As the city embarks on roof repairs to keep the abandoned Goffe Street Armory from falling into further disrepair, Dixwell and Beaver Hills neighbors have begun dreaming about what could lie in the vacant historic building’s future.
Roughly 100 New Haveners filled Hillhouse High School’s cafeteria Wednesday night to remember past roles that the 1930s-era National Guard fixture played in city life while imagining new uses for the out-of-code structure that could cater to the city’s current needs.
The event was organized by the Armory Community Advisory Committee (also known as “AC Squared”) and led by Elihu Rubin, an associate professor of urbanism at the Yale School of Architecture who introduced himself to Wednesday’s audience as “a citizen who really cares about the Armory and would like to see a community vision put forward for this building.”
City officials, Yale architecture nerds, neighbors of the Armory and other long-time New Haveners broke bread — or, more accurately, tore into pita provided by Havenly restaurant — in small groups spread across cafeteria tables set with markers, pads of paper and poster board, and literature about the Armory’s history drafted and distributed by the Armory committee.
They also shared personal memories of times spent in the massive brick building and considered the possibility of bringing homeless services, affordable housing, farmer’s markets, pop-up business expos, and myriad other initiatives into the space down the line.
Deputy Economic Development Director Carlos Eyzaguirre confirmed that the city doesn’t have any current plan of action for the Armory besides the roughly $100,000 allocated for roof repairs. Right now, he said, the city is focused on “at least keeping the building upright so we can envision some next steps.”
“It really is impressive how big the building is,” City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said to the crowd, standing behind a small-scale model of the Armory’s Head House and Drill Hall, detailed with arches on arches among other architectural motifs.
“It’s over a couple hundred thousand square feet. It has so much opportunity. And there’s probably not a single building code that it currently meets.”
Most recently used to host Artspace Open Studios between 2014 and 2017, Zinn said that fire safety hazards — as in no fire alarms or sprinklers — were the tip of the iceberg when the city determined that the building is unsafe for holding events (there’s also no heating, no plumbing, and “doesn’t have any working systems, really… it’s scary stuff,” according to Zinn).
In the past, the Armory was a central meeting space for happenings like kennel club competitions, a 1940 Frank Sinatra show, and Black Expo, which from 1972 to 1977 brought Black business owners and representatives of community agencies from across New England together to share their work and resources, inside the Armory walls.
Read more about that history in an op-ed published by Rubin in the Independent here.
Ownership of the property was transferred from the State of Connecticut to the City of New Haven in 2009 after the last military organization left the Armory. “The state basically threw the keys at us and said, ‘we don’t want it, it’s yours,’” Zinn translated.
Zinn said the city has allocated around $100,000 to repair gaping holes in the Armory’s roofs. He said a city-hired contractor called Eagle Rivet Roof Service Corporation started working on those repairs about a week back, he said, to prevent additional water damage to the interior of the site. “There’s so much more to do,” he acknowledged, confirming concerns from the audience about asbestos in the ceilings while stating that other renovations will likely move forward once potential uses for the building are more seriously considered. “Right now, we’re providing some stewardship to keep it stable.”
The community did not have a lack of ideas to provide Zinn and other city officials concerning how the Armory could be best used once made habitable.
“Shelter is a big thing on my mind,” Arts Council Program Director Rebekah Moore told about ten people gathered around her table Wednesday after Rubin gave groups the go-ahead to start brainstorming. She noted a fundamental lack of housing opportunity and the recent bulldozing of a local homeless encampment off the West River.
Having attended Hillhouse herself and raised by a father who became an electrician through his trade school education in New Haven, she also suggested hosting vocational training for youth inside the Armory.
The table’s senior representatives, Robin Hobson-Sims and Katrina Jones, meanwhile, recalled the New Haven Food Co-Op that launched in the 1960s, and wondered about the possibility of establishing a worker collective and a commercial kitchen inside the Armory to avoid wasting food scraps from the city’s grocery stores and restaurants — and, in keeping with Moore’s vision, provide free food for residents otherwise uncertain where their next meal is coming from.
“Bring back the hippie days!” Hobson-Sims chanted.
Shayla Streater remembered that while she grew up in New Haven, running track and playing volleyball at Hillhouse, “Open Studios was my first time ever coming into the building, seeing this place. I thought, this is nice!”
Using the space as an artists’ collective or a rotating pop-up site for Black and local business owners and entrepreneurs, she said, could be one way to draw more New Haveners into the historic place.
Yale alum Frances Pollock, who runs The Midnight Oil Collective, a company that allows local artists to invest in one another, jumped on that idea. “New Haven already is a dynamic and vibrant place for artists to live, but I believe it can be a cultural hub,” she said.
Moore pointed to The Arts Council’s Sandbox, a free multipurpose space that artists from the community can book to rehearse, record or present their work, as a similar concept for inspiration.
Her personal stake in that project — “I’m the person who makes sure people sign up on our calendar, that the books are straight, that people are leaving the space as it was when they entered it,” she said — served as a reminder to consider the operational costs and staffing needs of each idea proposed for the Armory.
“Yeah, and then even when you get the ideas, the city gets a hold of it, and another mayor comes in, and then they gotta clear out the budget, and the money dries up, and it’s ‘bye-bye!’” Hobson-Sims said.
“That’s why it would be great to have community ownership, so operations aren’t driven by tax rates or whatever,” Pollock pitched in.
After each table presented their own suggestions for the Armory — everything from housing for public school teachers, a satellite office for New Haven Reads, a prison re-entry center, an indoor hydroponic garden — one voice from the audience asked Ruben: “How do we ensure that the ideas we do have come to fruition?”
“The city now knows: People care,” Ruben responded. “We want the armory back.”
“Leave your contact information. Let’s keep meeting. And let’s keep insisting that the building come back online.”