Dixwell

Funeral Homes Prep For Pandemic Bump

by | Mar 24, 2020 3:48 pm | Comments (5)

Lucy Gellman / Thomas Breen photos

Local funeral home directors Bill Iovanne, Howard K. Hill, and Eddie Gist: Preparing for the pandemic.

Local funeral homes are scaling back memorial services, stepping up cleaning routines, closely counting protective equipment supplies, and seeking out increased refrigeration capacity as they brace for a potential increase in business because of a potential wave of coronavirus-related mortalities.

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Giving Dixwell His Due, Part 4

by | Mar 23, 2020 1:08 pm | Comments (3)

Jon Miller photo

Pursuit of the Regicides mural at the Westville library.

March 18 was the anniversary of John Dixwell’s death. For more than three centuries, Whalley and Goffe have gotten almost all the attention. Time to give New Haven’s other regicide his due.

Jon Miller is a freelance writer living in Westville. He is currently working on a book about the Regicides, from which these articles are adapted. Click here , here and here to read the first three parts of this series.

John Dixwell had every reason to believe the worst was behind him.

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Giving Dixwell His Due, Part 2

by | Mar 19, 2020 1:25 pm | Comments (0)

Jon Miller photo

Pursuit of the Regicides mural at the Westville library.

March 18 was the anniversary of John Dixwell’s death. For more than three centuries, Whalley and Goffe have gotten almost all the attention. Time to give New Haven’s other regicide his due.

Jon Miller is a freelance writer living in Westville. He is currently working on a book about the Regicides, from which these articles are adapted. Click here to read Part One of this series.

Ten years after his father was executed, King Charles II stepped ashore in Dover. He was already at work on a list of regicides targeted for execution. Crowds cheered the young monarch as Dover Castle, where John Dixwell had once been governor, fired off its cannons in celebration. 

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Giving Dixwell His Due, Part 1

by | Mar 18, 2020 10:04 am | Comments (0)

Jon Miller photo

Pursuit of the Regicides mural at the Westville library.

March 18 is the anniversary of John Dixwell’s death. For more than three centuries, Whalley and Goffe have gotten almost all the attention. Time to give New Haven’s other regicide his due.

Jon Miller, a freelance writer living in Westville, stepped up to the challenge. He is currently working on a book about the Regicides, from which we are publishing three excerpted articles. This is the first.

Sometime in 1665, a stranger showed up in the small village of Hadley, Massachusetts. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance. He was middle aged, 58 to be precise, and stood about 5’7.” If he spoke to anyone, it was probably to ask the way to Reverend Russell‘s house. 

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NXTHVN Breaks Down The Myths

by | Mar 11, 2020 11:58 am | Comments (1)

In a studio somewhere, artist Jarrett Key stands in front of a blank canvas. Their hair is tied up in the shape of a brush. Without a word, they dip their hair into a small bucket of paint, then back up to the canvas behind them. They tilt their head back and begin to paint, without really being able to see what’s behind them.

It can feel trite to say that the process of creating a piece of art is part of the artwork, but Key’s movements are so balletic that in this case, the statement feels true. Understanding how the paintings were made gives more meaning to the finished paintings.

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Dixwell Plaza Revivers Pressed On Details

by | Mar 11, 2020 7:43 am | Comments (12)

Thomas Breen photos

Questioners at Tuesday night’s meeting (clockwise from top left); Dawn Wright, Kerry Ellington, Deniqua Washington, Prakeen Doodala.

HGA

One proposed layout for a new Dixwell Plaza.

Dixwell neighbors, business owners, and community organizers pressed the local developers behind Dixwell Plaza’s planned $200 million overhaul to prioritize affordable housing and to minimize the displacement of existing retail, in a project that will be led in part by an architect who helped design Washington D.C.‘s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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Dixwell Plaza Plan Unveiled, Embraced

by | Jan 30, 2020 9:00 am | Comments (25)

Thomas Breen photo

Erik Clemons: “This is about us being a part of the social contract.” Below: A preliminary sketch of the redeveloped plaza.

