nothin Arts Czar Flush With Ideas | New Haven Independent

Arts Czar Flush With Ideas

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The listening tour has concluded: Andrew Wolf now has a full menu of ideas for making culture explode in New Haven, from apizza and book festivals to “strategically-placed” public European-style self-flushing “conveniences.”

Wolf spent his first six months as City Hall’s new cultural affairs director taking the cultural pulse of his hometown, to which he returned after decades living elsewhere.

When I tell people I’ve been away 30 years, they say: Was it murder or manslaughter?’

I say, L.A.’”

Ba-dump bump.

After all the months of conversations and fact-finding, Wolf, an irrepressible pitchman, came up with specific events and amenities he hopes to bring to New Haven in his role of one-man marching band” stirring up activity — without spending any taxpayer money. He described those plans in an enthusiastic, animated interview at B Natural Cafe on Orange Street.

At the top of the amenities list: very beautiful technology-driven self-flushing” Parisian public toilets made by the company JCDecaux.

The company boasts of having installed over 2,600 of those toilets in cities around the world. That comes to 416 million flushes,” according to its website (including in San Francisco, where at least some of the locals were less than impressed).

Some 600,000 people a year pass the corner of High and Chapel, he noted. Where do we expect them to … go? And the more Wolf thought about the idea, the more he thought of tie-ins. Why do people go to the bathroom?” he asked rhetorically. To read!” Hence his plan to partner with the public library to have the library provide digitized reading, such as famous quotes or information about New Haven. Wolf aims to bring these conveniences to up to 10 downtown locations. He’d slap paid ads on them to cover the cost. If his legacy as cultural-affairs chief is to be remembered as the toilet man,” he said, so be it.

A City Hall task force is reviewing the public-toilet proposal. Wolf said it fits in with Community Services Administrator Martha Okafor’s emphasis on improving public health in town, as well. Toilets do matter,” he said.

Wolf has lots more in mind than toilets, of course; making New Haven a comfortable, fun place to visit and get around is part of his broader mission of luring millenials and other newcomers to Connecticut’s cultural capital while retaining the talent already here.

Mayor Toni Harp charged Wolf with planning New Haven-specific special events to keep the city hopping all year round, not just in late June during the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Some of the annual events he’s working on include:

An October New Haven Apizza Festival. Wolf plans to transform the [New Haven Open] Tennis Center for two days into the Roman Coliseum” with accordion players, opera singers, and purveyors of classic New Haven pizza and Italian ices. Admission would be free, with tickets distributed first-come-first-serve over the internet.

A D.E.A.R. Festival. That stands for Drop Everything And Read. The first day would feature conversations with famous New England authors, the second with global authors. He’s talking with Yale and Southern Connecticut State University about serving as sponsors.

An expanded summer jazz festival. Wolf would take the modest series that has occurred the past couple of summers and grow it into a showcase of big-name artists with concerts on the Green as well as, perhaps, the Yale Bowl, the latter ticketed. He’d seek a major corporate sponsor like in the old days of the New Haven Jazz Festival.

A Valentine celebration of local arts. Wolf said he has invited the chair of the National Endowment of Arts to participate in a February gala event for all the established New Haven cultural institutions marking milestone anniversaries this year. The Shubert, for instance, turns 100, the Long Wharf, 50; the symphony, 120; the New Haven Museum (nee Historical Society), 150.

A soon-to-be-announced March festival. Wolf said he can’t yet disclose the identity of a major international festival” that is in discussions with the city about creating a New England offshoot.

An April count up to 400. New Haven turns 378 years old this April. Wolf is planning a Mayor’s Happy Birthday Concert featuring the symphony backing a prominent performer.” The event would take place annually, with the city counting up to its 400th birthday. The city is planting four cherry-blossom trees at City Hall; the idea is to have them bloom each Earth Day to coincide with the birthday event. How do I know they will bloom” on schedule? Wolf asked. Disney taught me to believe. They’ll bloom.”

Other ideas include a Latino-themed citywide event as well as an outdoor movie series in neighborhood parks, building on the city’s successful concert in the parks series from this past summer. This November he also ramped up the city’s Veterans Day commemoration with a Welcome Home” theme for Vietnam vets.

Wolf, who is 63, grew up in New Haven’s Norton/Chapel Street area and graduated from Hillhouse High School. His professional journey took him to CBS News in New York and the Pacific Design Center in L.A., among other stops in the arts, design, and marketing worlds. It was in L.A. that Wolf met Toni Harp, at a party he hosted for the Connecticut delegation to the 2000 Democratic National Convention. They stayed in touch. Wolf helped Harp’s daughter settle in L.A. Then Harp became mayor and invited him back home to bring his entrepreneurial and marketing skills to her cultural affairs department.

It just goes to show, Wolf, that all roads lead to New Haven.”

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