by | Feb 9, 2022 4:53 pm | Comments (18)
Grewal's design for ice cream shop.
Ice cream might be pure happiness for Elena Grewal — but not completely to some of her East Rock neighbors, if it’s offered up with wine and beer.
That divide emerged Tuesday night at a Zoom-assisted meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals at which Grewal’s request for relief for a new shop was heard.
by | Feb 4, 2022 4:16 pm | Comments (11)
Laura Glesby Photos
Linda Gilliams and Westin Robinson in their home of 20 years.
Last bits of back fence not stolen or demolished.
When Westin Robinson heard the whir of a power drill coming from her backyard earlier this week, she walked outside to see a stranger scampering off with the second-to-last remaining slab of her back fence.
She didn’t bother shouting after him. She sighed.
Robinson has replaced that back wall of her fence three times since the start of the pandemic. Each new fence costs thousands of dollars. She can’t afford to redo it another time.
Her neighbors and their friends kick down the fence, section by section, again and again — removing most of the boundary between her neighbors’ yard and the house at 157 Edgewood Ave. that she has owned for 20 years.
Continue reading ‘Dwight Neighbor Seeks Help Mending Fences’
by | Jan 27, 2022 8:50 am | Comments (9)
Zoom
Kim Harris and Barbara Vereen speak out against the APT Foundation's planned move to Newhallville.
Four hundred and fifty people have signed their names in opposition to a methadone clinic’s planned move to Newhallville, with organizers just getting started.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Petition to Stop Methadone Clinic’
by | Jan 25, 2022 1:15 pm | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby file photo
Grewal in front of the possible future ice cream shop.
When Elena Grewal looks at the vacant storefront at 831 Orange St., she envisions swirling soft-serve, dollops of hot fudge, coffee and wine, and neighbor-to-neighbor conversations.
by | Jan 21, 2022 11:23 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen File Photo
SCSU Prez Joe Bertolino (at right).
Southern Connecticut State University Joe Bertolino is back making rounds of New Haven neighborhoods, looking to link his campus to the community.
Continue reading ‘President Joe (The Original) Returns To CMT Hustings’
by | Jan 19, 2022 9:41 am | Comments (16)
PMC
Preliminary project sketch.
A Philadelphia-based developer revealed plans to build a 13-story apartment building on the ever-densifying border of Downtown and Wooster Square — if it can win a requested zoning change.
by | Dec 22, 2021 3:58 pm | Comments (19)
Mark Massaro's design for a new statue in Wooster Square Park.
Is the art too saccharine? Obsolete on arrival?
Does it tell only an Italian story and not one that reflects the diversity of Wooster Square today?
Has the community not truly been engaged in the process?
And where in the original charge to artists a year ago was there permission to pave over more than a thousand square feet of precious green space?
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Pillory Design For Columbus Statue Replacement’
by | Nov 26, 2021 9:27 am | Comments (53)
Allan Appel Photo
Enough already?
Alder Kim Edwards: “It took me weeks to get a car towed.”
How many parking tickets are issued, where and when?
Do traffic enforcers bring in more money than they cost? Should city hire more? Issue more tickets?
Do so many residential parking zones eliminate free, legal spots?
East Rock neighbors raised those questions — and started hunting for answers.
Continue reading ‘East Rockers Seek Parking Answers, & Fixes’
by | Nov 19, 2021 9:58 am | Comments (8)
Courtney Luciana Photo
Supt. Tracey: Pressure’s on, even amid flow of money.
One big challenge: Competing with higher-paying districts to recruit teachers.
Another big challenge: The shortage of school bus drivers.
Another challenge: Finding qualified people to staff the after-school programs funded by American Rescue Plan dollars.
Another challenge: Mental health challenges complicating kids’ efforts to catch up with learning time lost through Covid-caused remote learning.
Continue reading ‘“I Consider Myself A Covid Superintendent”’
by | Nov 8, 2021 12:38 pm | Comments (3)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Zoom? What’s Zoom?: Sunday’s gathering.
A neighbor’s raucous late night parties. Speed bumps. How to close down parts of State Street for a spring festival.
For a time, the first in-person monthly gathering of the East Rock Community Management Team (CMT) since the pandemic started, seemed, well, a return to normal.
by | Nov 5, 2021 2:21 pm | Comments (8)
Laura Glesby Photos
Empty lot at 506 Winchester, envisioned for playground.
Raegan Ferrell, pictured, has ideas for a possible new playground.
An overgrown Newhallville lot might become a playground, with springing bumblebee seats, a log-shaped tunnel, and mushroom stepping stones.
But when the city presented these plans to the neighbors, parents and grandparents balked. The park looks well-designed, they said, but would their children be safe?
by | Oct 8, 2021 8:42 am | Comments (5)
Emily Hays Photo
The Kensington playground.
As a lawsuit drags on over a Kensington Street Park playground, an affordable housing developer has canceled a promise to donate apartments to a neighborhood nonprofit.
Continue reading ‘Fighting Lawsuit, Builders Cancel Donation’
by | Sep 28, 2021 1:14 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photo
Lt. Dana Smith: Now the top cop for East Rock/Newhallvillle.
Zoom
Newly minted Dwight/Beaver Hills top cop Lt. Ryan Przybylski.
