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Thomas Breen |
Apr 24, 2020 10:06 am
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James Ratliff, soon after getting his coronavirus test.
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison (right) and Hill Health nurse Michael Raffles inside new Dixwell test site.
James Ratliff pulled his bright blue surgical mask back over his face as he left the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center on Dixwell Avenue — two minutes after he had arrived, and one minute after a nurse had stuck a long nasopharyngeal swab up his nose for 15 seconds.
His coronavirus test was done. He’d find out the results in a few days. Now he had to get back to work changing tires.
A Science Park-based job training and education center has launched a new Covid-19 relief fund geared towards raising $600,000 to provide direct financial assistance to Dixwell and Newhallville families struggling during the pandemic.
The New Haven Links, Inc. made its third donation of 900 face masks to public-housing tenants, helping the housing authority reach its first goal of donating 2000 masks to those most vulnerable during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 15, 2020 1:06 pm
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Beulah Land Development Corporation / HELP USA rendering
The proposed 4-story, 69-unit apartment building at 340 Dixwell.
Two affordable housing developers, one from Dixwell and one from New York City, have teamed up to build a new four-story, 69-unit apartment building atop a vacant triangular lot that was formerly home to a gas station, a parking lot, and Joe Grate’s popular barbecue stand.
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Thomas Breen |
Apr 6, 2020 9:26 am
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The former Walt Cleaner’s at 310 Dixwell, now owned by the city.
The city has purchased the former Walt’s Cleaners building on Dixwell Avenue for $150,000 as part of a broader plan to revitalize that commercial corridor’s small business landscape — a plan that a top city official said is now all the more critical, and all the more uncertain, as the Covid-19 pandemic has shut down wide swaths of New Haven’s economy.
Trillions of dollars are flowing from Washington and through the state Capitol to help keep struggling families and businesses afloat amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Will they flow all the way down into urban neighborhoods like Dixwell and Newhallville?
Rodney Williams is watching closely — and is skeptical.
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Thomas Breen |
Mar 24, 2020 3:48 pm
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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.
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.
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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Jon Miller |
Mar 18, 2020 10:04 am
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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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Brian Slattery |
Mar 11, 2020 11:58 am
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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.
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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Thomas Breen |
Feb 12, 2020 2:45 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
Elicker with Patricia Ross. Top concern? Traffic safety.
Patricia Ross has a nickname for the stretch of Division Street outside her apartment where cars drive so quickly she feels she’s always in danger of getting hit: “The Indianapolis Raceway.”
Thomas Jackson at St. Luke’s, where he now serves as pastor.
Thomas Jackson doesn’t see much difference between a good sermon and good journalism. Both, in his view, strive to make people see connections more deeply and build community.
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.
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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Thomas Breen |
Jan 22, 2020 8:45 am
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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.
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.
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.
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.
