Attorney Mike Jefferson and author Nicholas Dawidoff in conversation at Stetson event Wednesday evening.
When Flemming “Nick” Norcott Jr. was growing up in the Dwight/Kensington neighborhood in the 1940s and ’50s, Prospect Hill wasn’t the only “other side” of town that was off limits to Black families like his.
“There were a lot of ‘other sides’ then,” the retired former state Supreme Court justice remembered at a Wednesday evening book talk. “As a young boy, a pre-teen, a teen, we couldn’t go to Westville. We couldn’t go to Morris Cove. We couldn’t go to Wooster Square, because there would be consequences that would be really, really bad.”
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Laura Glesby |
Oct 24, 2022 8:55 am
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Laura Glesby Photo
Erycka recites poetry on the Lit Fest stage ...
... as Lindsey Pina and Royal Bleu look for books on a whim.
Professional poets, emerging authors, scholars of Black literature, and kids learning to sound out words collectively transformed the Q House into a story-fueled time machine at the third annual Elm City Lit Fest.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 6, 2022 9:37 am
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A large red empty speech bubble stands on the sidewalk outside NXTHVN in Dixwell. Its object lies in “inviting visitors to rest, contemplate and reflect,” as an accompanying explanation puts it. But as it stands on Henry Street, it also feels like a portal, setting expectations for what’s in store for the rest of the show. Through it, one can see people milling about in the foyer of the gallery space — and beyond that, a commotion of mylar, and anyone who’s in it moving around like they’re in a snowstorm. What’s happening in there?
For the fourth time in five years, alders signed off on selling a vacant city-owned garage to a local pizza maker-turned-landlord — this time on the condition that he convert the property into five apartments with at least one unit reserved for low-income tenants.
Tamales, cupcakes, hot sauce, and corn ribs were just a few of the locally made items on the menu at a Q House-hosted showcase of homegrown foodie talent.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 28, 2022 8:23 am
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The video for Ionne’s latest single “The Last Time” — off his new album Fracture — sends the viewer into a spiral from the start. When the camera finally stops spinning, it’s still moving, and there is Ionne himself, singing into the darkness on a beach, a crashed spaceship behind him. “All we ever feared / Was killing time / Several hundred years / Amount to castles that we’ll never own / And songs I write / But cannot sing myself / Our dreams of spaceships and their secret plans to take us somewhere else,” he sings. It’s a melody about loss, but the music isn’t about giving up. It’s about falling down and getting up again, of finding the strength to start something new.
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Laura Glesby |
Sep 27, 2022 8:47 am
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Jana Russo-Priestley, center, with wife Anne and father Arius.
Jana Russo-Priestly arrived at the Omni ballroom remembering the role that Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) has played in three generations of her family’s history — as well as in two centuries of New Haven’s.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 22, 2022 1:26 pm
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A rebuilt Dixwell Plaza, with a one-level-larger greenhouse-topped parking garage (circled in red).
Dixwell Plaza’s redevelopers won permission to scrap a too-costly underground parking garage in exchange for a larger temporary surface parking lot in their ongoing effort to build up the heart of New Haven’s historic Black neighborhood.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 8, 2022 11:01 am
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Thomas Breen photos
At Wednesday's event, clockwise from top left: Friends Center for Children staffers; ConnCORP CEO Erik Clemons; Skanska builders Robert Daddona and Richard Murphy with contractor Rodney Williams; Amber Delacruz serving up mozzarella sliders courtesy of Orchid Cafe.
Dixwell Plaza's planned new ConnCAT Place redevelopment.
Dixwell Plaza’s planned redevelopment has gained a general contractor, a childcare partner, and a food hall operator — and has lost a too-pricey underground garage — as the local team behind the now-estimated $220 million project moves ahead with its effort to build up the heart of New Haven’s historic Black neighborhood.
The current surface parking lot at 315 Winchester Ave ...
Twining Properties / L&M Development Partners image
... slated to be turned into hundreds of new apartments.
“Any time we can turn a parking lot into residential living, especially with affordable housing available, that’s a worthwhile investment.”
State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney offered those words of support Thursday morning in an email press release celebrating a $5 million state grant that the governor recently OK’d for the next phase of Science Park’s redevelopment.
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Olivia Gross |
Aug 23, 2022 9:30 am
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Olivia Gross Photo
Waiting for the dance contest to start at Unity fest on Sunday.
A rebooted Dixwell community festival with decades-old roots offered free haircuts, free food, and bountiful calls for citywide unity in Goffe Street Park.
Alan Tilley: fighting to keep his house in memory of his mother.
Laura Glesby Photos
The house at 766 Orchard.
