by | Dec 11, 2024 1:01 pm | Comments (36)
Zachary Groz photo
Planning on Tuesday night for a new and improved Green.
An ice skating rink. An “interactive” fountain. A cafe. A new business plaza.
The New Haven Green could look pretty different soon.
by | Nov 11, 2024 12:48 pm | Comments (7)
New City Parks Director Max Webster.
City government’s newly un-merged parks department has a new director, a Yale forestry school grad who most recently worked in the public greenspaces of Chicago.
by | Oct 18, 2024 12:03 pm | Comments (3)
Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Deputy CAO Rebecca Bombero and City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli pitch city-Albertus Magnus deal.
The Albertus Magnus women’s hockey team might soon have their own locker room at Ralph Walker Ice Rink, pending approval of a new five-year agreement between the city and the local Catholic college.
by | Jul 17, 2024 11:37 am | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden Photos
Youth@Work high schoolers bring art to city parks ...
... and work to paint over inappropriate messages like "fuck it, fuck you."
Garfield the cat and a Hillhouse Academics Smurf popped up on two electrical boxes less than a mile apart — as local high schoolers hustled to paint over profanity-laden graffiti in city parks and street corners, in an effort to beautify New Haven this summer.
by | Jul 12, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Quanisha Morrison helps her cousin with arts and crafts ...
... at city's first Family Fun Day of the summer.
Brothers Logan and Mason Bacote enjoyed free ice cream that dribbled down their faces. Rasheem Jr. took a bite of a freshly made slice of pizza alongside his dad Rasheem Miller. And four-year-old Winter was gifted his first ever bicycle.
by | Jul 5, 2024 8:34 am | Comments (2)
Asher Joseph photo
Marquis Brantley (right): Father, uncle, artist, trainer.
“Prepare your minds,” Marquis Brantley announced to his squad of six young athletes, “to crab.” He crouched down on all fours, alternating between his left and right limbs as he “crabbed” to the opposite side of Bowen Field.
“Just because I can do it fast doesn’t mean that you should, too. My hands are a burning mess, so slow down. Feel every moment.”
As Olympians across the globe prepare in advance of the hotly contested 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Brantley trained the next generation of local athletic excellence on Wednesday at their home turf at 175 Crescent St., adjacent to Hillhouse High School.
by | Jun 12, 2024 2:00 pm | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen photo
Youth & Rec’s Gwen Williams and Ronnie Huggins, ready for summer.
More than 700 young New Haveners have above-minimum-wage jobs waiting for them this summer if they accept employment offers from the city’s youth and rec department — thanks to a recent bump in funding for the city’s Youth @ Work program.
by | Jun 6, 2024 11:04 am | Comments (15)
Abiba Biao photos
Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters: "A natural beauty" to the Mill River underpass (pictured below).
Among the weeds and overgrown vegetation of a highway underpass off of State Street, Achievement First Amistad High School juniors Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters couldn’t help but see potential.
The soil, still damp and moist from a recent downpour, could make fertile land for a community garden in the future. What type of foods they would grow is still up for debate.
by | May 20, 2024 3:55 pm | Comments (27)
Paul Bass Photo
"Labor of love": Sculptor Marc Massaro with his finished product.
After a four-year journey, an Italian-American immigrant family landed in Wooster Square Park on Monday, pointing to both the past and the future.
by | May 17, 2024 10:33 am | Comments (4)
Allan Appel photo
Friends of Quarry Park friends Jane Coppock and Tracy Blanford.
A letter, which should have been alarming, arrived at the Parks Department.
It described a growing, layered mound of more than 5,000 square feet of dumped junk like mattresses, refrigerators, old play equipment and construction debris encroaching from private backyards into the public park land of Quarry Park Preserve in Fair Haven Heights.
That letter was dated February 28, 2002!
After more than 20 years, Tracey Blanford, who heads the Friends of Quarry Park Preserve and was the author of that letter, showed up to a parks commission meeting on Wednesday night.
She was polite and civil, and also simmering with two decades of frustrated advocacy over how to get the city to help keep the park clean.
Continue reading ‘Quarry Park Friends To City: Show Us The Survey!’
by and | Apr 26, 2024 4:14 pm | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby Photo
Alex Nieves checks out a freshly-cleaned portable toilet on Thursday afternoon.
An accumulation of feces, old clothes, and drug paraphernalia prompted the city to increase the number of portable restrooms on the New Haven Green from two to six, as city officials search for a more permanent bathroom solution.
by | Mar 26, 2024 10:49 am | Comments (13)
Wikimedia photo
Only one kind of grass allowed for public mower job hopefuls.
City of New Haven job posting
Pre-employment drug test required for seasonal parks caretaker job.
If you want to make $18 an hour cutting grass in the city’s parks this summer, then you better not smoke grass before applying for the job.
Because New Haven requires prospective seasonal parks workers to pass a drug test, including for marijuana, even though recreational cannabis is now legal statewide.
by | Feb 29, 2024 2:58 pm | Comments (21)
Tom Breen Photo
Round 2's coming: Jovon Ladson navigates concrete quarter pipe added in the previous round of skateboarder-city-designed renovations.
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.
Continue reading ‘Skateboarders Envision All-Weather 24/7 Park’
by | Jan 31, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (11)
Brian Slattery Photos
Davis and Burgess.
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.
Continue reading ‘Volunteers Take Out The Trash At Beaver Brook’
by | Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm | Comments (8)
X'Nique suggests to City Engineer Giovanni Zinn that city prioritize shade and sensory play.
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.
by | Jan 29, 2024 10:03 am | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
Anthropology major Chris Kowalski (above) and Aaron Goode (below) de-vine by Beaver Brook.
Brian Slattery Photo
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.
by | Jan 22, 2024 4:54 pm | Comments (3)
It looks like the Christmas season is finally coming to an end on the New Haven Green.
Blame C.J. Zemke.
by | Jan 22, 2024 2:20 pm | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photo
New parks chief Siciliano: Intends "to learn the town."
by | Jan 15, 2024 3:23 pm | Comments (29)
Laura Glesby Photo
Parks staffer Janice Parker, right, explains the department's current structure.
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.
by | Jan 9, 2024 3:59 pm | Comments (10)
The city ordered six people to clear out of a four-tent encampment in Edgewood Park after working with them to find indoor places to stay.
by | Dec 7, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (8)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
URI's Chris Ozyck solicits public parks feedback at 200 Orange.
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.
by | Nov 21, 2023 9:56 am | Comments (2)
Fairmont Park's planned new play area.
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.
Continue reading ‘Make Way For A New Playground At Fairmont Park’
by | Nov 17, 2023 9:20 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen file photo
City Chief Arborist Anastasia Mixsell.
New Haven may soon have an urban forest management plan.
But what does that mean?
Continue reading ‘$360K Planning Grant To Bolster "Urban Forests"’
by | Nov 3, 2023 8:57 am | Comments (9)
Abiba Biao photo
Tashi at work planting cherry blossoms in Wooster Sq.
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.
by | Oct 20, 2023 12:19 pm | Comments (51)
Paul Bass photo
David Belowsky: Vote no to charter revisions — and let him live out his life on the city's Board of Park Commissioners.
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.
Continue reading ‘Parks Lifer Campaigns Against New Charter’