Dixwell

Burgers Brought To Dixwell, With Message

by | May 28, 2020 3:01 pm | Comments (19)

Thomas Breen photo

Wahlburgers chef Paul Wahlberg (right) and Crescent Capital’s Mark Devincentis at Thursday’s burger giveaway.

A Massachusetts-based burger restaurant, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, and the state treasurer’s office teamed up with local clergy, politicians, firefighters, and labor organizers to distribute 750 free hamburgers with a side order of Covid-19 racial consciousness in Dixwell, the Hill, and Fair Haven.

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Dixwell Brainstorms To Keep Kids Busy In Summer

by | May 26, 2020 10:56 am | Comments (1)

As many working class parents prepare go back to their jobs, they are also deciding not to send their kids to summer camps, out of lingering pandemic fears.

What’s to be done with 8 and 9‑year-olds confined to the house?

Provide an infusion of board games? Books? How about community-organized treasure hunts to pry them safely away from their screens?

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ConnCAT Buys Dixwell Clinic Building

by | Apr 29, 2020 2:07 pm | Comments (2)

Thomas Breen photo

Hill Health’s Dixwell site, now owned by ConnCORP.

Local developers behind a planned $200 million overhaul of Dixwell Plaza have purchased Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s site there for $1.8 million, even as they temporarily postpone the rebuilding project to focus on raising money for neighbors during the Covid-19 crisis.

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Dixwell Clinic Starts Testing

by | Apr 24, 2020 10:06 am | Comments (3)

Thomas Breen photos

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.

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69 Apartments Planned For Joe Grate’s Lot

by | Apr 15, 2020 1:06 pm | Comments (5)

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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City Buys Walt’s Cleaners For Dixwell Plan

by | Apr 6, 2020 9:26 am | Comments (7)

Thomas Breen photo

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.

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“Where Is The Help?”

by | Apr 3, 2020 5:07 pm | Comments (4)

Paul Bass Photo

Rodney Williams Friday on “Dateline New Haven.”

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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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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