by | Oct 8, 2024 9:45 am | Comments (5)
Lisa Gray photo
Jesse Hameen II pulls out his 1945 Q House membership card, to the crowd's delight.
The room was filled with mingling and reminiscing as community members gathered to hear Dixwell neighborhood stories from 1860 to 1970, and to celebrate the giants who were instrumental to shaping their lives.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell's "Forgotten Pioneers" Remembered’
by | Oct 7, 2024 8:05 am | Comments (0)
Contributed photo
At the Q House's centennial gala.
One hundred years after the Q House first opened its doors, the reborn Dixwell community center capped a year of centenary celebrations with a fundraiser gala.
by | Sep 26, 2024 3:46 pm | Comments (8)
Abiba Biao photos
Mariam Jafaru: From nurse to boutique owner.
Gold-plated bracelets join clothes and other accessories in Jafaru's storefront.
Even during the slow hours of business, Zongozon owner Mariam Jafaru’s hands were always busy. In the back of her store, a soft whir of the sewing machine commenced as she fed it her cloth.
by | Sep 20, 2024 1:53 pm | Comments (0)
Nevaeh Dent, center, and her mentees: London Loman, Constance Dennis, Kamaiya Hyman, and Skyla "KK" Kenion.
To understand how Nevaeh Dent came to run her own beauty supply shop, salon, and after-school program teaching young people the finer points of braiding, makeup, nails, lashes, confidence-building, and entrepreneurship — all in her early twenties — you have to go back to her Troup Middle School fifth-grade teacher, Marissa White.
“Just her being young and Black, being a teacher,” Dent said, was an inspiration for all she knew she too could accomplish.
Continue reading ‘"Coach Vae” Paves Way For Next Gen Beauticians’
by | Sep 9, 2024 11:56 am | Comments (3)
Courtesy of Josh McCown
Time A Tell's Josh McCown in action with Moroccan-born American rapper French Montana at Oakdale Theatre.
Jayce Greene, 10, and his mother pushed through the door of Time A Tell, the clothing store and smoke shop at 1700 Dixwell Ave. He was looking for a Time A Tell hoodie.
“All the kids on my team are wearing them,” said Jayce, a student at Worthington-Hooker School and member of the Elm City Elite basketball team, as owner Joshua McCown brought out a selection of sizes and colors in the high-ceilinged, warmly-lit space. “They’re all over New Haven,” his mother added.
That’s an index of the quantum leap that McCown, 20, has taken in the two years since opening his shop with a mission to leverage his eye for fashion into being his own boss and realizing financial freedom.
by | Sep 5, 2024 9:31 am | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby File Photo
Dr. Robinson, at July's corner renaming committee hearing.
The corner of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street will now have a new name — honoring a pioneering psychologist, researcher, and volunteer local historian who still calls Dixwell home.
by | Aug 28, 2024 12:03 pm | Comments (11)
Allan Appel file photo
Nadine Horton, gardening outside the Armory: What about a wintertime indoor mega-garden and farmer's market for the historic building?
More planning for the future of the dilapidated Goffe Street Armory is on the horizon, with the help of $250,000 in state funding.
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:27 am | Comments (2)
Asher Joseph photos
Kismet Douglass: “One day, I’d like to have an event space of my own.”
Momma Kiss's jerk chicken, rice, and pigeon peas.
Kismet Douglass hurried from pot to pot under the shade of her tent at the Q House Farmer’s Market, where the “global flavors” of Momma Kiss Kitchen Cuisine were on display.
In one pot she cooked Jamaican jerk chicken with rice and pigeon peas, and in another, Thai curry vegetables with jasmine rice — all served up as part of a food business showcase featuring 10 local culinary entrepreneurs.
by | Aug 19, 2024 3:37 pm | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen file photo
67 Winchester: Now approved for expansion.
A plan to build new bedrooms atop a derelict Winchester Avenue home’s backyard won approval the second time around — after calls for more, quality housing beat out concerns about neighborhood change.
by and | Aug 13, 2024 6:12 pm | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby Photo
Civically-engaged students at Harris & Tucker meet Osmanu-supporting Shafiq Abdussabur and Winter-supporting Barbara Vereen.
After finishing up her shift at a Yale dining hall, Pamela Dear headed straight to Lincoln-Bassett School to vote.
by | Aug 9, 2024 10:51 am | Comments (2)
Gray: "Today's seeds are tomorrow's flowers."
William “Pete” Gray, a joyful warrior for Black empowerment who crusaded to hold New Haven to its promise of grassroots participation in decisions about Dixwell’s future, has died at the age of 86.
by | Aug 5, 2024 8:23 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Nathaniel Joyner and Damien, reading side by side at summer camp.
Nathaniel Joyner took a quick break from reading aloud to a group of middle schoolers to spin an imaginary basketball on his finger before passing it over to eight-year-old Damien — who dribbled the “ball” between his legs, and then picked up the book to resume reading with the group.
by | Jul 29, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (1)
Asher Joseph photo
LEAP campers practice agility, dribbling, layups, and shooting baskets at Friday's clinic.
“Shoot that ball, shoot, shoot that ball!” Aubreigh, 9, stomped, clapped, and chanted as she cheered on her friend, who was angling her basketball at a hoop in the Q House gymnasium. Swish!
