As 150 downtown merchants and movers celebrated their special services district’s 10th birthday, their leader announced he’s moving on.
Scott Healy, the urbane executive director of the Town Green Special Services District, which is widely credited with being essential to the comeback of downtown, announced he will be leaving his post in August. The announcement was made at the Town Green’s 10th anniversary soiree at the Omni Hotel Tuesday night.
The purpose of the evening was not to mourn Healy’s departure — he’s leaving to do graduate school in business at the University of Chicago — but to celebrate achievements of the last decade, many under his tenure.
These include creation of the visitor centers, the clean teams, and the green-shirted ambassadors, who greet and assist downtown visitors; and the deployment of the flower planters in the real downtown. Healy also created infonewhaven.com, a kind of town green in cyberspace that promotes downtown art, dining, and business; and, most recently, the Wine, Dine, Design series that celebrated the design genius of the city and the extraordinary degree to which architecture is an Elm City export.
Among those celebrating 10 years of the Town Green SSD were Mary Lou Aleskie, executive director of the Arts & Ideas festival, just completed. She was not only still standing after her festival of 1,001 events, but feeling very good, even joyous, she said. “Given that we had the worst June weather, including a rain-out on opening night, since 1816, it was a triumphant success.”
She suggested that many of the activities, especially those taking place downtown, attracted more tri-state participation than ever, likely due to two plays premiering. The ticketed events were all sold out. “What with the weather, we probably broke even financially. We’re holding our heads high and looking forward to new partnerships for next year,” she said.
The mayor got the proceedings started by saying that “sometimes you can’t appreciate where you are until you reflect where you’ve been.” He reminded people of how many stores were failing a decade ago. “Even this hotel we’re in,” he said, “was boarded up. You’ve done tremendous work.”
In exchange for a tax levy on participating downtown stakeholders, the Town Green SSD supplements city services with the ambassadors, additional cleaning, promotion, marketing, business matchmaking and retention services, and much else that may not be apparent but undergirds city life.
For example, dealing with homeless people and panhandlers. Kyle Pedersen (pictured with nine-year ambassador Pat Conyers and Town Green deputy director Daisy Abreu), is the senior program coordinator for the Community Services Network (of the Connecticut Mental Health Center) and a member of the SSD’s hospitality committee. He and Liz Rider, who owns Ten Thousand Villages, were concerned both with the problem of homeless people threatening downtown strollers, but also the needs of social justice.
So they developed the Street Sheet, which is a guide to New Haven agencies that provide food, clothing, shelter, and emergency services for people in crisis. After several editions, which Pederson helped to secure through grants, restaurants and retailers display it. “Ambassadors” pass it out. Local marketers have incorporated it as part of a campaign to “Give Better. Real Change Takes More than Spare Change.”
Discussing his achievements, Healy said he was proud of how the Town Green has spawned sister SSDs, including GAVA, the Grand Avenue Merchants Association, and, most recently the Upper State Street Association. The latter group’s founder, Ben Berkowitz (on the left), was honored as the Town Green’s “Collaborator of the Year.”
Other honorees included local developer, John Wareck, the “Downtowner of the Year,” and Stewart Johnson, who was hailed as “Decorator of the Year” for his window magic at Hull’s arts supply stores.
Johnson (pictured with Hull’s owner Stephen Kovel, on the right), was praised by Healy for his “incredible visual merchandising sense.” Until Hull’s opened its store on Whitney, their Chapel Street store was technically not within the boundaries of the Town Green SSD. Still they love the SSD’s contribution to downtown so much, they support it anyway.
If the Town Green had to make a special push, Johnson suggested it would be “finding better ways to get people to downtown New Haven. Too many people in the burbs still just don’t know that New Haven is not only rich in things to do, but it’s pretty safe and parking is not the hassle that the myths give rise to.”
The featured speaker of the night, renowned architect Cesar Pelli, continued the love fest for New Haven. He not only reviewed the many buildings he has created downtown (as well as around the world), he also explained why he chose to plant his flag in the Elm City, both as an architect and investor. “People ask me,” he said, “why I don’t live in New York. I think New York is too noisy, too distracting. New Haven, I believe, is ideal for an architect.”
Especially for architects interested in building energy-efficiently, and greenly, as well as beautifully. “What other city in the world,” he asked, “does half your staff walk to work? I even work to work, sometimes.”
According to Kathleen Krolak, the Town Green’s director of business development, the search for Scott Healy’s successor is just beginning.