by | Jan 3, 2024 3:29 pm | Comments (54)
Laura Glesby photo
Streater: Lost 24 years of his life to a crooked prosecution.
On Monday Troy Streater was sworn in for his first full term a city alder. On Tuesday he sued the city for $50 million in punitive damages and $50 million in compensatory damages for the two dozen years he spent in prison on a wrongful conviction.
by | Jan 1, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (47)
Twining / L&M designs
Design for "Winchester Green" apartments and retail on a vacant lot within Science Park, complete with a new interior street grid.
The money’s in. So the next apartment complex slated for a fast-changing stretch of the Dixwell-Newhallville border is ready to rise.
Continue reading ‘$90M In Hand To Start Building "Winchester Green"’
by | Dec 20, 2023 8:24 am | Comments (6)
Allan Appel photo
Mother Helen Carr (center) with Babatunde Akinjobi and Marcus Harvin.
Marcus Harvin is working on a fresh start: for the food in his home community of Newhallville, and for formerly incarcerated people like himself who are looking to improve their own lives and the lives of those around them.
Enter Newhallville Fresh Start: a food pantry he’s in the process of founding to provide healthy produce and, eventually, programming for neighbors in need.
by | Dec 18, 2023 6:54 pm | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden photo
Gov. Lamont (right) "clearing the records" of thousands of Connecticut residents with years-old criminal convictions.
Helen Caraballo is looking forward to attending nursing school while raising her five children and bouncing back from an otherwise “rough year” — with the knowledge that she’ll no longer have to keep looking backward at a decade-old, low-level felony conviction, which will soon be erased.
Continue reading ‘80,000 Records To Be Cleared As "Clean Slate" Takes Full Effect’
by | Nov 22, 2023 8:42 am | Comments (2)
Lisa Reisman photo
"Marblehead" director-producer Darrell Bellamy Jr. and screenwriter Melo Ali El.
Exterior of Kennies Earl Kreative House on Shelton.
The scene was a bare-bones space with concrete walls in an industrial building on Shelton Avenue. Jeff Bell was pleading with Carter Goodrich not to hurt him.
“I have some money in my pocket and a watch worth five grand,” Bell told Goodrich, his voice quaking. “Just let me go. Please let me go.”
Off in the distance, a door slammed shut. A siren wailed.
“That’s a wrap,” said director and producer Darrell Bellamy.
Continue reading ‘Newhallville Casting Call Seeks Movie Talent’
by | Nov 22, 2023 8:32 am | Comments (4)
Lisa Reisman File Photo
Alder Troy Streater, who petitioned for Geneva Pollock Way, on the block between the two renamed corners.
Geneva Pollock and Pearlie Napoleon were friends who both dedicated their lives to their students and their Newhallville community. So it’s fitting that the street corners soon to be named after them will be located just one block apart.
by | Nov 21, 2023 8:49 am | Comments (2)
Lisa Gray Photo
Orsella Hughes, Ginne-Rae Clay, Fixing Fathers Inc. Founder Dr. David Asbery, and Larry Conaway.
In a music- and dance-filled celebration, the Prosperity Foundation distributed $900,000 in grant funds to 25 mostly Black-led organizations.
Continue reading ‘Prosperity Foundation Awards $900K In Cannabis-Legalization-Related Grants’
by | Nov 16, 2023 8:28 am | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Jacqueline James-Boyd at Newhallville meetup: Cannabis cash meant to address "all the issues we have in Black and Brown communities.”
Millions of dollars in cannabis-legalization money are slated to trickle back into New Haven’s neighborhoods most negatively impacted by the War on Drugs — and residents are responding with programmatic pitches to put those funds towards community revitalization, from serving the homeless hot meals to mentoring Black billionaires in the making.
Continue reading ‘Neighborhood Q: How To Spend State Cannabis Cash?’
by | Nov 13, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (1)
Christopher Wigren, Stacy and Frankie Vairo, Jane Montanaro, Lady Shalene McClam, Pastor Darrell McClam, and Mother Helen Jean Carr on Sunday.
