Thomas MacMIllan Photos
Claudette Robinson-Thorpe squinted in the sunlight as she and fellow lawmakers emerged from a five-story Manhattan building. They had just seen a vision of a reimagined Goffe Street Armory: a “one-stop shopping” community center.
“Amazing. Amazing,” murmured Robinson-Thorpe (pictured) after turning to take a picture of the building with her white iPhone.
Robinson-Thorpe, who represents New Haven’s Beaver Hills neighborhood, Monday organized a trip for nine aldermen and a handful of city officials to The Door in downtown Manhattan. They took a tour of the 40-year-old youth center as a way to find inspiration as the city prepares to revitalize an enormous empty former armory on Goffe Street.
Robinson-Thorpe has for several years been working on a plan to convert the big building into a community center with a variety of activities under one roof. That’s just what she and her colleagues found at The Door. The center offers young people arts activities, computer classes, GED prep, legal services, homeless services, health care, and counseling.
Outside after the tour, Robinson-Thorpe said she wants to bring all that to the armory, plus services for seniors.
The city is applying for several grants for $2.8 million from the state to begin the work of transforming the building — refinishing the floors, abating lead and asbestos, updating the heating and air-conditioning systems, and more.
The next step is to continue talking about what to fill the building with, and how to go about doing that. Monday’s visit to The Door left aldermen buzzing with excitement about what a completed community center could look like.
At 11:30 a.m. Monday, Aldermen Robinson-Thorpe, Dolores Colon, Tyisha Walker, Frank Douglass, Sarah Eidelson, Jessica Holmes, Evette Hamilton, Delphine Clyburn, and Jeanette Morrison boarded a charter bus outside City Hall. They were joined by Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, legislative liaison Matt Smith, youth department director Caprice Taylor Mendez, and two legislative staffers.
At the request of Alderwoman Hamilton, Clyburn (pictured) said a prayer to commence the journey. “We ask your blessing to take us and bring us,” she said to God.
Two and a half hours later, the bus pulled up across from 121 Avenue of the Americas in downtown Manhattan, where the Door has been located since the ‘90s.
Inside, the group gathered in a large central chamber illuminated partly by pink florescent tube lights. Two men walked by with a broken air hockey table they were fixing. Unprompted, one of them started listing the virtues of The Door.
“It’s always good to have a place like this,” said the man, 24-year-old Charles Roldan, who had a New York Yankees tattoo on his shoulder. “They got a little bit of everything.” The Door has daycare for the children people taking GED classes, he said. It even has a dental clinic.
Roldan said he’s been coming to The Door for seven years, ever since a social worker referred him when he was living in a group home. People at The Door have helped him get four or five different jobs over the years, he said.
“Anything that you can think of, they do it here,” he said.
That statement seemed less and less hyperbolic 40 minutes later, after aldermen had split into three groups and toured the building.
Executive Director Julie Shapiro greets aldermen.
One group — comprising Alderwomen Eidelson, Hamilton, and Walker, and legislative staffer Alberta Gibbs — followed Door staffers Bailey Huguley and Elise Schuster up to a quiet corner of the third floor. Schuster explained that the organization was started in 1972 by a group of mental and physical health care workers. It began as a storefront operation for young people and gradually expanded as services were added bit by bit. In the ‘90s, The Door moved to its current home, where over 175 staffers work.
The Door is run as a membership organization for young people between 12 and 21, or sometimes, 24. It takes in about 35 new members a day, Elise said, and serves 12,000 people a year. There are no requirements of members except that they abide by The Door’s rules.
Alderwoman Walker asked if there was a sliding scale for people who can’t afford the membership fees.
There are no fees for anyone, Huguley said. “Everything in the entire building is free and confidential.” (The Independent was not permitted to take identifying photographs of Door members.)
The Door has an annual budget of about $12 million, which comes mostly from government grants.
Strolling through the third floor, Huguley and Schuster pointed out classrooms for GED preparation and talked about job and internship programs the center runs. They took the tour past the legal services office, which deals with nearly “everything except criminal law.” The Door has some staff attorneys and other legal interns and fellows. They do a lot of legal work helping young immigrants, Huguley said.
