The Heights

Quarry Hikers Rock Out

by | Feb 27, 2024 11:24 am | Comments (2)

Brian Slattery Photo

Goode leads group into woods.

Aaron Goode of the New Haven Bioregional Group smiled at the roughly 30 people assembled in the parking lot of New Haven Friends Meeting on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven Heights, ready to hike. 

Welcome to New Haven’s own Jurassic Park,” he said, explaining that the sign-in sheet people had signed also doubled as a liability release” in case of dinosaur attack. He then corrected himself; if he were being more accurate, it would have to be called Upper Triassic Park, for the age of the rocks — and the fossils — that were found behind him in Quarry Park, a city park and site of a previous Bioregional hike last year.

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Housing Authority Board OKs Q River Buys

by | Dec 20, 2023 11:58 am | Comments (5)

Laura Glesby photo

Commissioners William Kilpatrick, Alberta Witherspoon, and Elmer Rivera at Tuesday's meeting.

The housing authority took one big step towards building 40 new mixed-income apartments and ground-floor retail space by the Quinnipiac River, as its board voted to spend $1.42 million to purchase an East Grand Avenue lot and nearby pizzeria.

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3 Vie For Open East Side Alder Seat

by | Nov 3, 2023 4:37 pm | Comments (2)

File / contributed photos

Ward 11 alder candidates Gail Roundtree, Henry "Rodney" Murphy, and Ira Johnson.

Local Democrats have picked 59-year-old Bella Vista resident and political newcomer Henry Rodney” Murphy to replace the late Renee Haywood as their last-minute candidate for Ward 11 alder in Tuesday’s general election.

That means that Murphy — a Greater New Haven Transit District operations manager, embroidery enthusiast, and avid drone flyer — has just a few days to convince his neighbors to cast their ballots for him instead of for Republican challenger Gail Roundtree and write-in candidate Ira Johnson, both of whom have unsuccessfully run for local office before.

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3-Party Alder Race Hits The Heights

by and | Oct 24, 2023 9:19 am | Comments (9)

File photos

Ward 13 alder hopefules: Green challenger Paul Garlinghouse, Democratic incumbent Rosa Ferraro-Santana, and Republican challenger Deborah Reyes.

A three-way alder race in Fair Haven Heights pits an incumbent Democrat focused on parks against Green and Republican challengers raising concerns about single-party rule at City Hall.

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Convicted Scammer Back In Dirty Water

by | Sep 22, 2023 2:15 pm | Comments (16)

Laura Glesby photo

The "sophisticated" plumbing over a fence into a neighbor's backyard on Clifton Street.

"Office manager" Yossi (or Joseph) Levitin, at Zoomed Fair Rent hearing.

A mysterious tube — carrying something out of a Clifton Street house’s sewage-flooding basement, through the backyard, over a neighbor’s fence, and out beside the Quinnipiac River, and installed without permits or permission from the riverbank property’s owner — led the Fair Rent Commission to drop two tenants’ monthly rents to $1 apiece. 

It also put a convicted mortgage fraudster who is still involved in New Haven rental real estate back in the spotlight.

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Property Sales Roundup: Nursing Home Sold For $2.25M

by | Sep 20, 2023 9:13 am | Comments (2)

Thomas Breen photo

92 Lexington Ave., recently sold for $2.25M.

A Waterbury-based holding company has purchased a 50-bed nursing home and residential care facility on Lexington Avenue for $2.25 million — and a Stamford-based contractor has bought a Westville ex-convent and 10-unit apartment-complex-to-be for $865,000 — in some of the city’s latest property deals.

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Unexpected Unaffiliateds Turned Away At Polls

by and | Sep 15, 2023 12:03 pm | Comments (24)

Allan Appel photo

Surprised non-Democrat Anthony Carter, with Bella Vista moderator Patricia Solomon.

I’ve been a Democrat all my life,” said May, an 81-year-old Newhallville resident who said she’s voted at Lincoln-Bassett School every election since she bought her home in 1985.

Except she wasn’t a Democrat on Tuesday. She found out from a moderator that she had been re-registered as an unaffiliated” voter, ineligible to vote in the primary.

May was one of at least dozens of people across the city to find out on Tuesday that they couldn’t vote because they weren’t Democrats. To many, including May, that news came as an inexplicable surprise.

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Free Teacher Housing Rises In The Heights

by | Aug 21, 2023 1:37 pm | Comments (19)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Friends Center teacher Karina Rojas, with fellow teacher Paris Pierce: “I have a goal to one day own my own home — and for my son to have his own room.”

Ian Christmann file photo

73 Howard, under construction last spring.

Early childcare provider Paris Pierce arrives to work on time and with a clear headspace — because her employer ensures the single mom has a safe home with two bathrooms, storage space, and a washing machine to care for herself and her three kids at no cost.

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Fairmont Park Gardeners Send Trees Of Heaven Straight To ...

by | Aug 21, 2023 12:17 pm | Comments (7)

Aaron Goode, Jean Webb, Marty Lendroth take on the jungle in the Heights.

It’s technically Ailanthus Altissima, or colloquially Tree of Heaven, but in Fair Haven Heights’ Fairmont Park it’s more often called, with a grrrrrrrr, as gardeners labor to uproot it, the Tree of Hell. Or from Hell.

But there’s now a lot less of this quick rising (thus toward heaven?) invasive Chinese species, and that’s thanks to decades of effort by Sylvia Dorsey and her stalwart crew of Friends of Fairmont Park.

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Sunday Storm Sparks Thursday Tweed Debate

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

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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.

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Public Housing Evictions On The Rise

by | Jul 7, 2023 2:37 pm | Comments (38)

Laura Glesby photo

Ronisha Baskin and her four-year-old, crashing with grandma in Waterbury.

Ronisha Baskin didn’t know how to tell her 14-year-old daughter that the Housing Authority of New Haven had evicted them. I didn’t even know what to say.” She could not find the words to explain that a lack of housing options would force them to split up across different cities.

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City Swings For Gas-Powered Golf Carts ... For Now

by | Jun 14, 2023 11:14 am | Comments (8)

New England Golf Cars photo

2019 model New England Golf Cars cart: Gas for now, electric soon?

Seventy-five gas guzzling golf carts are rolling towards another three-year deal for New Haven’s municipal green links — with green energy plans in the works to go electric when the course’s clubhouse renovations are complete.

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