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Brian Slattery |
Feb 27, 2020 3:26 pm
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Courtesy New Haven Museum
Guitar found in the former clock factory on Hamilton Street.
Clocks. The Sex Ball. A punk club, then an R&B club. An indoor skate park. The state’s largest LGBTQ club.
All of these are part of the past of the old New Haven Clock Company building on Hamilton Street.
In the present day, that factory complex is being cleaned up in preparation for development into housing, some of which is to include housing for artists. The reason for that concept — and the deeper history of artistic life in New Haven — is brought to sparkling, fascinating life in “Factory,” an exhibit that celebrated its opening on Friday and will run at the New Haven Museum on Whitney Avenue until Aug. 29.
With state law enforcement on their case, the proprietors of “Crown Auto Center” were at risk of losing a lucrative monopoly they’ve held for a decade: a “booting” and towing contract from city government.
Then City Hall itself spent months helping them hold on.
Tenant Lourdes Ortiz displays all the broken buzzers next to the unlocked front door at her apartment building.
Thomas Breen Photos
Luxury apartments at 205 Church; lower-rent 72 Mill River.
Lourdes Ortiz argued that $875 is too much to pay in monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in a rodent-infested, trash-strewn building.
Stephen Slade argued that $3,240 is too much to pay in monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in a luxury building that looks out on the Green and has limited on-site parking.
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Thomas Breen |
Feb 18, 2020 12:43 pm
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The former factory building at 433 Chapel St.
Peter Chapman received a one-year extension to begin work converting a long-vacant former factory building into 25 apartments, several weeks after the city launched three new lawsuits against him seeking to foreclose on the property because of over $44,000 in unpaid taxes.
Future home of recycling facility. Below: Jeffrey Laydon explains plan.
A local road construction company plans to build a recycling facility near the Mill River to convert torn-up and discarded pavement into roadway patching material — while creating no new waste in the process.
by
Thomas Breen |
Feb 3, 2020 1:03 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
Carina Gormley on Grand: “My favorite walk.”
The four-block stretch of Grand Avenue between Olive Street and Wallace Street is scattered with empty lots, storefront churches, social service nonprofits, and Italian eateries, all overshadowed by a towering highway overpass and a rich working-class history.
It’s Carina Gormley’s favorite walk in New Haven. She sees the city’s past and present in each step.
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Christopher Peak |
Jan 10, 2020 2:51 pm
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Jamie Middlebrook: Guilty on two charges, not guilty on a third.
In prosecutors’ telling, Jamie Middlebrook was a hardened crack dealer who carried a semi-automatic in his jacket pocket, ready to blast anyone on Grand Avenue after his stash. He’d rather be judged by 12 jurors, he said, than carried by six pallbearers.
The evidence from a three-day trial this week, where Middlebrook faced federal gun and drug charges, suggested that the 20-year-old defendant was more small fry than big fish.
by
Thomas Breen |
Jan 8, 2020 4:10 pm
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An industrial-use pump manufacturer has purchased Radiall’s former factory buildings on John Murphy Drive in Fair Haven for $3.2 million — with plans eventually to hire enough people to replace many of the New Haven jobs lost there.
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Allan Appel |
Dec 15, 2019 9:19 pm
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Laurentano Sign Group
Rendering for the sign.
The housing authority’s old Farnam Courts at Grand Avenue and Franklin Street — now the unfolding new Mill River Crossing development —is about to get a spiffy new sign.
The four-part grouped column, standing about ten feet high with a design of a meandering blue sash running through it — think Mill River — will not only let people know where the 13 buildings of the complex are when complete. It will also help to brand the new enclave and the neighborhood.
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Allan Appel |
Dec 13, 2019 1:31 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
The future sober house facility at 438 East St.
An old eyesore of an abandoned factory building on East Street is about to become a site for sober eyes.
That’s because Pastor Mike Caroleo, leader of the Christian-centered 180 Center recovery project currently on Grand Avenue, has gotten the municipal OK to move his flock in.
