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’
by | Feb 17, 2023 10:01 am | Comments (6)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
263 Dixwell Ave.: One of 2 Ocean-owned properties the city plans to sell to Beulah.
The Elicker Administration is one step closer to buying and selling two two-family homes on Dixwell Avenue — so that a nonprofit can maintain the currently megalandlord-held properties as rentals.
Continue reading ‘Megalandlord-City-Nonprofit Housing Deal Advances’
by | Feb 10, 2023 10:04 am | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Vacant former Winchester factory at Munson/Mansfield ...
... Kim Harris with Harris & Tucker students: Hoping to see a "great, eye-popping development that will move everyone forward."
Alders endorsed a 17-year tax break deal for dozens of planned new below-market-rent Science Park apartments — as part of a broader set of local legislative proposals designed to further the redevelopment of the former Winchester Arms Factory’s remaining parking lots and vacant industrial buildings into new housing, retail, and bioscience labs.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Factory Tax Break, Redev Plans Advance’
by | Feb 7, 2023 12:33 pm | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby file photo
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison: Acquisitions “a step in the right direction."
3 of the 4 properties the city can now buy from Ocean, including the the Monterey Jazz Club in the center.
The Elicker Administration has won its final needed approval to acquire a slate of rundown properties, including a historic long-derelict former jazz club, from an oft-cited megalandlord to the tune of $1.3 million in an effort to revitalize a stretch of Dixwell Avenue.
by | Feb 2, 2023 3:32 pm | Comments (48)
PDD update pitch, with planned new developments in red.
The current surface parking lot at 110 Munson.
Thomas Breen fill photo
Developer Alex Twining: Part of the "replacement of parking lots with places to work and live."
A 200-space Munson Street parking lot could be the site of New Haven’s next biotech lab building — according to a Winchester-factory-redevelopment zoning update that received a favorable, if still skeptical, recommendation from the City Plan Commission.
Continue reading ‘Bye-Bye, Parking Lot? Lab Rezoning Advances’
by | Feb 1, 2023 12:30 pm | Comments (8)
At Tuesday's presser: KeyBank's Analisha Michanczyk, ConnCORP COO Paul McCraven, KeyBank's Matthew Hummel, ConnCORP Board Chair Carlton Highsmith; ConnCorp CEO Erik Clemons, Lab Executive Director Aya Beckles Swanson, and ConnCORP Chief Investment Officer Anna Blanding.
A vegan baker, a mobile notary, and a professional organizer were among the 20 hand-picked Greater New Haven minority business owners to embark on a rigorous entrepreneurial boot camp — and to benefit from a new $1 million grant designed in part to help that program and its participants thrive.
by | Jan 27, 2023 3:52 pm | Comments (0)
Kimberly Wiplfer photos
Kolton Harris and film student Joaquín Morales.
At Thursday's BITE kickoff.
“Who would have ever thought I’d be back in here watching a film?” asked Tracey Massey, in a hushed whisper, in the back row of a film screening at the former Stetson Branch library building in the soon-to-be-demolished Dixwell Plaza.
On the projector played “Black Joy,” a musical short film by Kolton Harris, which tells the story of a group of Black students in detention who find pride and celebration in their Blackness through song and dance.
“I came to this library 40 years ago as a child growing up in this neighborhood. It is here where we learned the first stories of Black joy. Here’s where we read books about Martin Luther King Jr., where we heard the first Michael Jackson song, the first Nina Simone song. We learned about Malcolm X. All of those stories generated out of this library.”
“It was joy. It was magic. [Harris] is reminding us of that. It was really just like it is in his film,” said Massey.
Continue reading ‘"Black Joy" Film Fest Bids Farewell To Former Stetson’
by and | Jan 26, 2023 11:31 am | Comments (6)
Lisa Reisman photo
At a LEAP-organized Halloween party at the Q House last fall.
LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez at Monday's Q House board meeting.
A local youth tutoring and recreation nonprofit’s bid to keep the Q House humming with more bingo, ballet, farmers markets and line dancing took a big leap forward this week — as the Dixwell Avenue community center’s board voted to recommend approval of a new five-year, $500,000 contract between LEAP and the city.
by | Jan 26, 2023 9:32 am | Comments (17)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
LCI Director Arlevia Samuel: Ocean is "holding firm at the $1.3M."
The former Monterey Jazz Club, center, along with the vacant deli and one of the multi-family homes the city plans to acquire.
The Elicker Administration’s bid to acquire a slate of rundown properties from an oft-cited megalandlord in an effort to revitalize a stretch of Dixwell Avenue took one big step closer to closing — as the Livable City Initiative’s (LCI) Board of Directors signed off on the proposed $1.3 million deal.