by | Aug 22, 2024 2:14 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
345 Norton St.: One of 3 homes newly eyed for daycare.
New Haven’s daycare “desert” is about to grow a bit more green, in the form of three new or expanded group child care centers in Fair Haven and Edgewood.
by | Aug 21, 2024 11:19 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Former student, current instructor Paul Nunez hosts drilling practice.
In a Fair Haven warehouse, Paul Nunez watched closely as his student drilled a hole into a soon-to-be light fixture — reminding Nunez that less than a month ago, he was the one learning those same manufacturing skills on the same machine at the Manufacturing and Community Technical Hub (MATCH).
Continue reading ‘1 Year Later, Warehouse Hums As Trade Skills Hub’
by | Aug 20, 2024 1:29 pm | Comments (0)
Perez-Plocharczyk recites "ELEMENT."
“A neighbor with a happy dog / A homeless man sleeping under the bridge / Poor houses with pretty flowers,” Vivian Perez-Plocharczyk intoned to an audience of 60 at Bregamos Community Theatre in Fair Haven. “My hood, my element.” She took a deep breath and tilted her head back. “Fair Haven!” she stage-whispered, drawing out the final consonant into rousing applause.
Continue reading ‘Mic At The Mill Showcases Fair Haven Melodies’
by | Aug 15, 2024 12:56 pm | Comments (13)
Paul Bass file photo
Builder Fowler: Manufacturing, not residential, this time.
Thomas Breen photo
Some of the empty River Street land and warehouses now owned by Spinnaker.
The site of a riverfront movie studio that never came to be is now slated to sprout a new housing-related manufacturer on a stretch of Fair Haven’s industrial waterfront.
Continue reading ‘In Jaigantic's Wake, Factory Plan Emerges’
by | Aug 9, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Isael Arroyo, Y'madelis Arroyo, Jay'na Estrada, and Yesenia Arroyo mourn their father's death, and commend police for arresting his alleged shooter.
Murder victim Peter "PJ" Arroyo.
A man dressed all in black walked west on Wolcott Street, pulled a gun out of his waistband, and fired shot after shot after shot — killing 42-year-old New Havener Peter Arroyo, whom police believe was not the shooter’s intended victim.
That fatal gunfire took place in broad daylight in Fair Haven on a Monday afternoon in May, in full view of a number of witnesses and — crucially, for the police investigation to follow — in full view of surveillance cameras.
by | Aug 6, 2024 11:36 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
The former pizzeria, primed for pharmaceutical rebirth.
Grand Apizza has not quite yet been transformed into Grand Apharmacy, but it’s getting close.
by | Aug 5, 2024 12:35 pm | Comments (8)
Allan Appel Photo
The Strong School.
The plan to turn the vacant old Strong School at 69 Grand Ave. into 58 affordable, artist and LGBTQ-friendly apartments is moving ahead, if a little more slowly than anticipated.
Continue reading ‘Strong School Redevelopment Project Moves Along’
by | Aug 5, 2024 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
Ashley the Creator and her painting Emotional Orange.
According to legend — and poet Christina Rossetti — one should never eat fruit offered by fairies. It’s considered illicit, otherworldly, and so good that one taste will leave you hankering for more for the rest of your days. But in her new exhibition, “Pomology,” artist Ashley the Creator makes fruit seem more tempting than it’s ever been before. The fae, inhuman faces in her paintings wear fruit as a part of their own bodies, and the effect is both eerie and mouth-wateringly good.
by | Aug 2, 2024 1:06 pm | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
The new neighborhood top cop Thursday evening with Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith.
Fifteen-year NHPD veteran Sgt. Chris Alvarado has already seen the estimated 5 percent or so percent of Fair Haven that is troubled by drug dealing and serious crime. As the newly arrived district manager, he’s excited to be discovering the rest.
Continue reading ‘"New Sheriff" Chris Alvarado Is In (Fair Haven) Town’
by | Aug 2, 2024 10:46 am | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Alders-For-A-Day Ada Akdağ and Melissa Rodriguez at work learning about Keiry Pena and Joseph Jenkins' deli dreams.
Two “alders” checked in on a couple’s revived East Street deli, talked street improvements with a development official, blasted the news to constituents — and dreamed about what they want to be when they grow up.
by | Jul 31, 2024 2:34 pm | Comments (4)
Asher Joseph photo
Fair Haven's youth cleanup crew at work on Chapel St.
When her shovel failed to pick up a plastic zip-up bag, Fair Haven Livable City Initiative (LCI) Neighborhood Specialist Carmen Mendez stooped to grab the plastic trash with two fingers.
“Be careful,” warned a teen member of Fair Haven’s Youth@Work Clean Team, “those are the bags that people sell weed in.”
“Even when you’re old, you learn something new everyday,” Mendez chuckled.
by | Jul 31, 2024 1:00 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Kency’s first attempt at bird watching ...
... "I wanna play tag in the pool!" ...
... face painting, and so much more, at Camp Farnam on Tuesday.
Five-year-old Kency used binoculars for the first time and spotted an (inflatable) bald eagle, while fourth graders Nathan and Gabriel played one-on-one basketball — all at a 72-acre outdoor camp site a half hour away from their daily summer camp’s New Haven home.
by | Jul 30, 2024 9:12 am | Comments (2)
Jabez Choi photo
Josue Algea Castro with his mother Nellie and his baby brother: “I like gym too, but art is so cool. You get to paint.”
