by | Apr 10, 2025 1:14 pm | Comments (10)
contributed photos
91 Diner owner Stavros Karadimos with his son, decades ago.
On its last day, the diner's door "kept revolving" with customers saying goodbye.
“I feel like I’m grieving a death,” said Georgette Ieraci, as she described the feeling of saying goodbye to the Middletown Avenue diner her family opened and ran for 38 years.
by | Mar 27, 2025 3:48 pm | Comments (25)
Thomas Breen photos
City climate czar Winter: Get ready for curbside compost.
Seagulls swoop above the trash pile at the city transfer station.
CWPM operations manager Carl Oberg fires a "screamer" to disperse seagulls from the dump. He said he fires this loud-sound device up to 15 times a day. Why? Because seagulls pick up trash and drag it all over the place. Also, "they're known to poop."
The star of a press conference at the city dump Thursday afternoon was an unassuming green plastic bag that, in the not-too-distant future, New Haveners will fill with apple cores and banana peels and leave for curbside pickup on trash day.
by | Mar 20, 2025 9:30 am | Comments (4)
Facebook and GoFundMe
The victims of the July 2024 fatal crash: Dajsha Knight (top left) with her mom, and Madysin Hilker (bottom center) at her high school graduation.
One driver’s decision to drive past the double yellow line on Middletown Avenue caused a three-vehicle crash that killed two people and severely injured six others.
Police have now arrested the man allegedly behind the wheel, along with another driver who purportedly fled the scene.
by | Feb 26, 2025 2:14 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen file photo
I-91 diner, under new ownership.
A gas station development crew from Trumbull and the Bronx has purchased the I‑91 diner site for $1.225 million — as a neighbor seeks to stop the burgers-to-fuel conversion through a state court appeal.
by | Nov 25, 2024 12:52 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen file photo
Next stop: Gas station.
A highway-adjacent diner took a big step towards becoming a gas station, thanks to approvals granted by the City Plan Commission.
by | Oct 18, 2024 4:17 pm | Comments (8)
Laura Glesby photo
Ann Moore: Eager to learn sign language alongside the babies in her new classroom.
Coming soon to a theater near you is a classroom of babies learning ASL alongside their ABCs.
That is, a former theater — the old Cine 4 movie theater at 25 Flint St., which on Monday will reopen as four infant-and-toddler classrooms as well as a new administrative hub for Friends Center for Children.
by | Aug 20, 2024 1:04 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen file photo
420 Middletown Ave.: Diner now, gas station soon?
A Middletown Avenue mainstay for burgers and fries could next become a site for pumping gas and charging electric cars.
by | Aug 8, 2024 3:16 pm | Comments (23)
Laura Glesby Photos
Q Meadows Alder Theresa Morant: “Yes! A safer neighborhood, finally!”
Laura Glesby File Photo
Route 80, make way for slower traffic, including in front of the 270 Foxon Blvd. hotel-turned-shelter.
Traffic calming medians and lighting are one step closer to coming to a six-lane stretch of Route 80, also known as Foxon Boulevard, thanks to $1.6 million in state funds that city government has now officially accepted.
by | Jun 28, 2024 9:14 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
LEAP Aquatics Director Oscar Rodriguez at the soon-to-be-filled-with-water Jefferson Street pool.
A privately owned pool will be open for free public access on Friday evenings — and for low-cost swim lessons throughout the summer — thanks to a youth athletics and tutoring nonprofit’s commitment to keeping the community in the water.
by | Jun 12, 2024 11:43 am | Comments (20)
Contributed photo
At Monday's school board meeting; Karen Wilkinson and Minnie Evans.
As New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Superintendent Madeline Negrón grapples with the prospect of staff layoffs for next school year, long-term substitute teacher Maria Threese Serana called for more recognition of subs like herself who have been filling classroom vacancies daily since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
by | May 29, 2024 6:13 pm | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden File Photo
Kindergarten reading levels: Going up, up, up?
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Superintendent Madeline Negrón has her eyes set on bringing kindergarteners’ literacy proficiency rates up from the current 18 percent to 80 percent by 2029 — as one of many goals included in the district’s new five-year strategic plan.
by | May 20, 2024 12:32 pm | Comments (24)
Thomas Breen photo
Foxon & Middletown, near site of Saturday's fatal crash.
A state-funded local plan to build traffic-calming medians on Foxon Boulevard moved forward at City Hall — several days before a 22-year-old driver lost his life in a fiery crash on the state-owned speedway itself.
Continue reading ‘As Foxon Safety Plan Advances, Crash Kills Driver’
by | Apr 15, 2024 5:35 pm | Comments (7)
City of New Haven photos
Before and after photos of the now-cleared former encampment.
