Melinda Tuhus Photo
Spruill formally signs the new group’s memorandum of agreement.
Bill Spruill has lived all his 75 years in Dixwell. He’d like to help revitalize the area — by returning it to the way it used to be, updated for the 21st century.
Spruill (pictured) was one of 40 people who came out to the Elks Lodge on Dixwell Avenue Tuesday night to help formalize a new organization called Dixwell Corridor Community Partners. It includes representatives from many neighborhood churches, community and business groups, the city’s small business development office and the Housing Authority.
Gary Hogan (pictured), representing the Elks Lodge and the housing authority, said the new group came together because many member organizations were trying to do their own piece of revitalization, and it made sense to work together. He said they got a lot of help from the Yale Community and Economic Development Clinic, which includes students from Yale Law School, the School of Management and the Schools of Architecture and Forestry.
Spruill signed the formal memorandum of agreement establishing the group as a representative of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
He remembered the Dixwell of his youth.
“We had doctors in this neighborhood,” he said. “We had dentists; we had a pharmacy. We had several very nice restaurants. We had a very nice movie theater.”
And, he said, “We had the Dixwell Community House,” also known as the Q House, now shuttered. “I came up out of the Q House as a youngster. It meant so much to us because it was right here in the community, so we rarely had to go outside the community for recreation. But that was many years ago. Given there are so many other kinds of things going on to attract young people today, you gotta ask yourself, ‘Is the Dixwell Q House still relevant as opposed to what it meant many years ago? What type of services today can the Q House provide to the community?’”
That’s one of the questions group members will be discussing as the project moves forward. (Click here for a previous story about efforts to reopen the Q House.)
So far the group has received a $15,000 grant from the Lustman Foundation and hired Kiara Clemons (pictured) to go out and round up more members.
And it has set its sights on bigger grants. Pepsi is giving away funding for community projects through a website set up for that purpose. Priscilla Martins (pictured, with Spruill), a Yale graduate who now works in Yale’s development office and lives off Dixwell Avenue in Hamden, is spearheading the effort. She managed (through being one of the first several thousand people to sign in each month) to make the group eligible for a $50,000 grant to go toward physical improvements in the neighborhood, a community market and a program to teach financial literacy. Organizations win simply by scoring the most votes, so she urged supporters to visit this site and vote daily throughout the month. She said the organization is also in the running for a $250,000 grant from Pepsi.
The link to vote redirects to this article.
[Ed.: Fixed now. Thanks!]