Allan Appel photo
Two dozen focused seniors at their regular chair yoga class assumed the postures of praise and gratitude — including “a nod of gratitude” for the sparkling community center, their new home, into which they had just moved.
The scene of gratitude and healthy stretching Monday morning was the brightly painted blue-and-white colonnaded building, now the Salperto Community Center, just west of the traffic rotary at 350 Woodward Ave. in East Shore Park.
Mayor Justin Elicker, local pols, and city elderly services staffers celebrated with a cheery formal ribbon cutting Monday morning.
“We all hope to become seniors one day,” said the mayor, “and this [renovation] is a small symbol” of the city’s investment in its senior population.
It shows, he said, the transformation of something that didn’t look too good into now “something everybody is in love with.”
Elderly services specialist Michelle Cleary-Butler, Tomi Veale, and ribbon cutter Janus Clark, with the mayor.
Before the move, the East Shore Senior Center was housed for years at St. Bernadette’s Church on Townsend Avenue and other borrowed locations.
When the mayor in his remarks anointed the new space the permanent home of the East Shore Senior Center, spontaneous applause rippled through the room.
The center, which was in previous decades the “warm” building where you got your hot chocolate and warmed by the fire, adjacent to the park’s former outdoor skating (now roller blading) rink, will house senior activities daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will also attract — such are the city’s plans — programming for young people and families.
Luigia Ferraro.
Salperto is the fifth of eight formerly under-utilized buildings that the city has renovated to become what they term “hubs” to house and, to use the mayor’s word, “reactivate” community programming across the age ranges.
The others are Atwater Senior Center in Fair Haven; Barnard Nature Center in West River Park; Coogan Pavilion in Edgewood Park; and the Trowbridge Ranger Station in College Woods Park.
The cost for the renovation for all the interior space was about half a million dollars, said City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, most of which comes from the Covid-era American Rescue Plan Act. The work included two bright new bathrooms, a new roof, new lighting, heating and ventilation, and soon to be completed new kitchen; another door on the back side of the building that will open onto a panoramic view of the harbor is also slated to be finished soon.
“I hear,” Zinn quipped, “that the [quite large] size of the new TV is also a hit.”
Local (17th ward) Alder Sal Punzo, a lifelong resident of the area, pointed to that electronic hearth, that is, the TV, and said, “I believe right under there was the fireplace where we used to warm up and get the hot chocolates.”
“We are up and engaging in the bright new space,” said City Elderly Services Director Tomi Veale. “We are laughing and smiling and exercising and not sitting around, and are part of the East Shore community.”
Those daily activities, said elderly service specialist Tiffany Staggers, include arts and crafts, tai chi, line dancing, a listen-and-learn session, and that very impressive chair yoga session led by Chris Moody of Grounded for Growth, to which the city contracts for the classes. Each day is also anchored by hot meals together and tons of bingo, over which good talk is shared.
The city’s three senior centers (Atwater, Dixwell, and East Shore) serve about 120 people daily, said Veale, almost half of whom, after registering, receive van transportation to and from the center of their choice, regardless of where they live in the city.
A very happy one of those is 94-year-old Luigia Ferraro who lives on Quinnipiac Avenue in Fair Haven Heights. She said she likes the new space, the yoga, and especially the trips the group takes together. “And the van driver [Antonio Ruiz] is so nice, he’s like my son.”
Before he concluded his remarks the mayor pitched nonprofits to bring their programs rent-free to the renovated city buildings like Salperto during afternoon and evening hours.
“You get to use the space free if you offer affordable or free activities,” he said, as long as they benefit the community. “I love, in particular, intergenerational programming. So get the word out.”
The final three under-utilized city building renovations in the pipeline, Zinn reported, include the West Rock Nature Center later this year; then the community building in Goffe Street Park; and, in 2026, perhaps the most labor-intensive of the renovations planned, the Trowbridge Center (formerly the Barbell Club) at Trowbridge Square in the Hill.