New Haven Woman Buys Lipstick On B’way

KIKO Milano cosmetics came to Broadway, then Tropical Smoothies opened up on Dixwell Avenue, across the invisible barrier separating Yale from New Haven’s black community.

Is that progress? And who’s welcome?

Four retail-savvy New Haven pundits joined me in considering that question on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”

The discussion began with the official opening last week of Tropical Smoothie Café below renovated apartments at 15 Dixwell Ave., one of a host of buildings Yale University Properties purchased in lower Dixwell neighborhood with plans for a makeover.

The discussion gravitated to the upscale chain stores Yale brought this past year to the Broadway district, and to whether enlarging Yale’s district amounts to ​“gentrification” or ​“improvement” for all.

The big surprise for most of the panel: Lipstick can be had at KIKO Milano for just $1.50, if you catch it on sale. Though some in New Haven have the sense they’re not encouraged to walk in and find that out.

That made the whole conversation more complicated.

The pundit panel included (pictured above, from left) WNHH radio program radio hosts Michelle Turner (also of WSHU), Babz Rawls-Ivy (who also serves as the Inner City News’ managing editor), and Joe Ugly (also of Ugly Radio), and New Haven Independent staff reporter Markeshia Ricks.

So Long Loosies & Nips

Bass: There is a block where Dixwell Avenue begins that has always been an invisible border between Yale and the Dixwell community. Some of us remember the Soundtrack Cafe [that used to be there].

Turner: Soundtrack 2 was on Dixwell Avenue and supposedly allegedly the old-timers used to say ​“that’s where Frankie Beverly and Maze used to play all the time befoer they got big.”

Bass: That one building at 15 Dixwell, Yale has fixed it up with nice apartments upstairs. They got rid of the liquor store that used to be there that was big on selling loosies and nips. … Now they fixed it up and they got a Tropical Smoothie place. Is this good or is bad? Or are some things not good or bad?

Rawls-Ivy: On the New Haven Independent your normal gadflys will say…VAMPIRES! GENTRIFICATION VAMPIRES!.

Bass: So Jeanette Morrison who represents Dixwell and lives there, she said, ​“This is great. This is a nice place. We like to have a nice smoothie place.” [NHI commenter] Three-fifths said, ​“This is the first step toward gentrification. We’re pricing everyone out and Yale is moving out into the neighborhood.” Which is a double edge sword … People get mad a Yale when they don’t invest in the community and make stuff nicer. And they get mad at Yale when they invest in the community and make stuff nicer because they’re trying to bring in the blond-headed, middle-aged couples or younger couples looking like they’re in Travel+Leisure magazine from Branford.

Rawls-Ivy: Everything is looking like Georgetown.

Bass: What’s Yale supposed to do, and what’s Dixwell supposed to do? Should we have the nips and the loosies on that block? Actually, I wish we still had the Soundtrack Cafe …

Ugly: Your track record is really what’s going to set forth the standard of how the community is going to accept you. If you are doing things with the community and making the community feel inclusive, it’s growth. People see it as Yale is doing something else. But if it’s going to be: just attract a certain group and pushing out others well …

Babz: We like smoothies.

Ugly: I don’t like no smoothies.

Rawls-Ivy: I like smoothies.

Ricks: You like sandwiches though.

Ugly: Could you put some bourbon in that?

Rawls-Ivy: Is there some vegan fare over there?

Bass: That’s right, they do have some vegan fare over there. Yale made Broadway nicer; they have all these stores that never have any customers in them because these people [from the suburbs] aren’t going to come. People from [Yale Locals] 34 and 35 who do come and take the bus do come and they’re standing in a new shelter with the brick sidewalk, and I’m not sure that’s bad.

Rawls-Ivy: I don’t think it’s bad, and I don’t think its gentrification either.

Bass: Oh, it’s definitely gentrification.

Ugly: Of course.

Turner: Whether we want to recognize it or not .… Yale’s everywhere. Whether we realize it or not.

Bass: They are the company in a company town.

Ugly: I hate to say this, but Yale is New Haven. I lived in Europe and I said, ​“I’m from New Haven.” Do you know the first thing [people mention]? Yale University.

Turner: It’s unfortunately or fortunately part of the town’s DNA. They walk hand in hand.

Bass: So what do we want them to do? Do want to fixed up apartments and smoothies?

Turner: You’re not ignoring the neighborhood by putting a simple store there. At the same time it’s not like it’s cut off to us …

Rawls-Ivy: Like it’s whites only.

Bargain On Broadway

Bass: That’s my point. Some of them would like it to be whites only. But I don’t think they’re going to succeed at that. Those stores on Broadway … I think they’re being subsidized by Yale — those kind of chi-chi stores — Forget even just race, why would I ever walk into one of those things?

