nothin Green Awakens | New Haven Independent

Green Awakens

Thomas Breen Photo

Proprietor Kica Matos (center) with Bregamos Healing Drummers Michael Mills and Rafael Ramos at last summer’s launch of lunchtime concerts, which resume next week.

New Haven’s Green is waking up.”

Some 2,000 new daffodils are being planted. Ground lights will illuminate the trees. A friends” group is conducting regular clean-ups. Weekly musical performances are beginning next week, leading into a parade of summer festivals.

That seasonal awakening begins Saturday with a day-long Wake Up The Green” spring festival and Powerhouse Day celebration. Events will take place straight from 9 a.m. through the afternoon, including a brass band performance, a talk and book singing for a newly published Hidden History of New Haven book, a swing dance, and annual reenactment of the Colonial Powder House demanding of the keys by the Second Company Governor’s Foot Guard.

Green consultant Christy Hass; Proprietors Janet Arterton and David Newton; Governor’s Foot Guard Major Richard Greenalch, Friend of the Green Geri Mauhs, city arts and culture czar Andy Wolf at WNHH FM.

It’s the heart of the city,” U.S. District Court Judge Janet Arterton reflected as she and other people responsible for the events discussed plans for the Green on an episode of WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven” program. She was joined by David Newton, a fellow member of the The Committee of the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands at New Haven, a self-perpetuating private group that has owned the New Haven Green since the 17th century and contracts with the city’s parks department to maintain it; former city parks official Christy Hass, who has signed on with the group to oversee improvements; city culture chief Andy Wolf; foot guard Major Richard Greenlach; and Geri Mauhs of the Friends of the Green volunteer beautification group.

These renewal efforts were well underway last year before a three-day bender of K2 drug collapses brought national attention to the state of the Green and the role of the Proprietors. That tragedy became an opportunity for the group, the city, and civic institutions to reexamine both how to improve conditions and public participation on the Green and to address public health concerns, Arterton said.

Click on the video to watch the discussion about the New Haven Green on WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven.” The discussion included current tiptoeing” toward allowing more commerce on the Green while protecting its historic mission, and ways the public can get involved.

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