Bishop Woods/ Q Meadows

Now Showing: Cinema Becomes Daycare

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.

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Alders Approve State Grant To Slow Foxon

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.

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LEAP's Pool To Open This Summer, Too

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.

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Teachers, Paras: Don't Make Staff Cuts

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. 

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Schools Strategize For 2029

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.

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Violence Stopper Dies At 58

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.

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NHPS Food Chief Seeks Shorter Cafeteria Lines

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.

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It's Official: City Buys Ex-Hotel For $6.9M; Housing Authority Buys Ex-Church Street South For $21M

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.

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Hotel-To-Homeless Shelter Plan OK'd

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.

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Another Ocean Tenants Union Forms

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.

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City Eyes Hotel-To-Homeless Shelter Conversion

by and | Aug 1, 2023 10:25 am | Comments (35)

Thomas Breen file photos

The Foxon Boulevard hotel might soon become a homeless shelter.

The Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard will become New Haven’s first non-congregate homeless shelter to serve both individuals and families by this upcoming winter, if an Elicker administration proposal comes to fruition. 

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Lights, Camera ... Childcare! Previewed

by | Jun 7, 2023 8:56 am | Comments (1)

Lisa Reisman photos

In the ex-theater's, future childcare center's front lobby ...

... and refurbished screening room.

Voices lifted in exuberant song outside a movie theater overlooking Middletown Avenue?

Just a few years ago, a scene like that might have been unthinkable at the scruffy but beloved Cine 4 theater that closed last year after 51 years in operation.

The occasion was a sneak peek of Friends Center Flint Street — named for the pitted drive that leads up to the familiar flat-top white building where a local childcare nonprofit plans to build a new early education campus.

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