by | Jun 2, 2023 12:15 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
The Elks' new home to-be at 329 Dixwell.
Lisa Reisman photo
Gary Hogan: "We opted to remain in the Dixwell area on Dixwell Avenue.”
Noise and parking.
Those were the two main issues in a lively, sometimes heated, community meeting at the Q House about the Elks Club’s planned new Dixwell Avenue home.
by | Jun 1, 2023 10:08 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
Welcome to the Monterey? The current condition of the historic former jazz club, five years after Ocean Management bought it.
More than $260,000 in unpaid liens and blight fines appear to be holding up the city’s planned purchase of the long-derelict former Monterey Jazz Club and surrounding Dixwell properties.
by | May 15, 2023 8:48 am | Comments (3)
Allan Appel photo
Kali Akuno (right) with Beaver Hills Alder Tom Ficklin.
The best computer models are still seriously underestimating the climate crisis; political leaders are at sea, panicking — and don’t want you to know it — to find new ways to handle the unprecedented waves of refugees worldwide fleeing drought, famine, and violence; and leading business moguls like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos want to solve Earth’s problems through space travel, and the working class and poor are not being offered steerage on the rocket.
by | May 11, 2023 4:45 pm | Comments (2)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Katurah Bryant (left) helping imagine an Armory revival.
As the city embarks on roof repairs to keep the abandoned Goffe Street Armory from falling into further disrepair, Dixwell and Beaver Hills neighbors have begun dreaming about what could lie in the vacant historic building’s future.
Continue reading ‘Armory Now. Housing, Food Co-Op Tomorrow?’
by | May 11, 2023 2:03 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
"Mass timber" apartments underway at Dixwell-Munson-Orchard.
Beulah's Darrel Brooks (right) celebrating the ongoing development with his father, and faith-based developer visionary, Theodore.
As a crane lowered wood panels made from Central European trees, officials celebrated 69 new “mass timber” apartments taking root in a long vacant lot — and envisioned a construction-industry revolution where carbon-capturing materials can be grown and processed closer to home.
by | May 9, 2023 7:38 pm | Comments (15)
Paul Bass file photo
The Goffe Street Armory, back in 2016.
On Wednesday at 6 p.m., New Haveners will gather in the cafeteria of Hillhouse High School at 480 Sherman Pkwy. to develop a community vision for the Goffe Street Armory.
Continue reading ‘Opinion: The Armory Can & Should Be Saved’
by | May 9, 2023 3:08 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel photo
Digging up "worms" at Reggie Mayo school's new garden.
The romaine, zucchini, and radishes were going in, along with bright orange marigolds.
So were plastic “squooshies” of worms, lime-green butterflies, black-dotted ladybugs, and other creatures that pre-schoolers can now bury in the dirt and then dig up, not months hence at harvest time, but within seconds, and then call out a loud “surprise” at the remarkable re-finding of the object.
Continue reading ‘Look What's Growing In A Classroom On Goffe’
by | May 9, 2023 11:12 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel file photo
Armory Community Garden founder Nadine Horton on Saturday.
Seven years ago and displaced from their long-time site on Carmel Street, Whalley/Beaver Hills community activist Nadine Horton and her gardening friends went looking for a new dirt-and-greens home.
When she came upon a narrow rectangular plot of overgrown grass, half a block long, tucked between the New Haven Correctional Center and the Armory, she fell in love — with a place, a symbol, and a possibility.
by | May 2, 2023 1:58 pm | Comments (5)
Lisa Reisman photo
Princesses abounded at a LEAP-hosted Halloween festival last fall at the Q House.
A local youth tutoring and recreation nonprofit won final approval to run the Dixwell Q House community center for at least the next five years.
Continue reading ‘Alders Approve Renewed Q House-LEAP Contract’
by | May 2, 2023 8:54 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photos
The "ladies in pink and green" kick off Childhood Hunger Initiative Power Pack.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter at Saturday's kick off.
A local chapter of a historic Black sorority has teamed up with the city’s public school district to make sure kids who come to class on Saturdays don’t go home hungry.
Continue reading ‘Sorority Steps Up With Saturday School Meals’
by | Apr 21, 2023 8:43 am | Comments (7)
Contributed by LEAP
A LEAP production of the Nutcracker this past winter.
A local youth tutoring and recreation nonprofit took another step closer to remaining in charge of the recently-resurrected Q House community center as alders endorsed a contract that could last 10 more years.
by | Apr 18, 2023 9:13 am | Comments (27)
Paul Bass Photo
Construction workers on one of the roofs of fast-rising 398-unit 201 Munson project.
Hair salon owner Kay Smith-Holness: Feeling "squeezed."
Construction crews have begun building a new neighborhood on separate lots within one block of Karaine “Kay” Holness’s hair salon.
by | Apr 17, 2023 3:05 pm | Comments (20)
Laura Glesby file photo
Affordable housing groundbreaking on Dixwell last August
Should Connecticut prioritize constructing affordable housing in economic hubs like New Haven, or exclusive towns like New Haven’s surrounding suburbs?
by | Apr 14, 2023 8:26 am | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery Photo
Ben Wrobel: "How do we shift decision-making power to people with lived experience, people who are proximate to the problem?"
