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.
by | Jun 17, 2024 3:24 pm | Comments (3)
Abiba Biao photo
Jaysen Anthony Threet: "I don't even know if words can explain."
After losing his father Louis Ortiz and four other family members in a matter of months during his time in high school, Metropolitan Business Academy senior Jaysen Anthony Threet didn’t think he’d cross the graduation stage.
But, last Thursday, he beat the odds.
by and | Jun 14, 2024 4:52 pm | Comments (15)
Maya McFadden photo
Graduation split-screen: 104 8th-graders celebrate at Fair Haven School ...
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
... as eight 8th-graders prepare to move on up from Brennan-Rogers. Pictured here: Jovanna Coardes, Ca’Nayza Smalls, and Teneshia Harrington.
More than 100 eighth-graders walked across the stage in Fair Haven Friday morning to celebrate graduating from one of New Haven’s fastest-growing schools — at the same time that eight of their peers on the far west side of town gathered for a much smaller ceremony at one of the city’s fastest-shrinking schools.
by | Jun 10, 2024 9:41 am | Comments (2)
Eleanor Polak photos
Lynette Devore and Lisa Bellamy Fluker (below) at Riverfest.
The June sunlight sparkled off the smooth waters of the Quinnipiac River beside the Quinnipiac River Marina in Fair Haven, where people of all ages gathered to participate in the Quinnipiac Riverfest this Saturday.
Continue reading ‘Quinnipiac Riverfest Brightens Fair Haven’
by | Jun 7, 2024 4:53 pm | Comments (6)
Edgar Becerra and Josue Arana (center) join ULA for Friday's protest.
Edgar Becerra and Josue Arana packed their belongings into a total of two mid-sized suitcases and a backpack. On Friday morning, they stepped one last time out of the house at 200 Peck St. where they’d lived for the past year. They did not know where they would be sleeping that night.
The eviction culminated a months-long court battle revealing the triple power of one local business’s role as an employer, landlord, and visa sponsor to the temporary migrant workers it hires.
by | Jun 7, 2024 12:17 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Alex Lewis and Lisa Rodriguez celebrate Lewis' $500 college scholarship.
Hillhouse senior Alex Lewis began high school feeling isolated and insecure amidst online-only classes during the pandemic. All that changed when he joined the school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), which gave him the confidence he needed to feel like he too could go to college.
With the help of his sergeant and the local teachers union, Lewis received a $500 boost to chase that post-high school educational dream.
by | Jun 6, 2024 11:04 am | Comments (15)
Abiba Biao photos
Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters: "A natural beauty" to the Mill River underpass (pictured below).
Among the weeds and overgrown vegetation of a highway underpass off of State Street, Achievement First Amistad High School juniors Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters couldn’t help but see potential.
The soil, still damp and moist from a recent downpour, could make fertile land for a community garden in the future. What type of foods they would grow is still up for debate.
by | May 10, 2024 8:53 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden
Ari checks out a preserved black swallowtail butterfly.
In the school’s garden space, Clinton Avenue School fifth-grader Ari brought a magnifier close to a green, rounded leaf plucked from a dandelion and discovered tiny pearls — better known as caterpillar eggs.
She did so as part of an outdoor lesson led by Common Ground’s Schoolyards Program educator Melissa Fredricksen.
Continue reading ‘Students Break From Chrysalis Into Garden World’
by | May 9, 2024 1:35 pm | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Miriam Camacho, back at FAME with her new book.
Former Principal Miriam Camacho returned to her old school in Fair Haven to encourage students to always hold on to their home cultures — and, when possible, to make sofrito from scratch.
by | May 7, 2024 11:05 am | Comments (0)
Dexter Singleton and Austin Dean Ashford.
It was just a read-through of a scene, without a costume or stage blocking, but the switches in writer and actor Austin Dean Ashford’s tone of voice were more than enough to convey switches in character: a wistful, optimistic young teacher, and an older, weathered but hopeful mentor. Later on in the reading, a harried school principal, and four students with whom that young teacher was going to have to prove himself. Director Dexter Singleton listened intently, and took notes.
by | May 6, 2024 6:10 pm | Comments (15)
Maya McFadden Photos
Mayor Justin Elicker serves up ice cream floats...
Maya McFadden Photo
... alongside Superintendent Madeline Negron, for "Staying Afloat" teacher gratitude event.
Fair Haven School teachers took a quick break from keeping students afloat for the remainder of the school year — to receive thanks and complimentary root beer floats from the mayor and superintendent, as part of National Teacher Appreciation Week.
Continue reading ‘Fair Haven Teachers Thanked With Ice Cream & Soda’
by | May 6, 2024 9:35 am | Comments (2)
More music. More vendors. More sunshine.
Grand Avenue in front of Fair Haven School closed on Saturday to accommodate a bigger and more boisterous Fair Haven Day, as the neighborhood celebration — part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas and a product of a broad, neighborhood-wide coalition — marked its second year post-pandemic shutdown and hearkened back to Fair Haven festivals of a generation ago.
by | Apr 26, 2024 1:54 pm | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Class of 2024 tree planted by John Martinez student council.
John Martinez School eighth grader Roselyn Sampedro’s dream to stay rooted to her middle school forever came to fruition Friday as she helped plant a crabapple tree — in honor of the Class of 2024, and to celebrate Arbor Day.
Continue reading ‘Class-Honoring Trees Take Root At Martinez’
by | Apr 24, 2024 8:34 am | Comments (7)
Contributed photo
Hossna Samadi.
“Twenty years of women’s hopes and dreams collapsed in one day.”
That’s how New Havener and Afghan refugee Hossna Samadi described the 2021 fall of Kabul.
She wasn’t in her home country at the time, having left Afghanistan with her family five years earlier. But the shock of seeing the Taliban return to power reverberated thousands of miles away — and sticks with Samadi as she gets to know her New Haven neighbors and explains what it’s like to be Afghan today.
by | Apr 19, 2024 2:16 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photos
Raj Kumar winds up.
Hitesh Redy, with improvised "cricket bat."
Raj Kumar lifted his right arm like a windmill against the backdrop of the former English Station power plant as he “bowled” a tennis ball towards Hitesh Redy — who didn’t need a proper cricket bat to enjoy some time in the park in Fair Haven.
A plank of wood salvaged from their Woolsey Street home would do just fine.
by | Apr 18, 2024 9:30 am | Comments (49)
Thomas Breen photos
162 James St., now owned by CitySeed.
Food truck owner Clementine Johnson (second from right) checking out the space Wednesday.
A factory building that once churned out button-down shirts and laminated credit cards could soon grow local food businesses.
by | Apr 17, 2024 2:07 pm | Comments (7)
Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana in court.
Laura Glesby Photo
Edgar Becerra protests his former employer, MDF Painting and Power Washing, before the eviction proceedings.
A judge has ruled that Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana must find a new place to live, ending an eviction case that sparked protests over alleged exploitation of migrant workers.