Aubreigh and her fellow Leadership, Education, & Athletics in Partnership (LEAP) summer campers landed shot after shot Friday morning at a youth basketball clinic hosted at the Dixwell Community “Q” House, where themed centennial celebrations of the community center’s “Past, Present, and Future” are underway.
by | Jul 22, 2024 3:19 pm | Comments (8)
Arthur Delot-Vilain Photo
Housing Authority prez Karen DuBois-Walton: "A lot of possibilities now."
After losing out to another bidder at a previous foreclosure auction, the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) became the third part-owner of a former co-op’s homes in Dixwell.
by | Jul 18, 2024 9:08 am | Comments (2)
Kevin Yarbrough, with Mignone Henderson: “This means everything to me because this is where it all started.”
Abiba Biao Photos
At the corner of Sperry and Dickerman.
When Kevin Yarbrough struggled to wake up for school one morning, his grandmother Ruth T. Henderson had a surprise. She took a bowl of water, the very one set out for their house cat Miss Kitty, and flung its contents onto Yarbrough, who jolted out of bed. Sure enough, it was just the trick.
Yarbrough cited that memory as his favorite of his grandmother, whose legacy was commemorated by way of a street sign at the corner of Dickerman and Sperry streets.
by | Jul 17, 2024 9:35 am | Comments (1)
Laura Glesby File Photo
Local historian and history-maker Dr. Robinson.
Dr. Ann Garrett Robinson knows how to advocate for a street corner name. In 2022, she made sure that New Haven’s first known Black resident, Lucretia, would have a place among official city signage.
On Monday, she returned to City Hall to join 20 friends and neighbors in calling for a corner of her own.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Turn Out For "Dr. Robinson Way"’
by | Jul 16, 2024 1:22 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Fred Christmas: "I'm thankful everybody got out. "
New Haven Fire Twitter photo
Monday night's blaze on Dixwell; 7 firefighters were injured fighting the fire.
Fred Christmas was on his way to Stop & Shop to pick up a steak to grill in his backyard when he got a call from his landlord.
“Fred,” he recalled her saying. “The house is on fire.”
by | Jul 8, 2024 1:00 pm | Comments (25)
(Update) A 26-year-old New Havener named Shamar Gibson was fatally stabbed on Orchard Street Saturday afternoon.
by | Jul 5, 2024 8:26 am | Comments (0)
Sarah Zapata
A Resilience of Things Not Seen.
Sarah Zapata’s installation, at NXTHVN on Henry Street in Dixwell, is as fantastical as it is welcoming. From the various seating options (beanbag chairs!) to the thick carpet to the choice of colors for all of it, the installation invites the viewer to chill. But there’s something surreal about it, too, the way it crawls up the walls and onto the ceiling, so the rugs hang down from overhead instead of being underfoot, like most rugs. It’s possible to imagine sitting down in the chairs, and having gravity change on you, so you’re sitting on the ceiling, looking at the floor. So Zapata’s installation encourages imaginative exercise while relaxing. In short, it lets us dream.
by | Jun 24, 2024 4:15 pm | Comments (11)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
University Row Homes auction winner Alex Opuszynski, with attorney Grant: Looking to "maximize the unit mix."
Housing authority's Karen DuBois-Walton, Shenae Draughn, and Jim Turcio, outbid by Opuszynski: “We would've invested in this -- made it affordable."
Two different landlords ended up on top of two adjacent tax foreclosure auctions — effectively closing the books on a decades-old co-op on Henry Street between Orchard and Dixwell.
by | Jun 24, 2024 12:32 pm | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
The Legacy Mobile Exhibition inside the cARTie museum bus.
A small white bus was parked outside of NXTHVN, at 169 Henry St., its walls decorated with handwritten definitions of the word “legacy”: “legacy is saying cheers to the next generation,” “legacy is taking actions with purpose, and not stopping when faced with failure.”
The bus was part of the cARTie program, housing the Legacy Mobile Exhibition, which will be touring New Haven through Aug. 13.
by | Jun 20, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (9)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
University Row Homes resident Demeka Anderson: "We're the only ones that are sensing the urgency because it's our lives."
Thomas Breen photo
1 of 2 Henry St. auctions, scheduled for Saturday.
A row has broken out at row homes on Henry Street — leading to holes in the roof, allegations of mismanagement, ownership confusion, back-tax frustration, and two properties heading to the foreclosure auction block this weekend.
by | Jun 19, 2024 5:57 pm | Comments (5)
Jabez Choi photo
At Dixwell UCC's Juneteenth service on Wednesday.
At a Juneteenth worship service on Dixwell Avenue Wednesday morning, Yale Divinity School Associate Professor Clifton Granby asked: “Has freedom really settled in?”
by | Jun 18, 2024 9:30 am | Comments (31)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photos
Derek Baker: 201 Munson "fit all the bills"
Derek Baker unloaded his U‑Haul truck after wrapping up the roughly 700-mile drive from metro Detroit to Munson Street, as he prepared to enter a new stage of his life studying MRIs and brain scans at Yale — while living out of a brand new luxury apartment complex in a development-rich stretch of Dixwell-Newhallville-Science Park.
by | Jun 10, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
Nancy Jordan (right), with Mike Downing Jr. and Langston Dennis, checking out the threads.
There were t‑shirts and button-downs and pullovers, dress pants and jeans and sweatpants, jackets and hoodies and windbeakers, each meticulously organized by size. There were shoes of every style and make. There were household items like cleansers and kitchenware, and personal care essentials like deodorant, shampoo, and conditioner.
None of it was for sale, including the food. At Saturday’s 12th annual Free Market and Health Fair just outside the Dixwell Community “Q” House, everything was, as advertised, free.