Rawls-Ivy: Though I want to go to KIKO because they’ve got that makeup in there.

Turner: I’ve been to KIKO.

Rawls-Ivy: Is it cheap?

Ricks: I was saying that KIKO is inexpensive. I don’t think they would take kindly me to using the word cheap, but it’s lovely.

Rawls-Ivy: Do they have a black lipstick? I need a black lipstick.

Ricks: Probably.

Turner: They have nail polishes at like $3.49.

Rawls-Ivy: Really?

Ricks: And if you catch them on sale they are a $1.50.

Rawls-Ivy: That’s a good thing and I’m going in there. I thought they were priced out of my range.

Ugly: And that’s the thing: it’s set up to look like you’re not welcome. That’s why you thought it was priced out of your range.

Ricks: Yeah, because it’s tucked into all those other stores. Emporium — expensive. You can’t get a keychain in there for less than $50. KIKO is an exception. It is a European brand that actually is very well thought of, probably as well thought of as like MAC, which is an expensive high end make-up brand. But it is tucked into these stores, so it has the cachet without the price, but it’s tucked into these stores that are very expensive.

Rawls-Ivy: Although people are sort of always ranting about maybe this is gentrification, but what would development look like? Development from Yale can’t just be they fund our outdoor parks and festivals. it can’t be that small dollar amount as development. It has to be something around this kind of stuff. Where we have shops within walking distance. Because that little tropical place is going to be lovely come summer, when everybody wants to walk down on their way to the Green to get a smoothie.

Ugly: I don’t mind things being set up and it’s nice looking. I love that. I think everyone in the room agrees with that. My only thing is do you feel inclusive when you go buy?

Rawls-Ivy: I do. I wasn’t going into KIKO not because I didn’t think I felt welcome; my purse didn’t feel welcome.

Ugly: See, some part of you didn’t feel welcome.

Turner: I make myself feel welcome wherever I go.

Ugly: Babz didn’t feel economically welcome in KIKO.

Ricks: Well Oprah didn’t feel economically welcome in whatever store she was in trying to look at that really expensive purse.

Rawls-Ivy and Turner: Hermès!

Ricks: [The salesperson] was like, ​“I don’t think you can afford that,” or something like that. So, nothing like that has happened at Broadway, and that’s lovely. At least we’ve never heard of anything like that, but I think New Haven and by extension Yale has this challenge: We live in a city where things are either really expensive or really inexpensive. And if you are a middle-of-the-road dollar like myself, you’re like, ​“Should I buy my underwear at Family Dollar or should I buy them at the Emporium?” My money doesn’t work that way.

Rawls-Ivy: But, but I will got the mall and spend my money in Sephora.

Ricks: I can’t get to the mall, and y’all already know that story.

Rawls-Ivy: Call me baby, I’ll take you to the mall.

Turner: If you want a smoothie you’ll go there and get one. Once people begin to figure out where it is and what it is, it’ll pick up.

Ugly: Have you ever gone up to Cambridge, Mass., by Harvard? Do you see the difference between Boston proper and how that area makes you feel like you’re not really welcome there?

Rawls-Ivy: But that’s just Boston.

Turner: Nah. Trust me, my daughter is going to school in Cambridge. It’s not that bad. It’s quite lovely. Nice places to eat. Now I will tell you, when I went to school in Boston, it was during the time that they were having all this racial strife. And there were certain pockets, it don’t matter what color you are, if you were going through the hood and people don’t know you, you’re in trouble.

Rawls-Ivy: In Atlanta, well done high-end fancy-fancy chi-chi pooh-pooh … black people everywhere. They’re having these same conversations with black people versus black people. So this is an economic conversation, not so much a race conversation.

Ugly: There might have been a time when they felt that way. A lot of businesses when they start off you’re not really welcome, but as economics slows down with your target demographics, they start to open things up. Bars are notorious for that. Restaurants are notorious for that. They start off with a certain demographic, they start slowing down and then, ​“Oh well, we gotta survive,” and then they start opening up to us.

(Ricks remarked after the show that a test of the new Dixwell development will come in how the 15 Dixwell Ave. and surrounding Yale development ends up tying into a rebuilt Dixwell Community ​“Q” House and the new small business development center at Dixwell Plaza three blocks down the street.

Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full episode of ​“Dateline New Haven.” The discussion about Dixwell and Broadway begins at 35:40. The episode, originally aired last Friday, also included discussion of the Yale student protests (at that point, before the university president’s response to protesters) and the proposal to ban smoking in public housing.