by | Jan 20, 2025 11:53 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen photos
201 Winchester and 235 Winchester (below), now under new ownership.
For the first time in more than two decades, a vacant lot and an incomplete apartment building on Winchester Avenue are no longer controlled by NFL cornerback-turned-housing developer Kenny Hill.
by | Jan 17, 2025 3:28 pm | Comments (7)
Laura Glesby Photo
Mandy Management tenants Noela, Mlebinge, and Jacqueline in the Clarion hotel lobby on Wednesday, waiting to go home.
After a two-night stay in a Hamden hotel, a family of nine Congolese refugees moved back to their Dickerman Street apartment on Friday morning — where, for the first time this winter, the heat came on.
by | Jan 9, 2025 12:34 pm | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen photos
"Old," leaving the warming center for a bit: "I try not to complain."
David Cox: "This is not where I want to be."
As the temperature outside dipped into the 20s Thursday morning, David Cox sat inside a Dixwell church extended-hour warming center — his legs crossed, bundled up in a coat and scarf and beanie hat, his walker by his side and a window sill lined with Pothos plants behind him.
He didn’t want to be at that warming center. And he didn’t plan on staying long. But for now, with the weather dangerously cold, it was a safe place to be.
by | Jan 6, 2025 10:50 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
Varick Church, to stay at 242 Dixwell.
A historic Black church won’t be leaving Dixwell Avenue after all — now that congregants have voted against moving forward with a plan to sell the building and relocate.
by | Jan 3, 2025 9:38 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photo
Porto working as building manager during the school day ...
Contributed photo
... and as Wilbur Cross softball coach after class.
Andrew Porto takes pride in his daily work keeping preschool classrooms and hallways clean on Goffe Street — before heading across town to coach Wilbur Cross’s softball team.
“This job has been great to me,” he said during a recent interview about his three decades as a New Haven custodian and his two decades as a mentor for public school athletes. And there’s so much more he still wants to do.
by | Dec 23, 2024 4:12 pm | Comments (3)
Santana Brightly's “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are."
A camera, held by a man in a hoodie, dominates a scene of seeming chaos. Two more hands help hold it up. Someone else’s finger rests on the shutter button. Still another hand shifts the lens. Look more closely and virtually everyone in the crowd is shooting pictures.
The piece, “You Have The Power To Determine Who You Are” by Santana Brightly, was among the works spotlighted at the opening of an exhibit on Saturday at Stetson Library. Santana, a seventh-grade student at Hamden’s Sahge Academy, produced the piece while taking part in a month-long graphic arts workshop in AI Art this summer at Stetson.
Continue reading ‘Stetson AI Art Exhibit Beams Light On Future’
by | Dec 19, 2024 5:40 pm | Comments (11)
Nathaniel Rosenberg file photo
Daily Jackson, loved for his heart and his humor.
Tiny footprints in concrete and a “Daily knock” at the door helped bring Daily Jackson’s memory to life Thursday morning at a crowded funeral service for the 17-year-old Riverside student who was shot and killed in Newhallville earlier this month.
Continue reading ‘Teen Homicide Victim Mourned As "Beautiful Spirit"’
by | Dec 18, 2024 11:35 am | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
235 Winchester: Fined for blight, foreclosure in January?
A long-vacant Winchester Avenue property that a developer and the city have fought over for two decades is the subject of $6,300 in new anti-blight fines — and a new “final” foreclosure date set for next month.
by | Dec 2, 2024 11:13 am | Comments (2)
Lisa Reisman photo
The Resiliency Center team, including interim executive director Judy Barron, co-founder Sergio Rodriguez, director Lorraine Rogers, and educational consultant Andrenna Paolillo.
There’s a wall hanging in the entrance hall of the new Resiliency Center, a reconnection agency on Dixwell Avenue that opened as part of ‘r kids Family Center with a recent ribbon-cutting.
It’s headed: “How to Really Love a Child.”
by and | Nov 25, 2024 12:50 pm | Comments (56)
Thomas Breen photo
(Updated) Uzziah Shell, the 16-year-old shot to death this past Friday, had been involved in recent disputes with youth crews in town, according to people familiar with the case.
Continue reading ‘Teen Homicide Victim Was Riverside Student’
by | Nov 20, 2024 8:21 am | Comments (3)
Jabez Choi photos
Ari D.: “I really want to do something that makes a difference."
Ari D. took a step towards making a hoped-for career change from working with cars to working with doctors and patients — as she joined 20 fellow New Haveners for a Dixwell info session about all-remote, customer-service “caller” jobs at the Yale Medicine CARE Center.
by | Nov 18, 2024 10:44 am | Comments (13)
Jabez Choi photos
Sherry Chapman: “The trauma to families is immeasurable and life lasting."
342 flags marking each life lost on CT's roads since last November.
Carri Roux had expected to find her son, Luke, back at the house after she finished walking the dog. But he was missing.
He never made it home.