Up on the fourth floor, Huguley and Schuster showed off the new independent charter school at the center; it recently completed its inaugural school year with a class of 116 ninth graders. The students are from “severely underperforming” middle schools and have histories of homelessness or foster care, Huguley said. Over four years, the school will expand to four grades — a full high school. The school is independent from The Door but students take advantages of all the services at the community center.
The Door also just opened a new 55-apartment facility for chronically homeless people between 18 and 26 years old. It will soon open a similar facility for young homeless families, Huguley said.
Next, the tour headed to the basement, where the New Haveners admired a gym, a cache of emergency clothes for kids (pictured), and a small basketball court. The court is home to “The Door Stoppers,” whose logo — a picture of a fearsome door stopper — was emblazoned on one wall.
Most of the basement is occupied by the health center, where The Door employs several doctors and nurse practitioners, a dentist and dental hygienist, a dermatologist, and a nutritionist. Much of the health services are geared toward sexual and reproductive health, Schuster said. There is a dispensary on site and an “entitlements counselor” to help people access government programs that might help them.
Anthony Rodriguez, performing arts coordinator, tells aldermen about the dance intensive.
Back up on the first floor, Huguley and Schuster showed off an art studio where an art-based GED class is taught and a dance studio where a 12-week intensive was under way.
In a center area (pictured) Door staff were signing up new members — a studiedly casual one-on-one process of assessing what each new young person needs from the center. New members are given a photo ID card with a bar code that tracks their use of the center, what services they’re taking part in.
Members agree to abide by three basic rules — no fighting, no harassment, and no weapons — along with a number “expectations” — no drugs, no vandalism, no theft, etc. Violations of the rules are handled on an individual basis using a “restorative justice” model. On the second floor, she pointed out a “give back” bulletin board about conflict resolution (pictured), completed as a consequence by some kids who had been fighting.
Also on the second floor: A cafeteria where dinner is served evening five times a week, a computer lab, and a recording studio (pictured).
The three tour groups reconvened on the third floor, where staff introduced an 18-year-old Door member with a number of tattoos visible in her shorts and tank top outfit. She gamely endured questions from aldermen about how she’d started coming to The Door two years ago and how she’s going to Clemson University with her three kids next year. She qualified for a special “mother and child” program because she did so well on her SATs, she said.
After a brief talk with The Door Executive Director Julie Shapiro, the aldermen headed out the building.
“It’s amazing,” Robinson-Thorpe said. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“I think we can take a lot of things from here,” Robinson-Thorpe said as she walked toward the bus. “The only thing I’d like to see is an elderly component.” And maybe a bigger basketball court. And maybe a pool, she said.
Asked where the money would come from to run so many programs, Robinson-Thorpe noted that as the owner of the armory, New Haven doesn’t have to pay rent. The biggest capital costs will be utilities, she said. “We’ve got to think outside of the box and get people to sustain it.”
She said the city could tap developers for money, using community benefits agreements. “They make all this money. Why can’t we tap into them?”
The armory also has the advantage of enormous size, Robinson-Thorpe said as the bus pulled away and headed north out of the city. The city could rent out parts of the building to raise money to pay for a community center in the rest of the building, she said.
Alderwoman Morrison said she was impressed by how many services for youth The Door integrates under one roof: “It’s good to have those one-stop-shops where all their issues can be addressed.”
“I think the whole concept is extraordinary,” said Alderman Douglass. “It’s like a one-stop-shop. There are so many opportunities and resources in there.”
He said he was impressed with the “aura” of the kids in The Door: “Everyone was relaxed. There was no aggression.”
A community center at the armory would have to work to create that same kind of calm environment when bringing together kids from various New Haven neighborhoods, Morrison said. It can be done, she added.
Alderwoman Clyburn said she was so taken with The Door that she wants to work there or in a place like it. She also said she was impressed by “this concept of all your needs being met under one roof.”
“I thought it was great,” she said, as the bus rolled back toward New Haven. “It helps me to dream even more.”
"The biggest capital costs will be utilities, she said."
What about maintenance?
What happened to our 40 new school buildings? Many of them used to be open for youth on nights and weekends, but now they sit mostly empty and unused. Did the Mayor shut that down? They have huge pools and gyms.