by | Feb 1, 2019 5:29 pm | Comments (3)
Allan Appel Photo
Yale University President Peter Salovey with Western Connecticut State University’s mascot Colonial Chuck and Quinnipiac University’s’s Bobcat.
Who would be more inspirational to invite to your middle school college prep rally: A university’s president? Or its mascot?
by | Jan 30, 2019 8:50 am | Comments (8)
Sketch drawing by Chris Ozyck
Will the rehabbed bridge look in the fog like a scene from a Monet painting?
The Grand Avenue Bridge, a swing span with Erector Set-like trusses and one of the glories of Fair Haven and of the city, was painted black back in 1898 when it was built and has always been so.
A needed full rehabilitation will get under way this fall, complete with vehicle closures that will last all of 2020 and perhaps through the middle of 2021.
When the rebuilt bridge emerges — with new electrical and mechanical systems and new, smoother roadways to endure for future generations — will it be painted the old coal black or Statue of Liberty Green or some shade thereof?
by | Jan 16, 2019 5:51 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel Photo
Ready for repairs: Tenant Frank Cocza at Ruoppolo Manor.
Sign in the Fairmont Heights common room.
A leaky roof stains ceilings. People enter at all hours past lax security. Kitchens are cramped, an elevator often broken, bathrooms covered with mildew.
A top-to-bottom renovation is aimed at fixing those and other problems at two 1970s-vintage public-housing complexes for the elderly and disabled, aided by a new legal run around federal cuts.
by | Jan 16, 2019 2:36 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
Sallinas and city arts director Andy Wolf model one of the lounge’s “bus stops.”
DISTRICT co-founder David Salinas joined local officials in deploying over-sized golden scissors Wednesday morning to cut a blue ribbon to inaugurate a new “Comcast Business Innovation Lounge” space in the heart of the emerging tech hub’s campus on James Street in Fair Haven.
Continue reading ‘Business Innovation Lounge Opens At DISTRICT’
by | Jan 15, 2019 8:44 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Brown and Kulp .
We’re maybe a third of the way into Rasheeda Speaking, and Ileen is treating Jaclyn badly. She’s sniping and casually cruel, and going a little nuts, and for much of the time so far, it has worked on Jaclyn, who at first doesn’t understand what exactly is going on.
Then there is a moment where she gets it. She sees the forces aligned against her. They threaten her livelihood. They threaten her dignity. And in retaliation, in a moment when Ileen isn’t looking, Jaclyn seizes the chance to open the drawers of Ileen’s desk and rearrange everything in them, so Ileen, who prizes order, can’t find anything.
Continue reading ‘Collective Consciousness Lets Rasheeda Speak’
by | Jan 14, 2019 1:35 pm | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
Trinity Solar’s Farrel (with wife Rosa) waits to come clean with commissioners.
“I’m here to apologize” are not the customary first words to emerge from the mouth of an applicant before a New Haven city commission.
Those very words were heard — and appreciated — as the installer of solar panels on a rooftop in historic Fair Haven said he was sorry for not seeking the Historic District Commission’s (HDC) approval before proceeding with the installation.
by | Jan 7, 2019 2:01 pm | Comments (13)
Thomas Breen Photo
Now you see it: Original coal-fired plant, slated for demolition.
First a crew stumbled upon bags and bags and bags of asbestos inside the abandoned old English Station power plant.
Then bricks started falling off a second building onto Grand Avenue.
Amid it all, a foreclosure led to the polluted property changing hands yet again, this time to an investor from Kew Gardens, N.Y.
by | Dec 21, 2018 1:12 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photos
Recent Mandy purchases in Newhallville: 38 Townsend St., 247 County St., 591 Sherman Pkwy., and 100 Newhall St..
A single-family Colonial in Fair Haven. A two-story condo in the Annex. A three-family house in Newhallville. A 21-unit complex in Edgewood.
Those are four of 87 New Haven properties that the Netz/Mandy Management organization took over in 2018, a year that saw the operation acquire over 170 units and spend almost $13 million in expanding its local real estate empire of low-income rental apartments.
by | Dec 18, 2018 5:00 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Church facade on East Pearl.
Leaders of the Pentecostal church in the historic 19th-century building on East Pearl Street in Fair Haven need to pave another quadrant of their parking area to accommodate a growing congregation
Area activists and preservationists argued that more trees and plantings should accompany more parishoners.
Continue reading ‘Trees Traded For Asphalt On East Pearl Street’
by | Dec 18, 2018 1:04 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
SWAN members gather at Grand Avenue and Ferry Street.
A dozen local sex workers and allies gathered in Fair Haven to remember two members of their community who died this year.
by | Dec 18, 2018 1:02 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel Photo
The scene on Tuesday morning.
There’s a little more sky and lot less history at the corner of River and Ferry Streets. That’s because the century-old gatehouse at the Brewery Square Apartments is now a pile of rubble.
by | Dec 17, 2018 2:57 pm | Comments (3)
Allan Appel Photo
Karin Patriquin.
Karin Patriquin, the principal of Patriquin Architects in Fair Haven, located in the historic Kings Block building on the corner of Grand Avenue and Front Street, has lately spent a lot of time on behalf of her clients in front of the Historic District Commission.
