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Kamini Purushothaman |
Feb 29, 2024 2:58 pm
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(21)
Skateboarders young and old envisioned stairs, an awning, and 24/7 lights as they met with city officials to map out a plan for a $250,000 renovation of their park.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 31, 2024 9:40 am
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(11)
On Tuesday morning, Peter Davis, a volunteer river keeper with the city parks department, and fellow volunteer David Burgess were over the edge of the slope off Diamond Street in Beaver Hills, lugging a dilapidated couch out of the woods. Around them was a thin carpet of other discarded objects. Among the trash bags were a fan, a decaying rug, a mattress, a rusting wheelchair.
It was a lot of garbage. Davis and Burgess were taking it one piece at a time.
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Laura Glesby |
Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm
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(8)
A tire swing. A skate park. “A lot of butterflies.” And toys promoting “sensory play.”
Neighborhood children eagerly offered those visions for a planned redesign of Kensington Playground, following years of adult-dominated debates over the future of the park.
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Allan Appel |
Jan 29, 2024 10:03 am
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(9)
Clip high, clip low, create a window. Also don’t be a Tarzan and pull on those cut vines lest you disturb insect habitats or the birds high in the trees above.
Those were among the illuminating arboricultural tips offered for some serious de-vining of New Haven’s invasive-threatened native oaks, maples, sycamores, and hackberry trees growing on a beautiful but under-loved patch of city-owned forested greenspace.
A public-private funding structure. A “superintendent of fields.” A department divided into geographical districts, each with a point person for neighbors to contact.
Those ideas are all on the table as the city moves forward with a plan to un-merge the Parks and Public Works Department.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Dec 7, 2023 9:07 am
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Comments
(8)
Pick up more litter, clean the bathrooms better, and designate more point people to deal with public park concerns.
Those are some of the top priorities New Haveners have for their city’s green spaces, as documented in a community input process overseen by the Urban Resource Initiative on behalf of the Elicker administration.
A splash pad, swing set, and children’s play area are en route to Fairmont Park, thanks to playground upgrade plans for the Fair Haven Heights greenspace.
Drenched in sweat, Tashi loaded up a wheelbarrow with nutrient-dense wood chips and mulch from a truck, ready to wheel it to his tree planting crew in Wooster Square. Although the work wasn’t glamorous or pretty, it would be worth it in the spring when the cherry tree’s blossoms come into bloom. Until then, the newly planted trees would have to rest and gain their energy under the autumn sun.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 20, 2023 12:19 pm
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(51)
Lawn signs opposing changes to the city’s charter have started popping up around town — after the chair of New Haven’s parks commission printed 25 “Vote No” placards in a bid to preserve his lifetime seat on the volunteer body that oversees public greenspaces.
That man, David Belowsky, isn’t the only New Havener paying attention to this year’s general election ballot question.
Three hopeful numbers will be posted atop East Rock Park, in a sign urging those who are considering harming themselves to reach out to a new national suicide-prevention hotline instead.
The Elicker administration — and not the parks commission — will have the final say over whether or not the road to the top of East Rock Park remains largely closed to cars, and open to pedestrians and cyclists only.
The mayor said he has received widespread community support for keeping the road largely closed to cars, so he plans not to make a change.
The Elicker administration is moving towards a potential un-merging of the parks and public works departments — or an entirely different parks-service setup altogether — by seeking a consultant to host community conversations around how City Hall should tend its public greenspaces.
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Allan Appel |
Aug 21, 2023 12:17 pm
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Comments
(7)
It’s technically Ailanthus Altissima, or colloquially Tree of Heaven, but in Fair Haven Heights’ Fairmont Park it’s more often called, with a grrrrrrrr, as gardeners labor to uproot it, the Tree of Hell. Or from Hell.
But there’s now a lot less of this quick rising (thus toward heaven?) invasive Chinese species, and that’s thanks to decades of effort by Sylvia Dorsey and her stalwart crew of Friends of Fairmont Park.
by
Mia Cortés Castro |
Jul 20, 2023 3:03 pm
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(93)
After a months-long debate and impasse over whether to fully reopen the road up to the summit of East Rock Park, the Board of Park Commissioners may have stumbled upon a solution: a magic bus.
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Allan Appel |
Jul 5, 2023 12:18 pm
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Comments
(4)
Pablo Sumba and his family left their land-locked home in Waterbury early in the morning to fit in as many waterfront activities as they could during a pre-holiday trip to Lighthouse Point Park — including fishing, swimming, grilling (some of the 12 porgies they caught), and just hanging out with five-month-old baby Lucas, who lay on a blanket on the green grass nearby.
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Asher Joseph |
Jul 3, 2023 11:14 am
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(3)
The sound of rustling leaves merged with squeals of joy and the gurgling of the Kensington Playground splash pad as a light mist wafted through the heavy heat. Despite the stifling smog that hung in the air, neither the Friends of Kensington Playground clean-up volunteers nor the neighborhood’s kids let it deter them from rejoicing in the beauty of a recently saved public park.
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Asher Joseph |
Jun 26, 2023 4:59 pm
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Comments
(1)
Stalks snapped as tie-dye-clad Sierra Welch hunched over a cluster of Japanese knotweeds, wrenching the invasive plant out of the ground off a beaten path in Edgewood Park on Monday afternoon.
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Kian Ahmadi |
Jun 26, 2023 12:14 pm
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Comments
(1)
It took just under half an hour for AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios and a small group of friends to level the mound of mulch that had been sitting by the swing sets at Peat Meadow Park for three months — to make sure that kids have a softer ground to land on the next time they come out to enjoy the Annex public playground.
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Mia Cortés Castro |
Jun 22, 2023 1:06 pm
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Comments
(90)
Parks commissioners delayed deciding on whether or not to fully reopen the road to the top of East Rock Park to cars — as they weighed the testimony of drivers and those who struggle to walk such a long steep slope alongside that of frequent pedestrians and clean-park proponents.
Summer has officially begun — and New Haven is ready for it, with movies in the park and free basketball lessons and open swims and summer-slump-combatting reading challenges on tap.