Allan Appel Photo
Constantinople checks out the space.
Officials Tuesday afternoon opened the door for a look-see at the newest and “safest” police substation in New Haven — in a former bank space, complete with two imposing vaults, and a spacious open floor plan on the ground level of Building A at Bella Vista.
The occasion was a public unveiling of the new substation at the the sprawling senior housing complex in Fair Haven Heights.
Hours later, Tuesday evening, the Board of Alders approved a one-year, $75-a-month lease for thee space, along with a separate five-year, $1,500-a-month lease for a substation at 332 Whalley Ave. for the Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills District.
Thirty-five residents and police and alder brass gathered at Bella Vista Tuesday along with Mayor Toni Harp. Many said they hope the new substation proves the first step in creating an 11th police district on the East Shore, splitting up the current ninth, which runs from the North haven border in bishop Woods through Fair Haven heights and the Annex all the way down to Lighthouse Point in Morris Cove. The creation of such a district is currently in the works.
As he congratulated Bella Vista Alder Barbara Constantinople, who organized a petition drive two years ago to create the substation, Police Chief Dean Esserman remarked, “Today is not a ribbon cutting, but the beginning of a process of subdividing District 9 into two areas.”
With the help of the alders, Esserman added, the Bella Vista substation well might become the home of a future District 11.
Esserman said that neither the staffing of the substation nor any details of the geography of a subdivided District 9 are yet committed to paper. Those are all subjects of ongoing discussions with the Board of Alders, the mayor, and neighbors.
Pete Anyzeski (pictured), 74, has lived at Bella Vista for 12 years. He was in the applauding crowd at the ceremony. “I got mugged two years ago, at the parking lot”[right down the hill toward Bella Vista’s main entrance, he said. “I got seriously hurt. It could have been prevented” had the substation been operating and cops been nearby, he speculated.
A lifelong New Havener who loves Bella Vista, Anyzeski guesstimated that in the past two years alone about a dozen people have been mugged — not necessarily on the grounds, where Carabetta Management operates its own security, but in the environs.
“One person was [recently] mugged on her way back from Walgreen’s” on the corner of Eastern Street and Foxon Boulevard, he added.
Fair Haven Heights Alder Barbara Constantinople was the star of the event, receiving the accolades of her neighbors. Constantinople has emphasized the substation in her reelection campaign against former Alder Robert Lee.
Constantinople praised the space during a brief tour. “It’s got two bathrooms and two safes,” she noted.
$1500 per month to create a theater of safety. This sub-station will accomplish absolutely nothing and it wouldn't have stopped anybody from betting mugged. There's a sub-station on Edgewood and they still deal drugs a block away.