Author Finds New Haven Is For Neighbors

After moving to a place that Conde-Nast Traveler had judged to be ​“one of the 10 unfriendliest cities in America,” author Lary Bloom worried that — if he were to slip and fall on an ice-coated sidewalk — his new neighbors would simply look the other way and keep on moving.

Instead, those neighbors sprawled on couches, perched themselves on stools, crammed into chairs that ranged outside a Goatville gym’s common room, and braved the December snow to listen to Bloom read and wisecrack about his newly published slim volume which is, in fact, a valentine to New Haven.

That was the scene Sunday afternoon at Nicoll Street’s mActivity gym for a reading party celebrating Bloom’s new book, I’ll Take New Haven.

Clad in a bold orange sweater and merrily striped scarf, Bloom, 78, read to a captivated audience from the introduction to his book. 

He read that he and his wife, the poet Suzanne Levine, decamped seven years ago from the quaint village of Chester to a New Haven of ​“high city taxes and gunshots in the night.” 

Among the crowd gathered for the event, there was an audible gasp after Bloom revealed Conde-Nast’s unfavorable assessment of New Haveners’ friendliness. Lucca, the couple’s Lagotto Romagnolo whom Bloom credits as co-author, whimpered.

“Hence, we presumed, should we slip on sidewalk ice, a distinct possibility considering our senior citizen status, a majority of witnesses would simply step over us,” Bloom continued.

Based on Sunday’s turnout, the author need not worry about his new neighbors’ lack of neighborly care.

That did not escape the notice of Bloom, a prolific writer of books and plays, as well as columnist and essayist, who has published most of his new book’s entries as articles on the Independent.

“I think those of us who feel that we live in a special place want to counter what the stereotype has been about this city,” he said, as vibrations from the bass sounded from the fitness center. ​“Let’s talk about that.”

Burch Valldejuli, co-founder of mActivity, rose to the challenge. 

A New Haven native, she said she worked at Yale until 2007. (She was director of program development at the School of Public Health.) ​“When you’re there, you get the newsletter of what’s going on at Yale, and there’s something to occupy every nanosecond of your time and that becomes your world,” she said. 

Leaving the university, she said, ​“I discovered that New Haven is an incredibly vibrant city where there are Pecha Kuchas and holiday fairs and the Arts and Ideas in June which brings together everybody from all walks of life. I fell back in love with my city.”

There’s a reason they call it ​“the greatest small city in America,” she said. 

A man standing in the back sounded a similar refrain. 

“That’s been one of the attractions for me, that it’s so big-hearted,” he said. ​“It’s in its DNA. It’s been a refuge for people from the beginning,” he said, referring to the story of the three judges, Whalley, Dixwell, and Goffe, who hid in a cave in West Rock to escape revenge by King Charles II and were cared for by sympathetic Puritans. 

Growing up in Milford and attending Wesleyan, he said, ​“New Haven was always the center. There was so much activity. Presidents came to New Haven. Writers came to New Haven. It’s a world-class city that’s manageable.” 

For Ike Lassiter, the reason is simple. 

“I’m in New Haven because it’s easy to not have a car,” he said. 

“The bus is free too,” someone called out. ​“At least for a few more weeks.”

Nina Lentini said she gave up her car with few regrets.

“There’s a lot of conveniences you no longer have, but it makes you rethink, ​‘how am I going to get there,’ and with Uber, you save so much money,” she said. ​“People say you spend so much money on Uber, and I say how much money did you spend last week on gas.”

She also rediscovered her love of biking — in particular, the flat terrain. ​“Where I lived, it was all hills, and there was traffic, it wasn’t bike friendly at all,” she said.

Lentini said she bought an e‑bike and bikes with a group called Outspokin, described on its Facebook page as ​“a New Haven bicycling group for anyone who leisurely loves biking and meeting other bicyclists.” 

“How about some negatives about the city?” Bloom asked. Lucca yowled. Someone brought in a dog bowl emblazoned with mActivity. Lucca lapped up the water. 

“Before that, I want to talk about another bright spot in the city, which is LEAP,” a man said, referring to the Leadership, Education & Athletics in Partnership nonprofit that provides students from low-income neighborhoods academic and social enrichment and mentoring after school and during the summer. 

The program, he said, ​“benefits close to 1,000 kids a year. It starts in elementary school up through college, and their rate for college admissions for graduating seniors is 100 percent.”

“It’s a way to lift kids out of poverty and into the middle class,” he said of the program, which is funded by city, state, and federal aid, as well as donations — notably, the annual LEAP Year dinners. 

“I don’t have any negatives for New Haven,” added former Beaver Hills Alder Shafiq Abdussabur. ​“I’ve been living here all my life.“

The challenge, he said, ​“is to double down on division and fight through it. I think if we do that, we’ll survive the circus in Washington.”

With some cajoling, audience members discussed negative aspects of living in the city, which included slumlords, homelessness, and continuing gun violence.

Despite those drawbacks, Bloom will, as his title proclaims, take New Haven. 

“There are three stages of life,” he began. ​“Youth, middle age, and you look good. I’m at that third stage.” 

“When you’re in middle age and before that, you’re trying mightily to rise in some conventional way, you’re in a hurry to succeed. And then something happens, you reach the stage of life where you’re sitting around with friends and you’re doing your organ recitals, this hurts and that hurts.”

For Bloom, ​“those days are past.” 

Living in New Haven is like, he said, ​“returning to the childhood awe and wonder where you went out on the sidewalk and joined the society of little red wagons and tricycles.” It’s where, as he writes in his essay ​“The Talking Hat,” ​“in a city where residents are by and large opposed to war,” his tattered Vietnam War veteran cap ​“begins respectful conversation” on his daily walks. 

And where the stories he writes for the New Haven Independent nourish and sustain him.

“I want to keep local reporting alive because it’s a vanishing thing in this country,” he said. ​“It keeps us alert about what’s happening in our world which, in the end, affects us much more than that zoo in Washington.”

In the end, there’s little bravery involved in his reurbanization, it seems.

“This is a city where we’re comfortable, where I can learn, and where I can do something every day that brings me joy,” he said, as snowflakes drifted outside.