The city cleaned up an abandoned homeless encampment off of Middletown Avenue Monday morning after the site’s sole former resident had a chance to retrieve any remaining belongings.
by and | Apr 11, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas MacMillan file photo
Wallace in the Hill with two of the youngest members of Guns Down, Books Up.
Raymond Wallace led by example, showing young New Haveners that they too could turn away from violence and towards a life of self-respect and love for their community.
He organized book giveaways and street cleanups and basketball tournaments, ran for alder, and mentored countless youth along the way through his nonprofit Guns Down, Books Up.
by | Feb 29, 2024 9:16 am | Comments (34)
Laura Glesby Photo
Supt. Negrón: Targets 60 percent student-teacher gap.
Schools officials unveiled a plan to increase the number of educators of color in New Haven classrooms by 15 percent in three years.
by | Feb 27, 2024 9:56 am | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden Photo
Ann Brillante: Coming home.
Ten years after she left Metropolitan Business Academy to become an assistant principal at Wilbur Cross, Ann Brillante will return in two weeks to helm the Water Street interdistrict magnet high school.
by | Feb 15, 2024 12:40 pm | Comments (5)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Emojiis: Closed Valentine's Day, ordered to stay closed after 11.
A bar has been barred from expanding its hours — after a plea by the owners of Emojiis on Middletown Avenue got more thumbs down than smiley faces from local police and next-door neighbors.
by | Feb 5, 2024 1:29 pm | Comments (1)
WaveMAX's ribbon-cutting ceremony.
In December, Michelle Robinson graduated from the city’s program for new entrepreneurs. Last week, she and her husband Jazz Stair celebrated the grand opening of WaveMAX, their new laundromat in Quinnipiac Meadows.
by | Jan 25, 2024 12:01 pm | Comments (4)
U.S. Attorney's Office
Social media postings by arrested alleged Exit 8 members, entered into evidence. The 8 ball is a reference to the gang.
New Haven has seen fewer shots fired these days — in part because of the arrest of a street gang “honcho” who has pleaded guilty to firing shots meant to kill.
by | Jan 8, 2024 9:16 am | Comments (9)
Maya McFadden photo
NHPS Food Services Director Baron Young: Backing up student ID numbers will avoid cafeteria traffic jams.
Faster lunch lines. More student feedback. Less wasted food.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Food Services Director Baron Young has these goals in mind as he learns and works to resolve a myriad of food-related concerns six months into the role.
Continue reading ‘NHPS Food Chief Seeks Shorter Cafeteria Lines’
by and | Nov 27, 2023 4:32 pm | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen file photos
270 Foxon Blvd., newly acquired by the city ...
... ex-Church Street South land, newly bought by the housing authority.
The city has officially purchased a Foxon Boulevard hotel for $6.9 million, and is now busy converting it into a non-congregate homeless shelter that the Elicker administration said it hopes to open before Christmas.
And the housing authority has closed on its $21 million acquisition of more than eight acres of Union Station-facing vacant land that used to house the Church Street South apartment complex, and is about to embark on a year-long planning process to determine how best to transform that empty expanse.
by | Oct 27, 2023 1:46 pm | Comments (9)
Contributed photo
Ward 12 Democratic alder candidate Theresa Morant.
A New Haven native and Yale New Haven Hospital secretary is running unopposed to become the next alder for Ward 12 — with a focus on finding some way to calm traffic on the neighborhood’s car-crazy stretch of Rt. 80.
Continue reading ‘Rt. 80 Traffic Top Of Mind For Next Ward 12 Alder’
by | Oct 12, 2023 4:35 pm | Comments (12)
Laura Glesby photo
Chris Murphy asks Raisa about her family as she shows him a photo of her daughter.
As 85-year-old Raisa pulled up a photograph of her daughter on her iPhone, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy took a break from walking across Fair Haven Heights to ask her a question.
“Is she safe?”
by | Oct 3, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (54)
Thomas Breen photos
City Director of Community Resilience Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, with Community Services Administrator Eliza Halsey: This is a "game changer."
Thomas Breen file photo
Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes: Not the right plan, not the right place.
The Board of Alders overwhelmingly approved the Elicker administration’s plans to spend $6.9 million in mostly federal funds to purchase the 56-room Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard and convert it into a non-congregate homeless shelter.
by | Aug 31, 2023 8:11 am | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby Photo
Fair Rent Director Wildaliz Bermúdez meets Hope.
Fed up with waking up to the rancid stench of flooded sewage in her apartment building’s basement, Hope started knocking on some of her neighbors’ doors at 1275 – 1291 Quinnipiac Ave.
Within six weeks, Hope had joined with other organizers with the Connecticut Tenants Union to gather 21 signatures from residents of the building’s 20 units. They officially filed the paperwork to become New Haven’s third and fastest-to-form tenants union on Wednesday afternoon.