Newhallville, East Rock and Cedar Hill have a new neighborhood top cop — Lt. Dana Smith, who has stepped into the district manager role as Lt. Manmeet Colon moves over to Internal Affairs.
And a little further west in Dwight and Beaver Hills, Lt. Ryan Przybylski has risen to the role of district manager, replacing recently promoted Capt. John Healy.
by | Sep 9, 2021 2:28 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photo
A pothole on Seneca Road.
Old potholes are plaguing Seneca Road. New bike lanes are popping up on Yale Avenue. Persistent wood smoke is clouding over Cleveland Road. And gunfire is rattling South Genesee Street.
That street-level snapshot of life in Westville and West Hills came into focus during the latest monthly meeting of the neighborhoods’ community management team.
by | Sep 9, 2021 1:34 pm | Comments (2)
Courtney Luciana file photo
A protest sign at Kensington Playground.
The Dwight Community Management Team tabled a proposal to prohibit the city from ever giving up the only public park in a neighborhood — out of a concern that such a policy might interfere with the city’s legally-contested sale of Kensington Playground to an affordable housing developer.
Continue reading ‘Playground Protection Quest Stalls In Dwight’
by | Sep 8, 2021 12:05 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen photo
Shahkim Khalil gets vaccinated on the Green in July.
Zoom
Dr. Venkatesh at Tuesday’s Dwight management team meeting.
Asked yet again about whether or not the Covid-19 vaccine causes more harm than good, a Yale emergency medicine doctor pointed to an Iowa hospital inundated with patients.
Those patients are suffering from Covid-19, he said, and not from vaccine side effects.
Continue reading ‘Yale Doc: Covid, Not Vax, Is What’s Dangerous’
by | Sep 3, 2021 12:59 pm | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Criscuolo Park splash pad getting use this summer.
Back in 2017 Fair Haven neighbors, parents, and activists advocated to upgrade scenic Criscuolo Park in Fair Haven with a boat launch and maybe even a climbing wall.
They didn’t get those, but they did receive reconfigured and relocated play areas for little and big kids and a spiffy new splash pad.
Now more improvements — new swings and perhaps permanent tables for dominoes and chess — are on the way.
Continue reading ‘Criscuolo Park Swings Into Next Phase Of Upgrades’
by | Sep 2, 2021 1:03 pm | Comments (29)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Leslie Radcliffe: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
A new training program for community management team leaders is in the works, as a group of alders aims to offer centralized guidance to the grassroots neighborhood teams.
by | Aug 24, 2021 12:26 pm | Comments (6)
U.S. AIR FORCE
More than 600 Afghan citizens fleeing Taliban aboard U.S. Air Force C-17 on Aug. 15.
A New Haven agency on the front lines of resettling Afghan refugees came to East Rock neighbors with a wish list for help.
Continue reading ‘IRIS Puts Out Call For Help For Afghan Arrivals’
by | Aug 19, 2021 12:13 pm | Comments (5)
Zoom
Avi Meer, right, attorney Ben Trachten at management team meeting.
After butting heads with neighbors over a collapsed wall and a failed request for zoning relief, a landlord logged onto Zoom in a peace quest.
Continue reading ‘Landlord, Neighbors Hash Out Wall Collapse’
by | Aug 6, 2021 12:05 pm | Comments (18)
Actor/ producer Michael Jai White pitches plan recently in New Haven (at right); East Haven label (left) eyeing Fair Haven move.
Two visions to revive long-abandoned industrial stretches of Fair Haven clashed, as a potential new brewer and a potential new movie production company sought support of neighbors.
Continue reading ‘Beer & Movies Duke It Out On River Street’
by | Jul 21, 2021 3:51 pm | Comments (18)
The owners of Unger’s Flooring have a plan.
The longtime, struggling Grand Avenue retailer is looking to add two floors of apartments to its buildings, add townhouses in the back of the rarely used parking lot, and rescue a long-blighted building adjacent to the lot. The plan would also include converting an old masonry building across the avenue into five more apartments
The result: “An adaptive reuse of three blighted structures in a corridor where there’s a mixture of homeless people, neighborhood people, and it could certainly use some life.”
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Skeptical About Adding Floors To Unger’s Flooring’
by | Jul 21, 2021 3:21 pm | Comments (17)
Scheme of planned development.
Downtown neighbors gave thumbs up to the latest proposal for building new apartments — and especially liked the idea of limiting the number of parking spaces.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Praise Planned 7-Story Crown St. Apartments’
by | Jul 14, 2021 9:40 am | Comments (12)
Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
The scene at Tweed Friday, when the terminal was flooded with a foot of water from Tropical Storm Elsa.
The two leading candidates for mayor split Tuesday night on the next steps in considering a deal to expand Tweed New Haven Airport.
by | Jul 6, 2021 2:17 pm | Comments (5)
Jane Comins Photo
At Kensington Playground.
A proposal is making the rounds of New Haven neighborhood meetings. Its pitch: The Board of Parks Commissioners should never give up the only public park in a neighborhood, and it should always ensure each neighborhood has at least one playground with a playscape and a splash pad or water element.
Continue reading ‘Grassroots Quest Aims To Save Playgrounds’