HGA rendering

An ambitious planned $200 million redevelopment of Dixwell Plaza would bring a new performing arts center, banquet hall, grocery store, museum, office complex, daycare center, retail storefronts, and 150-plus apartments and townhouses to the neighborhood’s fraying commercial hub.

The local team behind the project received nothing but praise from longtime community members who heralded developers for striving to keep — and build — inter-generational wealth in the heart of black New Haven.

Full house at Stetson for the reveal.

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City Looks To Scoop Up Dixwell Church

by | Jan 23, 2020 5:27 pm | Comments (16)

Allan Appel Photo

308 Dixwell, adjacent to the city-owned ex-Walt’s Cleaners.

The city is prepared to pay $30,000 more than the appraised price for a storefront church building on the critical lower end of Dixwell Avenue.

Why?

The city already owns buildings on both sides of the property and wants to protect plans for a retail revival — from large landlord groups that might otherwise buy it.

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Skate Park Supporters Eye July Opening

by | Jan 22, 2020 8:45 am | Comments (6)

Allan Appel photo / Thomas Breen photo

Skate park promoters Steven Roberts and J. Joseph Jr.

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison: “This park is really going to encourage friendships.”

The backers of a new skate park planned for Dixwell’s Scantlebury Park plan to have the concrete course built and open before this July’s Summer Olympics, now that the city is officially the project’s trustee.

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Ocean Plans New Housing On Dixwell

by | Jan 21, 2020 4:49 pm | Comments (13)

Laura Glesby Photo

265 Dixwell, former home of Monterey Cafe.

The concept for the two buildings.

Ocean Management hopes to transform two vacant Dixwell Avenue properties into apartment buildings with three- and four-bedroom units, including 40 percent subsidized housing.

An owner’s representative shared a concept for the project with the Dixwell community management team — and heard back concerns about the well-being of the children who might move in.

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“Murdered” Teen Invoked At MLK Service

by | Jan 20, 2020 11:06 pm | Comments (22)

Thomas Breen photo

Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers (center) with New Haven Rising leader Scott Marks and Varick Pastor Kelcy Steele.

Murder. Racism.

We should call it out when we see it,” Tyisha Walker-Myers declared Monday night. And she saw it last week when a white state trooper fired seven bullets into the car of a 19-year-old African-American New Havener and killed him.

She saw it. And she called it out.

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Mayor, Cops Gauge Dixwell’s Pulse

by | Jan 9, 2020 1:45 pm | Comments (13)

Thomas Breen photos

Elicker with B*Wak Comfort during neighborhood walk with officers.

The mayor walked out of the cold wintry night with four police officers and into B*Wak Comfort’s Dixwell studio — not to make an arrest, or to ask for votes.

They came to listen. They heard about rooted artists worried about whether they will have a place in a fast-changing neighborhood.

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NXTHVN Reveals Next Moves

by | Jan 8, 2020 1:01 pm | Comments (1)

Deborah Berke Partners

Rendering of NXTHVN plan

Emily Hays Photo

NXTHVN Executive Director Nico Wheadon with Arts Council Executive Director Daniel Fitzmaurice outside commission meeting.

The founders of NXTHVN intend the arts community under construction in New Haven’s Dixwell neighborhood to be so public-facing that its art gallery will literally be transparent.

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Newhall Gardens Community Room Named After Community Hero

by | Jan 7, 2020 8:53 am | Comments (0)

Maya McFadden Photo

Louise Pearsall reviews her community room plaque.

Louise Pearsall harbored doubts about whether her neighbors at Newhall Gardens noticed all the work she did for her community over the past 25 years. Monday her doubts were eliminated — as the community room at the Newhallvile senior public-housing development was named in her honor.

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Dixwell Preps For A “Big Dog” Xmas

by | Dec 19, 2019 3:29 pm | Comments (0)

Three Christmases ago, a Grammy Award nominee came to Dixwell’s Stetson Branch Library to shoot a holiday music video for the kids.The musician — Chris “Big Dog” Davis — is taking a break from a holiday tour to return to Stetson for an “Up Close For Christmas” party. The kids from the video — and all other kids and parents in the “village” — are invited.

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