by | Apr 24, 2024 10:31 am | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden Photo
New Haven Counts ED Ronald Coleman (center) and New Haven Reads ED Kirsten Levinsohn on Tuesday.
A citywide math and literacy tutoring effort has reached 1,700 New Haven elementary school students since launching nearly a year ago — and is now on the lookout for 100 more volunteer tutors this summer, on top of the 240 who are currently signed up, to keep the program growing.
by | Apr 22, 2024 1:11 pm | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery photo
At the New Haven Composers Spotlight at NXTHVN.
Composer and violinist Alyssa Chetrick was taking a solo as part of her vertiginous piece, sardonically titled “Equilibrium.” If some of the previous passages had offered a sense of calm, Chetrick was now going for chaos, spurring the ensemble around her to join her. Her phrasing pushed the musicians around her to dig deeper into the music she’d written, as if they were looking to break it. Would they?
by | Apr 18, 2024 4:04 pm | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby photo
11-year-old Avery with her favorite Black Raspberry Newhall Street soap.
Bassett Street smells like lemongrass and poppy seeds to 11-year-old Kauren, now that her favorite sweet-citrusy soap is up for sale in honor of the street where she goes to school.
Continue reading ‘Soaps Honor Newhallville At Kids' Black Wall Street’
by | Apr 10, 2024 9:19 am | Comments (0)
Asher Joseph photo
Kenneth Joseph on the steel pans.
Music lovers young and old found their seats with the help of the early evening sun, the only source of light in the dark gymnasium of the Q House.
The space would not remain dark for long, however, as the Dixwell Community Management Team’s (DCMT) “Jazz & Contemporary Music Concert” lit up the space with singing, saxophones, and selections from various poets.
Continue reading ‘Saxophone & Steel Pans Sing At Q House Concert’
by | Apr 4, 2024 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Kian Ahmadi photo
At Wednesday's Big Read kickoff.
“The model minority myth is my worst enemy,” Angelina Li said at a Dixwell public library celebration of diversity and complexity and, of course, “big” reading.
Continue reading ‘"Big Read" Brings Out Model Minority Myth Busters’
by | Apr 3, 2024 3:57 pm | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby Photo
Dr. Ann Garrett Robinson, the future namesake of Dixwell & Argyle?
The corner of Dixwell and Argyle might soon bear Dr. Ann Garrett Robinson’s name, in honor of a beloved champion of local Black history who, in 89 years of life so far, has made a mark on history herself.
Continue reading ‘Won't You Be My Neighbor, "Dr. Robinson Way"?’
by | Mar 21, 2024 4:14 pm | Comments (24)
Thomas Breen photo
The ex-Monterey club: Still vacant. Still Ocean-owned.
Reator Latasha Eaddy: City-Ocean deal fell apart "quite some time ago." Private sales in the works, including for 269 Dixwell (pictured).
A city plan to acquire the derelict former Monterey jazz club and three surrounding Dixwell buildings from an oft-fined megalandlord has hit a flat note — and, apparently, collapsed altogether — after the Elicker administration ditched a purchase-and-sale agreement and issued new clean-up orders.
Months after that public deal fell apart, Ocean Management is reportedly now lining up new private buyers for these same properties.
by | Mar 21, 2024 3:46 pm | Comments (4)
From "mass-level instruments of death" to homes and community: Matt Pugliese, Alder Kim Edwards, Alder Troy Streater, Eric Steinberg, Alex Twining, Arlevia Samuel, David Silverstone, Jake Pine and Mayor Justin Elicker break ground on Winchester Green.
As excavators pushed dirt from side to side at 315 Winchester Ave., city officials and housing developers dug shovels into a picture-planned pile of rocks to symbolically break ground on the mixed-use development that will one day be called the Winchester Green.
Continue reading ‘"Winchester Green" Grows Into Construction Zone’
by | Mar 12, 2024 9:54 am | Comments (1)
Oluseye
Good Luck Totem.