Two years later, at a locally hosted memorial for lives lost on Connecticut’s roads, Roux described how scenes from that horrible day remain “etched” in her memory — and how a serious statewide focus on traffic safety could prevent future tragedies.
by | Nov 14, 2024 10:16 am | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
Aerialist Ky Adams represents mothers and their children soaring.
From a table crammed with leaflets in the gymnasium at the Dixwell Community “Q” House, Sharnasia Booker watched a circus artist perform gravity-defying stunts on an aerial hoop, seemingly leaping through the air and taking flight — a representation of what young mothers and their children can do with the right support.
by | Nov 12, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (3)
Abiba Biao photo
De Leon and Holmes: 2 runners at different points in their careers.
Mid-distance runner Farah Santiago De Leon, 12, sat next to world-renowned Olympic athlete Alexis Holmes and looked into the future — imagining the athletic feats that she, too, might one day achieve.
Continue reading ‘Young Runner Sees Herself In Olympic Gold Medalist’
by | Nov 11, 2024 9:06 am | Comments (5)
Arthur Delot-Vilain file photo
Opuszynski (left): “I bought it from [Xu] after he didn’t want to deal with the headache.”
A Madison-based investor now owns two of three foreclosed former co-op properties on Henry Street — after buying the row home for $480,000 from Bethany-based landlord Jianchao Xu.
by | Nov 8, 2024 3:59 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
Varick Church: So long, 242 Dixwell?
A historic Black church that has spent the past century-plus in the heart of Dixwell is considering relocating — amid a broader building up of the neighborhood’s commercial corridor.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell's Varick Church Eyes Potential Move’
by | Nov 1, 2024 1:20 pm | Comments (15)
Laura Glesby photo
CT VIP Director of Operations Linda Baylor: “I want to change the mood when you walk in here."
When an 11-year-old made headlines for stealing a car, a team of violence preventers knocked on his door to ask him what he needed. They found only a mattress and a milk crate in his bedroom.
That child was on Len Jahad’s mind when a group of politicians arrived at Connecticut Violence Intervention & Prevention (CT VIP)’s headquarters to celebrate $275,000 in federal funds allocated for capital improvements to the building.
Continue reading ‘Anti-Violence Rx: Food. Laundry. Community’
by | Oct 31, 2024 2:03 pm | Comments (2)
Contributed photo
Scenes from LEAP's Oct. 25 halloween fest at the Q.
The following writeup was submitted by Leadership, Education, and Athletics in Partnership, Inc. (LEAP) Communications Director Melissa Liriano, about a Halloween festival at the Q House last Friday.
by | Oct 30, 2024 3:47 pm | Comments (1)
Contributed photo
At Q House's college fair on Wednesday.
Hundreds of high school students met with representatives from dozens of higher ed institutions Wednesday at the Q House’s latest annual college and community resources fair.
by | Oct 28, 2024 11:08 am | Comments (26)
Jabez Choi photos
Cherene Cotter: "To have a president come in and deport immigrants… I can’t do that.”
U.S. Sen Blumenthal (right) addresses Saturday's crowd.
With a closing pitch centering abortion access and worker power, local and state elected officials gathered on Dixwell Avenue to rally for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot — especially Vice President Kamala Harris in her presidential contest with former President Donald Trump.
by | Oct 28, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photos
Awilda Sterling-Duprey in "...blindfolded" ...
... soundtracked live by Jesse Hameen II, Morris Trent, and Johnathan Moore, at NXTHVN.
In the large common area at NXTHVN on Henry Street, a temporary, two-segment wall was erected, mounted with black paper. Artist Awilda Sterling-Duprey moved in that small space, a blindfold over her eyes, large pastels in her hands — improvisational jazz helping guide her way, during the last weekend of New Haven Open Studios.
Continue reading ‘A Month Of Art Ends "Blindfolded," Sublime’
by | Oct 22, 2024 5:05 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
An endangered insect defied the trajectory of climate change and landed in a permanent new spot on a brick wall on County Street.
Continue reading ‘City's Largest Mural Enlivens County Street’
by | Oct 21, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby photos
Dr. Robinson, with Alder Streater: “We are part of a story. That story can be better and better.”
The sign is revealed.
A seemingly ordinary street corner morphed into a dance floor, a concert hall, and a classroom, in honor of a beloved neighbor and teacher who has made history by remembering it.
by | Oct 15, 2024 5:10 pm | Comments (12)
Dereen Shirnekhi photos
New housing and grocery, among others, to come to former Dixwell Plaza.
On the grave of the now-demolished Dixwell Plaza, work began Tuesday on the 186 housing units, the new 69,000 square-foot headquarters for job training, and the food hall set to rise in its place.
by | Oct 9, 2024 1:08 pm | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman photo
Destiny McKenzie and Sharnasia Booker, with their babies, at Mind Blossom session at the Q.
Ashley Brown was having a rough week. The mother of five felt like the world was closing in on her. Then came a call from Chantell Thompson, reminding her of an upcoming session of a new maternal health program run by the nonprofit Mind Blossom each week at the Q House.
“I was tired, but your call made me feel good, it made me want to come,” Brown told Thompson, a facilitator of the program, at the end of a recent 90-minute session.