Ben Wrobel had just finished the beginning of his pitch, about the need for solutions to public policy programs that come from people’s lived experiences. The audience at NXTHVN on Henry Street in Dixwell was listening. “So why am I here today?” he said. “Well, last month I quit my job.”
Before he could continue, there was a hearty round of applause. It was support for his willingness to take a risk, on an idea that might lead to some good.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell Pitch Night Gives Biz Dreams A Kick "Start"’
by | Apr 12, 2023 4:22 pm | Comments (15)
Laura Glesby photo
Florence Virtue renter Gail Stokes: “Something’s not right.”
Half-dollar debt paid, by mystery benefactor.
When Gail Stokes opened her Dixwell apartment’s front door, she didn’t expect a court marshal who had come to deliver an eviction notice. “I stood at the door and just started shaking,” she said.
The 73-year-old tenant held the notice. Sat down. Turned on the oxygen tank that helps her breathe. And called the property manager — who explained to her that she owed 50 cents.
by | Apr 3, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (16)
Allan Appel photos
Rev. Barber: “God’s good news must be good news for the poor or it ain’t good news."
At Sunday's Dixwell UCC service.
There’s a real danger that Ancient Rome — with its celebration of opulence and derision of the poor — still lives, and another name for it is America.
That was one of the sobering observations offered at a Palm Sunday service in Dixwell by nationally renowned preacher and poor people’s advocate Dr. William Barber.
Continue reading ‘Poor People's Champ Delivers Social Gospel’
by | Mar 30, 2023 8:01 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Hillhouse's marching band at the 2019 Freddy Fixer.
The Freddy Fixer Parade is coming back, with a newly announced “step off” time of 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 4.
by | Mar 28, 2023 8:24 am | Comments (1)
Emmanuel Massillon
Drill Music.
Emmanuel Massillon’s trumpet doesn’t have a mouthpiece. It can’t play. That’s the first hint that there’s a problem. Linger and look a little more, and you see that the misshapen bell of the horn is actually made from bullet casings. The title of the piece, Drill Music, suggests the indictment the artist is handing to that particular form of music. But something bigger and deeper is afoot as well.
by | Mar 16, 2023 3:18 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
Wilfred Fuentes, Jayuan Carter, Tom Goldenberg aboard the 206.
Wilfred Fuentes is not looking forward to paying $1.75 again every time he needs to commute from his home in the Annex to his job in Hamden.
Fuentes found a sympathetic ear in a Democratic mayoral challenger who rode the bus and talked to riders roughly two weeks before fares are set to resume for the currently free-to-ride state-run public transit system.
by | Mar 10, 2023 9:30 am | Comments (17)
Twining / L&M Partners image
A rendering of the future Winchester Green apartments.
Alders approved a 17-year tax abatement for dozens of planned new income-restricted apartments in Science Park — along with a rezoning plan that could allow for even more places to live, shop, and conduct research at the former Winchester factory site.
by | Mar 9, 2023 9:09 am | Comments (8)
Yash Roy photo
Shaina Plunkett: Hoping to bring Jamaican heritage to Yale Hospitality.
With reunion and commencement season on the horizon, Yale Hospitality is looking to hire 75 to 100 semi-permanent workers from New Haven as banquet servers and casual dining staffers.
University officials urged an audience of city residents to apply for those jobs in the latest session of an ongoing town-gown local hiring push.
by | Feb 28, 2023 10:28 am | Comments (7)
Yash Roy Photo
Ex-State Sen. George Logan, with guitar and in front of picture of Mary McLeod Bethune, at Republican-organized Black History Month event.
George Logan and a handful of fellow local Republican politicos commemorated Black History Month with a live performance of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” — and with a lineup of speakers who paid tribute to the late civil rights icon and informal presidential adviser Mary McLeod Bethune.
Continue reading ‘Republicans Honor "Black Cabinet" Trailblazer’
by | Feb 24, 2023 11:11 am | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen Photo
235 Winchester.
Eighteen years after an abandoned building began posing a public safety hazard on Winchester Avenue, the city has had its final remnants bulldozed and is filling in a treacherous hole in the ground.
by | Feb 24, 2023 10:42 am | Comments (1)
The Mandy-controlled two-story house at 698 Dixwell.
An affiliate of the local megalandlord Mandy Management is looking to add one more apartment to a two-story Newhallville house — rather than build six new rental units or bring in a commercial tenant.
Continue reading ‘Mandy Eyes New Groundfloor Apartment On Dixwell’
by | Feb 21, 2023 3:27 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photo
Greg McLaurin stopped at Goffe Street Tuesday morning because he didn’t want to cuss. He wanted a calm spot to consider a solution rather than escalating a conflict he had on the job.
Continue reading ‘The Word On County Street: Greg Weighs His Next Move’