aug 22, 2023 4:45 pm | Comments (1)

Lisa Reisman photo

Chef Marc Ramirez at the grill.

On a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon, kids moon-bounced, Fats Domino crooned, and Barbara Montalvo was dancing in the middle of Glen Road. 

Barbara Montalvo.

This is a fun, joyous event, neighbors loving neighbors, this is the community coming out embracing everybody, regardless of age, gender, color, creed, background,” she said, mid-swivel, amid the aroma of grilled hotdogs and burgers and the air of late-summer revelry in the tree-lined shade.

Continue reading ‘3rd Annual Beaver Hills Block Party Pulls Out All The Stops’

Sunday Storm Sparks Thursday Tweed Debate

by | Jul 21, 2023 11:45 am | Comments (47)

Facebook

Travelers react to latest Tweed flood.

Laura Glesby Photo

Elicker, Abdussabur offer different takeaways at Jepsen mayoral forum.

Days after a rainstorm flooded Tweed airport and left passengers temporarily stranded, mayoral candidates conveyed varying takes on the airport’s economic value and environmental impact to its neighbors.

Continue reading ‘Sunday Storm Sparks Thursday Tweed Debate’

Fair Haven, Downtown Biz Boosters Team Up

by | Jul 13, 2023 9:28 am | Comments (11)

Mia Cortés Castro Photo

Attendees at Wednesday's Grand Avenue Special Services District board meeting.

The Grand Avenue Special Services District voted to partner with a sister business improvement organization downtown to try to raise funds to cover the costs of everything from cleaning graffiti off of buildings to power-washing sidewalks to improving the area’s trash collection, all with the goal of making Fair Haven a safer and cleaner place to shop.

Continue reading ‘Fair Haven, Downtown Biz Boosters Team Up’

Wooster Square Blooms At 50th Blossom Fest

by | Apr 17, 2023 3:33 pm | Comments (7)

Lisa Reisman photos

A shower of pink, for 50th straight year.

Valentina Simon doing her thing at Sunday's fest.

Amid a riot of pink blossoms, the scent of spring in the air, and the sounds of Airborne’s Groovin’ on a Sunday Afternoon,” Valentina Simon leapt and spun and twirled in front of the bandstand, prompting others to join her. 

Continue reading ‘Wooster Square Blooms At 50th Blossom Fest’

Biz Student Seeks To Rename Whitney Ave

by | Mar 10, 2023 11:23 am | Comments (34)

Ainissa Ramirez file photo

Edward Bouchet, as painted on Henry St. by artist Kwadwo Adae.

Robert Lucas: "My main point is rethinking Eli Whitney."

Should Whitney Avenue hold onto the name of the cotton-gin inventor who played a key role in the expansion of slavery? 

Not according to a Yale business student, who’s pointed to the university’s first African American doctorate holder as an alternative namesake for the East Rock corridor.

Continue reading ‘Biz Student Seeks To Rename Whitney Ave’