An antiquated candy vending machine sits atop a wooden stand in the lobby of NXTHVN, its faded signage and weathered hardware still beckoning the visitor to give it a coin. But it doesn’t work, and what’s inside it isn’t candy, but a multitude of cowrie shells, from sea snails found in tropical oceans. They’ve been used as money, as jewelry, and as rattles for instruments. But here, they can’t be used at all — not for any price.
by | Feb 28, 2024 3:05 pm | Comments (2)
Marcus Harvin and volunteers deliver meals to Varick Warming Center.
“This was our vision in prison,” said Marcus Harvin, as he led his team with boxes of meals past a queue of people waiting for the doors of Dixwell’s Varick A.M.E. Zion Warming Center to open.
by | Feb 22, 2024 3:09 pm | Comments (36)
Nora Grace-Flood
91 Shelton Ave. to stay deteriorated on the outside ...
... and musically inspired on the inside.
City Plan commissioners killed a request to turn a dilapidated former factory serving as local artist studios into storage units — after deciding the development sounded like “dead space.”
by | Feb 20, 2024 2:21 pm | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Co-owners Donald Moody and Mujahid Mohammed with Dannie Beverly of Made in Greenwood smoke shop.
Mujahid Mohammed had a dream. So did Dannie Beverly. And Donald Moody. It was, as it turned out, the same dream.
“All three of us did time in prison, and we wanted to come up with something for the community, a platform to give back, and that was starting our own business,” said Mohammed on a recent afternoon at Made in Greenwood.
by | Feb 12, 2024 9:13 am | Comments (3)
Lisa Reisman Photo
David Daniels at author talk at Stetson Library.
The Sunday, Aug. 21, 1994, edition of the Connecticut Post pictures a young Black man in police blues holding a hangman’s noose. The man was David Daniels, a police officer. The noose was left on his patrol car.
by | Feb 2, 2024 12:45 pm | Comments (20)
Yash Roy Photos
NAACP New Haven President Dori Dumas and Motley's niece Constance Royster unveil the stamp at Q House event.
Judge Constance Baker Motley was the only woman to work at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund during the Civil Rights Movement. She wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education. She was Martin Luther King Jr.’s lawyer. She was the first Black woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and she fought nine more desegregation cases, winning every single one.
She was a daughter of New Haven. She was a daughter of Dixwell. She was a daughter of the Q House.
Now she joins King, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and Thurgood Marshall on a U.S. Postal Service Forever stamp.
Continue reading ‘“A Dixwell Daughter": Q House Unveils Constance Baker Motley Forever Stamp’
by | Feb 1, 2024 12:46 pm | Comments (53)
Laura Glesby Photo
Carlota Clark at Wednesday evening's open house at Science Park.
A rendering from Pine's presentation: Apartments up to $4,500 a month on Winchester Ave.
As Science Park developers presented renderings of a housing complex soon to rise on Winchester Ave., Carlota Clark wondered if one of the 283 apartments would someday be hers.
by | Jan 25, 2024 4:15 pm | Comments (21)
Nora Grace-Flood Photos
Kennies Earl: Not "invisible."
Mother Juniper members Lindsay Skedgell and Christian Abbott: Jamming conversion plans.
Mother Juniper frontwoman Lindsay Skedgell unplugged from her Vox AC15 and tuned into Zoom from a “vacant” ex-factory building to send developers a message: 91 Shelton is far from empty.
Skedgell was among dozens of artists who banded together to flood the City Plan Commission’s Zoom room after hearing earlier that day that their studio space, a five-story former factory building at 91 Shelton Ave., is slated for sale to a self-storage company.
Continue reading ‘91 Shelton Studios Smash Storage Space Sale’
by | Jan 22, 2024 9:55 am | Comments (0)
Yash Roy Photo
Sisters' Journey displays copies of each of their 25 past calendars at Saturday's event..
A group of Black female breast cancer survivors gathered at the place where they first united a quarter century ago in order to kick off a neighborhood institution’s second century.
