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Alina Rose Chen |
Jul 11, 2025 12:39 pm
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The current building at 532 Chapel.
Local attorney Trachten, with architect Pastor: We'll be back.
For the second time in as many months, the Historic District Commission rejected a proposal to construct four new apartments atop a parking lot located behind a dentist’s office-turned-residential building in Wooster Square.
The commission’s main concerns with the proposal centered around the increased density that would be created by the new units, the scale of the additional building compared to the original, and the project’s aesthetic compatibility with the rest of the neighborhood.
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Alina Rose Chen |
Jun 20, 2025 4:06 pm
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Alexandra Martinakova Photos
The lamb shank.
(Updated) Even for a group of Gen‑Z interns, it’s hard to resist the millennial charm of ROLi, the new Hungarian-influenced “modern European” restaurant that is set to open June 25 in Wooster Square on the corner of Olive and Chapel.
With its polished concrete floors, visible pipework, and floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains in a deep, saturated blue, the space leans into a familiar modern, industrial aesthetic complete with gold accents and mid-century modern globe-shaped light fixtures. During a soft opening preview, we were seated near the open kitchen, where a cinema-style marquee listing their featured dishes added a retro flair that was at once charming and nostalgic.
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Adam Walker |
Jun 20, 2025 2:39 pm
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Officials, family members celebrate new sign
New Haven served up a slice of history Friday as city, state, and federal leaders gathered to dedicate the corner of Wooster and Brown Streets as “Frank & Filomena Pepe Corner” — honoring the founders of the pizzeria that helped make Elm City the nation’s “Pizza Capital.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Gov. Ned Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker, and Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo were among the many officials who turned out to celebrate a century of thin crust, white clam pies, and family-run flavor that’s become a cornerstone of the city’s identity.
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Mona Mahadevan |
Jun 9, 2025 3:06 pm
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A passerby on Friday claimed to see people throwing trash out of the building's broken windows.
Mona Mahadevan photos
The building is covered with graffiti and surrounded by trash.
The building's internal courtyard is completely overgrown.
The potential revitalization of the dilapidated clock factory on Hamilton Street has been delayed once again, as a state judge has granted the property’s owner more time to clean up environmental contaminants and subordinate debt before selling the complex to the housing authority.
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Laura Glesby |
Jun 5, 2025 11:17 am
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(2)
pepespizzeria.com
Frank and Filomena Pepe, soon to be honored at the corner of Wooster and Brown.
Thomas Breen photo
Wooster St. on Thursday.
The late Frank and Filomena Pepe, whose family of apizza icons pioneered New Haven’s most renowned cuisine, now officially have a street corner named in their honor.
... at Friday's Project Longevity Easter Egg Hunt.
Parents and volunteers gathered in the morning sunshine at Lenzi Park Friday and watched one of over 100 kids at the Project Longevity Easter Egg Hunt crack open an elusive golden egg.
That golden-hued plastic container was scattered alongside pastel, candy-filled eggs across the park. The girl who found it carefully extracted a wadded up five-dollar bill from inside the egg — and looked up at the crowd with a triumphant grin.
... and cherry blossoms! Even though April 6 fest wasn't to be.
The warm spring air and blooming cherry blossom trees brought Karina Hayes, a teaching assistant at Hamden’s Helen Street Elementary School, to Wooster Square Thursday afternoon.
For Hayes, spring symbolizes a new beginning. She sees the cherry blossoms as a loving message from God, showing us that “there is still hope for the world,” even after a long and barren winter.
Elicker: "I have a bald spot because I’m losing my hair over trying to get these projects done."
“I’m paying more in taxes, but the services that I’m receiving as a resident are not going up,” Yoland Highsmith told Mayor Justin Elicker at a city budget-focused town hall.
Gloria Bellacicco agreed, criticizing the Tweed Airport expansion for taking too long and disrupting quality of life. “To be honest, I haven’t seen New Haven finish one project that it starts,” said Bellacicco. “So if you’re going to raise our taxes, finish the projects, please.”
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Nathaniel Rosenberg |
Mar 5, 2025 1:51 pm
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Thomas Breen file photo
City Building Official Robert Dillon (right): Olive & Wooster is a rooming house.
Thomas Breen photo
The luxury rooming house at 87 Union St.
A luxury apartment complex with “collective” rentals is an illegal rooming house, and the building owners could face fines for running it.