Two decades after his family bought a church-built house meant to stabilize a neighborhood, Alan Tilley is fighting to keep the home out of the hands of out-of-town landlords.
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Maya McFadden and Nora Grace-Flood |
Aug 18, 2022 12:59 pm
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Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Kendall Cobb Wednesday with his wheels.
Light rain and a brief detour through Hamden Wednesday morning didn’t stop scooter-toting Kendall Cobb from making his way to Orange to get his computer fixed — while keeping his gas bill down.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 17, 2022 9:15 am
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Brian Slattery Photos
Davis performing Tuesday evening at Stetson Branch Library.
The first phrase of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” flowed from Chris “Big Dog” Davis’s fingertips, instantly familiar. But the chord voicings Davis put underneath it felt thoroughly modern.
As he proceeded through the classic of American music, Ace Livingston on bass and Dexter Pettaway, Sr. on drums fell in behind him. Together the trio made the classic a quick trip through the history of American jazz, from its murky origins to its up-to-the-minute contemporary form.
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Kimberly Wipfler |
Aug 15, 2022 9:50 am
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Scott Troublefield and New Vision.
Far out behind the crowded audience at Goffe Street Park, beyond still the stragglers who spread out among the opposing baseball diamond’s outfield, tucked just inside the entryway of the third-base dugout, a woman with gray hair and blue Nikes called out: “Amen!”
The Sunday sun had set, but the sound of gospel from the stage still echoed as far as Crescent Street. The woman, silhouetted by the park floodlights, said she was taking her church from all the way back there.
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Laura Glesby |
Aug 10, 2022 11:49 am
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Laura Glesby file photo
Developers and officials break Beulah ground.
Laura Glesby Photo
Sustainable, affordable housing envisioned for 340 Dixwell.
Faith leaders, politicians, and investors shoveled a pile of ceremonial dirt, breaking ground on a soon-to-rise apartment complex that will be sustainable not only for the earth, but for low-income families.
Rev Kimber: New leadership needed. Mayor Elicker: More funding needed.
New Haven needs a new plan — and new leadership — in order to improve abysmal student reading levels.
The Greater New Haven Clergy Association issued that plea Wednesday during a press conference at which Newhallville pastors laid into the Board of Education, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) administrators, and the mayor after a recent report showed that 84 percent of third-graders are reading below grade level.
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Maya McFadden |
Aug 1, 2022 9:36 am
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Dixwell UCC bicentennial planning committee members Joy W. Donaldson, Antonie Thorp, Estelle Whitfield Simpson, Clifton Graves Jr., Althea Musgrove Norcott, Helena Rogers, and Cheryl Gray.
The nation’s oldest African American United Congregational Church is celebrating 200 years of being rooted in community service, social justice, and humanitarian efforts.
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Nora Grace-Flood and Yash Roy |
Jul 28, 2022 10:00 am
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Yash Roy Photo
Audrey Tyson, Alder Sarah Miller, and Gov. Lamont talk education at Brazi's during one of the governor's New Haven stops Wednesday.
Paul Bass Photo
Lamont in radio studio with hosts Jose Candelario and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes, and campaign Deputy Political Diretor Gabriela Koc.
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Lamont with Erik Clemons at ConnCORP: Talk to Looney.
Erik Clemons took advantage of a 20-minute audience with Gov. Ned Lamont to make a multimillion-dollar pitch — for bond money to help revive the commercial heart of New Haven’s Black community.
With a deadline looming days away, the mayor and lieutenant governor popped in to the Q House Tuesday to issue a plea to working families: “Don’t leave money on the table.” Apply for the state childcare tax rebate.
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Kimberly Wipfler |
Jul 17, 2022 10:53 am
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Ahndiya Glasper (far left) at the table honoring her late great-grandmother and mother.
Latoya Glasper was planning a community wellness day as part of her new job with the city Health Department. It would be a resource fair, named “Momma’s Love Community Day,” in honor of her late grandmother.
Before Glasper was able to see the event to completion, she underwent a sudden health crisis and died in June. At 42 years old, Glasper left her five children and own mother.
This Saturday, the Health Department put on the event anyway — dedicated to Glasper’s memory.
An 18-year-and-counting blight stalemate continues on an otherwise reviving stretch of Winchester Avenue — but now a lender and the city have gone to court to call the question.
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Jordan Ashby |
Jul 13, 2022 9:38 am
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Jordan Ashby Photo
Judée Badibanga Kabongo, special advisor to the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pitches diaspora in Dixwell.
New Haven and the Democratic Republic of the Congo strengthened their relationship this week through an exchange of ideas on a common challenge: poverty.
A delegation of government officials from the DRC arrived Saturday in New Haven, their first stop in a tour across the United States that will include D.C., Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Oklahoma.
