Allan Appel Photo
The above headline is meant as a compliment.
The long-blackened windows on the Comcast Building on the south side of Chapel between Union and Olive have been transformed into a canine portrait gallery, with the handsome pooches bidding their passing pals to visit the neighborhood’s new dog park on nearby Union Street.
Gregory Smart murals
The transformation has come about thanks to the doggy love of the Wooster Square neighborhood and the leadership of the local management team and its chairman, Andy Ross.
At Monday night’s Downtown Wooster Square Community Management Team’s gathering, New Haven Urban Design League’s Anstress Farwell rose at the end of the meeting to “acknowledge you and Jeffrey for having the Comcast building go to the dogs.”
Ross, whom she was addressing, said, “That’s a year a half in the making.” He was referring both to the black and white dog photos on the Comcast building as well as to the painted murals by Gregory Smart that now grace three panels on the building owned by Firestone.
It’s all part of Ross’s and the management team’s effort to turn an eyesore into a more visually welcoming first block of the Wooster Square neighborhood.
Ross told the Independent that the photographs of the dogs are by Paul Duda and Jeffrey Kerekes, many of them from the Dogs of Wooster Square Calendar. Fundraising based on the creation of that calendar helped launch the new dog run and park on Union just around the corner from Chapel.
Planned next: trash receptacles and new lighting.
This is awesome.
The Comcast property has been a blight for decades. The area is also often covered with trash and broken glass. A permanent solution, like giving large fines to Comcast, should be created until they clean up their act.