He said the city “stonewalled” and “obstructed” his planned factory conversion — and now seeks to “extract” $350,000 before he can proceed.
City officials swung back, accusing Chapman of leaving his property derelict for years, then of negotiating in public after reneging on a sweetheart deal.
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Allan Appel |
Nov 15, 2019 1:28 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
438 East St., future home of the 180 Center Corp church.
An application to turn a long vacant industrial building on East Street into a church and refuge for those struggling with addiction won approval for zoning commissioners this week.
At the same time a plan to convert an old garage on Lombard Street in Fair Haven into a community arts and crafts center stumbled.
by
Allan Appel |
Nov 11, 2019 5:00 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
Save The Sound’s Nicole Davis at site of future green pocket park, Haven and Exchange streets.
So long to the ziggurat of discarded tires and the dumped detritus of a section of abandoned street that pours dirty storm water into our harbor and Long Island sound
Hello to a beautiful pocket park full of green infrastructure, a pollinator garden, and lots of kids playing in it, having fun, and learning science.
Skeptics testify: Ming-Yee Lin, Jayuan Carter, LTania Wiles (top row); Alexander Kolokotronis, Lillie Chambers, Patricia Kane (middle row); Mona Berman, Melissa Singleton, Johnny Shively.
Nearly two dozen critics of gentrification, market-rate housing, Yale expansion, and city-led planning initiatives stalled a rezoning project designed to rekindle commercial development along portions of Dixwell Avenue, Whalley Avenue, and Grand Avenue.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 18, 2019 3:54 pm
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Aaron Haley (above) of Grand Ave. shelter (below).
The new director of the Grand Avenue homeless shelter has grand ambitions for the oft-maligned social service space: a full interior and exterior building rehab, better connections to permanent housing and jobs, and an expanded footprint with a new program space and full laundry room.
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 17, 2019 8:16 pm
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414 Chapel St.
Builder Mendy Paris with attorney Ben Trachten.
Local builders purchased a Mill River office building for $4.65 million and plan to hold off converting it to market-rate apartments until they’re convinced the neighborhood warrants the investment.
Among other land transactions, a sale has been completed of the Lesley Roy studio in Westville Village, where an agency aimed at foster children plans to take over.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 12, 2019 1:53 pm
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206 Wallace St.
Mandy Management purchased a Mill River warehouse to store boilers, washing machines, refrigerators, and other household appliances needed for its local property management empire.
Meanwhile, four homes sold on Livingston Street home, totaling almost $3.7 million, in the city’s latest property transactions.
LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo and City Plan Director Aicha Woods.
Allan Appel Photo
Grand Avenue as it points towards downtown.
City officials promised to examine the potential impact that a rezoning project might have on low-income black and brown communities as they move forward with longstanding retail revitalization plans for Dixwell, Whalley, and Grand Avenues.
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Thomas Breen |
Jul 10, 2019 8:09 am
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Coming soon to Wallace Street?
Peter Forchetti lost his voice and gained 40 pounds from stress — but ultimately won his final zoning approval Tuesday night needed to turn an abandoned Mill River warehouse into a “Las Vegas-style” strip club and adult complex called Project Venus.
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Thomas Breen |
Jun 27, 2019 2:43 pm
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A mime, a biker, a stripper, and a hardcore punk rocker walk into a dilapidated former clock factory.
That’s not the setup for a joke. That was just 1980s New Haven, as featured in a new documentary about the rich and bizarre history of the former New Haven Clock Company factory on Hamilton Street.
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Thomas Breen |
Jun 25, 2019 12:57 pm
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Tise Design Associates
Phase II rendering.
Phase 2 of the Farnam Courts / Mill River Crossing public housing rebuild won a key city sign-off — on the condition that the end result doesn’t require elderly tenants to walk a block and a half outdoors in the winter time just to throw out their trash.