Homework assignments and paper crafts lined the hallways of Fair Haven School as part of the summer school’s “Celebration of Learning” — an event that brought teachers, parents, and children together to recognize the students’ accomplishments over the course of the past month.
by | Jul 25, 2024 4:16 pm | Comments (4)
Asher Joseph photo
Volunteers plant bayberry shrubs on the Mill River Trail.
Dig. Plant. Donut — but not the kind you eat, the kind that helps the bayberry shrub retain moisture as it acclimates to its new home on the Mill River Trail.
Continue reading ‘Bayberrys Grow, Alongside Mill River Trail’
by | Jul 23, 2024 12:02 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photos
The scene at AdvanceCT on James Street Tuesday morning.
Lamont: We taught Stuttgart how to spell "Connecticut."
Fears of an international trade war might hurt Connecticut in the long run — but it may lead to new jobs in the short term.
So reported Gov. Ned Lamont at a press conference Tuesday at the headquarters of the state-connected economic development nonprofit AdvanceCT on James Street in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Germany Mission Reveals Tariff Fears, Short-Term Opportunities’
by | Jul 22, 2024 5:09 pm | Comments (5)
CitySeed chief Sarah Miller (second from right) leads Sate Sen. Martin Looney, State Rep. Pat Dillon, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, city Health Director Maritza Bond, and state agriculture chief Bryan Hurlburt on tour of former factory.
The state’s top agriculture official walked into an empty Fair Haven factory Monday and reached for his wallet.
Well, metaphorically.
Continue reading ‘CitySeed Starts Pitching HQ/Commercial Kitchen Plan’
by | Jul 19, 2024 3:52 pm | Comments (2)
Fair Haven kids play an intense game of soccer.
“What are we?” Fair Haven Patrol Officer and newly minted Police Activity League (PAL) Soccer Coach Frantzy Toussaint asked his 15 students.
Having braved drills, laps, and games in high-80 degree weather, they proudly responded, “Soccer players!”
by | Jul 18, 2024 9:19 am | Comments (6)
Brian Slattery photos
Watch out, George Baldwin, that's a sand shark!
Students test for salinity, temperature, and "conductivity."
The traffic from the Q Bridge rumbled overhead, oblivious to the scene below at the mouth of the Quinnipiac and Mill rivers, as two students on a small Sound School boat lowered a piece of scientific equipment into the water, at surface and at depth.
The reason: to continue a years-long project of gathering data about the Mill River and, in turn, foster a better relationship with it.
by | Jul 16, 2024 3:54 pm | Comments (12)
Asher Joseph photos
The new electric trash truck, in action.
Asher Joseph file photo
Climate director Winter, with Mayor Elicker: Heavy-duty vehicles "contribute more than half of the smog-forming air pollution."
New Haven trash, meet the 2024 Battle Motors LET 2 EV.
by | Jul 12, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (18)
Asher Joseph photos
Minsky, Eyzaguirre, Pickett, and McLeggon in the Art to Frames showroom ...
... as employees put together custom frame orders, as viewed on Development Commission tour of Mill River / River Street districts.
Machinery whirred as employees of Art To Frames on River Street fulfilled custom frame orders, during the final stop on a city Development Commission tour showcasing what a commercial-industrial district near the Mill River currently looks like — and what it some day might be.
Continue reading ‘Industrial District Tour Eyes Mixed-Use Future’
by | Jul 9, 2024 3:17 pm | Comments (17)
Maya McFadden Photo
Michael Carter with Supt. Negrón at Monday's school board meeting.
Former city Chief Administrative Officer Michael Carter is back in town to do the work of the Board of Education’s suspended chief of operations (COO), at least for the next three months.
by | Jul 1, 2024 4:41 pm | Comments (48)
Asher Joseph photo
Celebrating the expansion of CT's Medicaid.
At 9 a.m. Monday, Estefania Guanoluisa Valdez became the first undocumented teenager in Connecticut to newly enroll for health insurance with HUSKY, the state’s Medicaid program — thanks to a new state law that expands such coverage to children up to the age of 15, regardless of their immigration status.
by | Jun 25, 2024 9:11 am | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery Photos
Cruz.
“You are visiting, and I live in, the most diverse neighborhood in New Haven,” said community activist Lee Cruz. “You walk around this block, you will hear English, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Hebrew, and French. Just on this block.”
He was talking about Fair Haven, and the occasion was a bike tour — part of Sunday’s programming for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas — that led 30 participants through the neighborhood to discover the range and depth of public art projects there. Along the way, they learned about history, struggle, and the pride that binds the people in one geographical area into a community.
Continue reading ‘Public Art Tour Illustrates Community Pride’
by | Jun 21, 2024 11:56 am | Comments (33)
Maya McFadden photo
Williams and Blatteau: Human-centered schools a priority.
The New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district began the school year scrambling to hire educators to address a teacher shortage.
It’s ending the school year with the announcement of staff cuts to come.
To the leaders of the city’s two classroom-facing unions, that mixed messaging is a problem — and reflects the broader challenges of understaffing, budget crunches, and inconsistent communication across the district. It also underscores the imperative of putting students’ needs first.
by | Jun 19, 2024 2:42 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel file photo
Wilson Reyes reviewing his restaurant's "Porky's" specials, in 2012.
Grand Avenue booster, neighborhood real estate investor, business owner, and community champ Wilson “Porky” Reyes has now left Fair Haven. But Fair Haven has not forgotten Porky.