Continue reading ‘"Sisters" Kick Off Q House Centennial Journey’
by | Jan 15, 2024 11:47 am | Comments (1)
The Q House is celebrating the 100 years that have passed since the community fixture first opened its doors in 1924.
The space will be hosting events throughout 2024, which can be read about here, to honor Q House history and strengthen its current community. Below, we’ve included a letter sent by the Q House Centennial Committee with more details.
by | Jan 3, 2024 3:29 pm | Comments (54)
Laura Glesby photo
Streater: Lost 24 years of his life to a crooked prosecution.
On Monday Troy Streater was sworn in for his first full term a city alder. On Tuesday he sued the city for $50 million in punitive damages and $50 million in compensatory damages for the two dozen years he spent in prison on a wrongful conviction.
by | Jan 2, 2024 1:37 pm | Comments (2)
Winter Wonderland celebration in full swing.
There were toys, every kind of toy, over 2,000 in all. There were remote-control cars and action figures and explorer kits and puzzles and Legos and Slime and board games and magnetic building blocks and light boxes and glow-in-the-dark basketballs and crystal balls, as well as dolls of every age, model, and style.
Young partygoer amid snowflakes.
Under the brights lights of the Dixwell Community‑Q House gymnasium at the first annual Winter Wonderland Celebration toy giveaway on the Saturday before Christmas, there was music booming and people dancing and kids tearing around the hardwood floors, and snow swirling from a snow machine, and cotton candy, and Santa and Mrs. Claus perched on a sleigh for photo-ops.
by | Nov 22, 2023 12:19 pm | Comments (21)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
669 Dixwell today: what will best boost the Avenue?
Ricotta pies and pepperoni slices may replace the ghosts of bygone fifths and whiskey bottles at a former Dixwell Avenue liquor store — though neighbors are offering mixed reviews about a potential pizzeria on their main commercial strip.
Continue reading ‘Pizza Pitch Splits Newhallville Neighbors’
by | Nov 21, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (3)
Brian Slattery Photo
Dishawn Harris, a.k.a Farmer D., at Saturday's workshop.
Putting your hands to soil to plant garlic. Chewing on a leaf of fresh oregano. Noticing the sun on your face. At “Rooted Youth,” a collaborative event between the Dixwell art center NXTHVN and the garden-creation outfit Root Life, held at the Goffe Street Armory Garden, participants learned about how these simple experiences can open up broader pathways to understanding more about our relationship to our environment, and how we can adapt to climate change.
Continue reading ‘Garden Workshop Teaches How To Put Down Roots’
by | Nov 16, 2023 5:02 pm | Comments (32)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
87 Webster St. destroyed, in preparation for Dixwell block's rebirth.
As an excavator arm reached out to tear down the wall of the old Elks Club at Webster Street and Dixwell Avenue, Beverly Barnes lifted a hand to shield her face from the sight — then readjusted her focus to an anticipated future of bustling sidewalks, modernized apartments and new neighbors.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Elks Lodge Demolished For Dixwell Plaza Redev’
by | Nov 6, 2023 9:57 am | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen / Lisa Reisman / Paul Bass / Laura Glesby photos
Write-in alder candidates (clockwise from top left) Josh Glaab of Ward 10, Fred Christmas of Ward 21, Ira Johnson of Ward 11, Dennis Serfilippi of Ward 25, and Susan Campion of Ward 18.
A high school science teacher in East Rock, a community organizer in Dixwell, a budget watchdog in Westville, and a Tweed critic in Morris Cove are some of the five alder hopefuls this year seeking to convince voters to put pen to ballot to support their write-in candidacies for local legislative office.
by | Nov 3, 2023 2:31 pm | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Toni Thorpe, Royce Hatfield, Richard Cowes, Sara Gonzalez, Latoya Armstrong, and Stephanie Paris-Cooper.
Every day last spring, Latoya Armstrong dropped her daughter off for camp at the Q House.
One day in April, on her way out she scanned a flyer QR code to learn about the programs at the Dixwell community center and found a perfect fit for herself: GED classes by the New Haven Adult & Continuing Education Center.