That’s according to New Haven’s Building Department, which filed a Cease and Desist order accusing Olive & Wooster, one of the new high-end apartment complexes in Wooster Square, of violating the city’s zoning ordinance by running portions of the building as rooming houses.
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Nathaniel Rosenberg |
Feb 19, 2025 2:47 pm
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Thomas Breen file photo
Olive & Wooster: If it quacks like a rooming house ...
Is a luxury apartment complex with “collective” rentals actually an illegal rooming house?
A legal aid attorney argued that it is, as she defended a tenant facing eviction from one of the new high-end apartment complexes that have popped up in recent years on the downtown edge of Wooster Square.
Two Wooster Square lots that languished for years amid landlord lawsuits — and then burst forth into 230 high-end apartments amid a neighborhood building frenzy — have now sold to a pair of real estate investment firms for $71 million.
West Haven Officer Robert Rappa's body-worn camera footage. Note: Videos show graphic violence.
West Haven police had been following Aaron Freeman for seven months — setting up controlled buys of crack cocaine, watching him allegedly come and go from a Mill River Crossing apartment rented by a woman he appeared to be in a relationship with.
That drug-focused investigation culminated with an early-morning raid of the Grand Avenue residence that led to the cops’ seizure of nearly $6,600 in cash, multiple cellphones, and dozens of pills and baggies filled with white and tan powder substances.
That raid also sparked a shoot-out between police and Freeman, 35, in front of an 8‑year-old girl, a 32-year-old woman, and a 52-year-old grandfather, killing Freeman and injuring two West Haven cops.
While a NIMBY-stalled building plan leaves a stretch of Grand Avenue covered in blight, two grassroots artists picked up their brushes Wednesday to offer the neighborhood some temporary respite.
20, 34 Fair St.: Garages demolished, housing to come.
A development team has knocked down two vacant Fair Street garages — as builders move forward with plans to construct 168 new apartments on the housing-rich downtown edge of Wooster Square.
... can now be thrown out in city compost bins, including on Crown St.
It’s a great time to be a banana peel in New Haven — as the city has installed three new public composting bins as part of a pilot program to help divert food scraps from the landfill.
A year ago, as 2023 wound down to its last hours, Joel Jacobson, 83 years old at the time, set out in his Toyota sedan from his East Rock condo for a holiday dinner at Adriana’s, on Grand Avenue.
Going to this popular Italian restaurant had been a household tradition, but this visit, he knew, would be different.
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Nathaniel Rosenberg |
Dec 20, 2024 12:06 pm
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What might one day be built at 924 Grand.
A long-in-the-works plan to open a youth homeless shelter in Wooster Square got another jolt of public funding, as the Board of Alders approved spending $500,000 in federal Covid aid to help finance its construction.
Youth Continuum's Tim Maguire (right), with city Homeless Services Director Velma George: Looking to create "a one-stop shop for unhoused youth."
A proposal for a peer-led youth homeless shelter in Wooster Square is back on the table — with a higher price tag and a new design prioritizing privacy and public health.
In front of large computer screens and a focused film crew, a woman in a white dress walked up to a Wooster Square brownstone pretending to be New York City.
She reached the top of the entrance. Before she could open the door and walk inside, she stopped, turned, and walked back down the stairs — ready to repeat those moves again and again, as part of a new horror movie being filmed in part in New Haven.
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Maya McFadden and Nathaniel Rosenberg |
Nov 5, 2024 8:04 am
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(14)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photo
21 Wooster Pl: Recipient of 8.5% of ESSER building-repair funds.
A former school building in Wooster Square has yet to reopen as an administrative office building — even after two years and $1.2 million worth of renovations.
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Laura Glesby |
Oct 16, 2024 3:08 pm
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Laura Glesby Photo
Students Destiny Lugo and Makayla Kidd with CT Teacher of the Year Julia Miller.
“She lets her guard down with us. She’s human with us,” Metropolitan Business Academy Senior Makayla Kidd told a room full of students, educators, and city leaders.
Kidd was talking about her civics teacher, Julia Miller — who is now Connecticut’s Teacher of the Year.
“Beautiful!” a passing motorist called out while heading downtown Monday on Chapel Street.
“Thank you!” Jessie Unterhalter said for the tenth? 20th? time of the day.
Unterhalter didn’t want to be rude. People passing by the once-blank warehouse wall at Chapel and East Streets have brightened to see the swirling bright colors Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn have been painting there for the past three weeks. Unterhalter appreciated their appreciation.