Now she’ll be going before the commissioners herself to present plans to repair damage caused when a stolen car fishtailed through the Grand Avenue and Front Street intersection and took a piece of the western corner of the building’s storefront.
by | Dec 17, 2018 8:35 am | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
A few small businesses on Grand Avenue, the same block as…
… the Spanish American Merchants Association, and its 34 new small biz program graduates.
Thirty-four current and aspiring small business owners graduated on Friday from a Grand Avenue training program that teaches Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs how to build, open, and sustain small businesses.
Continue reading ‘34 Graduate From Fair Haven Small Biz Program’
by | Dec 13, 2018 8:35 am | Comments (9)
Courtesy Robert Greenberg
Allan Appel Photo
Wednesday afternoon two workmen in easy-to-see orange vests were chalking an area at the base of the Ferry Street Bridge to prepare for equipment and crews to come by as early as 7 a.m. Thursday in preparation for a building demolition that preservationists had hoped to stop.
by | Dec 5, 2018 3:15 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel Photo
Questions pinned up at Tuesday night’s transfer station expansion meeting.
It smells. It doesn’t smell.
It will add pollution. It won’t add pollution.
Rumbling trucks will awaken slumbering residential streets. Nope, the rigs stay mainly on the highways.
The city gets new jobs and taxes. Or … a beleaguered, dense, and poor neighborhood gets dumped on once again.
by | Dec 5, 2018 8:58 am | Comments (3)
Christopher Peak Photo
Principals Rosalind Garcia and Heriberto Cordero, at Monday’s school finance meeting.
In an unexpected bonus for the city’s cash-strapped public schools, the state offered an extra $340,000 to help two elementaries complete a turnaround.
Continue reading ‘State Steps Up Funding For Turnaround Schools’
by | Dec 4, 2018 3:32 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
Firefighter Guercia goes up.
First a“pass device” — a piece of safety equipment that alerts other firefighters that one of their number has not moved in 30 seconds — went screamingly off in a blaring alarm inside the rotunda.
Then the aerial ladder was extended nearly 60 of its maximum 100 feet high over the entryway.
by | Nov 30, 2018 1:09 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
224 Lloyd St.: One of Mandy Management’s latest acquisitions.
Local mega-landlord Mandy Management continued on a property-buying tear, while one of its controversial housing-development plans underwent a parking change.
by | Nov 22, 2018 10:55 am | Comments (3)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Stack-starters Sobocinski and McDonald.
Tech hub’s smokestack, which inspired new restaurant’s name.
Pair a Navy vet-restaurateur with Kansas City barbecue roots with a brewery owner who also runs restaurants with a sense of whimsy and a flair for fun — and you get a match made in brew-hog heaven.
by | Nov 21, 2018 8:29 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
The “dream team” of kindergarten teachers who organized the coat drive — Marisa Laudano, Leslie Habelow, Annamarie McCarthy — with some happy beneficiaries.
Tuesday morning more than 600 winter coats, both heavy and light, 150 hats and scarves, and 200 pairs of gloves were gathered. Add to that 50 turkeys and Thanksgiving baskets for 100 families, half of whom are new arrivals in New Haven and the U.S.
Continue reading ‘Fair Haven School Coat- & Food-Drives Into Thanksgiving’
by | Nov 20, 2018 3:11 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
• Reading golden retriever became regular at branch library.
• Reveals all in exclusive interview.
by | Nov 14, 2018 8:42 am | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
22 Hallock Ave.
A local mega-landlord increased its City Point footprint with the recent acquisition of an apartment complex and an adjacent two-family home on Hallock Avenue.
Continue reading ‘Latest Sales: Mandy Expands In City Point’
by | Nov 11, 2018 11:12 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Salerno by the new plaque with niece Mary Ellen Collins and great-nephew Matthew Collins.
As Fair Haven School second graders, some wearing Muslim headscarves, put their hands over their hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, Korean War vet Charlie Salerno recalled Friday morning how on this very same stage in a school musical long ago he nervously sang “Old Man River.”
Make that precisely back in 1944, when five Salerno older brothers, graduates of the Fair Haven School, were also all already serving in the American military across the globe.
by | Nov 8, 2018 1:10 pm | Comments (2)
Sonya Schoenberger Photo
Flor Jimenez places a new bid with Bruno Morasutti.
The starting bid at auction — $30,487.39 — was well below the Clinton Avenue home’s appraised value: $142,000.
One determined bidder would quickly close that gap.
by | Nov 2, 2018 8:03 am | Comments (15)
Brian Virtue photo
Hurricane Irene brought this porch to the Pardee Seawall steps.
Thomas Breen Photo
Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola at Thursday night’s nearing.
More sand on Morris Cove’s beaches. Dunes turned into “living shorelines” on Long Wharf. A new seawall near Criscuolo Park.
Alders voted to advance those and other current and potential federally-funded projects in a plan to guard New Haven against flooding as climate change sends the city more frequent and powerful storms.
Continue reading ‘20 Ideas OK’d To Protect City From Floods’