The congregants of Pitts Chapel United Free Will Baptist Church are not only raising their historic sanctuary’s roof in dancing, singing, and exuberant prayer as they do every Sunday — now they are also able to fix it.
Continue reading ‘Newhallville Church's Roof Repairs Celebrated’
by | Nov 10, 2023 12:25 pm | Comments (16)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Mt. Calvary Deliverance Tabernacle Pastor Robert Smith (right), with Youth Continuum's Tim Maguire: "The community is hurting."
A local homelessness services nonprofit is looking to open the city’s first warming shelter exclusively for young adults — but is still searching for a location after scrapping a Newhallville church partnership in the face of community opposition.
Continue reading ‘Youth Shelter Planned, But Not For Hazel St.’
by , and | Nov 7, 2023 2:08 pm | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Cody Uman, in Ward 21: Voting yes on 4-year terms.
Thomas Breen photo
Outside the Conte West Hills polling place on Chapel St.
(Updated and corrected) Cody Uman, an undergraduate math major at Yale, was running late to class Tuesday after setting aside an extra hour to research the proposed changes to the city’s charter and bike over to King-Robinson School to cast his vote in Ward 21, which covers parts of Newhallville, Dixwell and Prospect Hill.
He said he was voting “yes” on the ballot measure in favor of four-year terms for all elected officials and increased salaries for the city’s alders to make sure they’re better “compensated for their time.”
by | Oct 26, 2023 1:05 pm | Comments (19)
Thomas Breen photo
Let there be water, and more trees!
Two dozen eager and antsy King Robinson School first graders joined the mayor in pouring bucket after bucket of water atop a newly planted lacebark elm tree — to help grow a federally funded canopy expansion program that will see an extra 2,500 trees take root in New Haven over the next five years.
by | Oct 12, 2023 4:00 pm | Comments (2)
Regina Winters-Toussaint.
While a student at the Yale School of Architecture in 1992, Regina Winters-Toussaint created her own summer internship. As one of the first counselors for LEAP, then a new youth enrichment program in New Haven, she moved into Westville Manor public housing, where she mentored the young people living there.
That willingness to steep herself in the experience of those who would live and work in the structures she built is among the reasons for the induction of Winters-Toussaint, who died of cancer at 47 in April 2016, in the CT Women’s Hall of Fame, according to its executive director Sarah Lubarsky.
Continue reading ‘Regina Winters-Toussaint To Be Inducted Posthumously Into CT Women’s Hall of Fame’
by | Oct 5, 2023 8:46 am | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photo
Mayoral hopeful Tom Goldenberg with Knickerbocker regular Willie Holmes and club Vice President Patty Newton-Foster.
The Knickerbocker's castle-like clubhouse at 715 Sherman Pkwy.
Willie Holmes stepped into the Knickerbocker on Wednesday night for the same reason that he’s been showing up to the Newhallville African American golf club’s events for the past 75 years: to relax with friends, talk about the pleasures of golf and the state of Black New Haven, grab a drink, and mix it up with local political power players and those looking to join their ranks.
Continue reading ‘Goldenberg Swings For Support At Black Golf Club’
by | Oct 3, 2023 4:49 pm | Comments (0)
Sirena McNeal photo
Legacy Foundation's Greg Jones and high school senior Devin James, with Morgan State AD Dena Freeman-Patton and Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison after the event.
A door opened for high school senior Devin James at The Lab at ConnCORP.
The occasion was a Friday evening conversation, moderated by ESPN’s Michael Eaves, on “Athletics & Academics at HBCUs” with Dena Freeman-Patton, the first female athletic director at Morgan State University.
Freeman-Patton was in town for Saturday’s NAACP Harmony Classic between her Maryland-based school’s Bears and Yale’s Bulldogs. Yale would prevail 45 – 3.
Continue reading ‘Bears-Bulldogs Match Kicks Off HBCU Conversation’
by | Sep 18, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Silent Book Club New Haven selections for September.
Are you one of those people who grabs a book with all intentions of plowing through a decent number of pages and ends up not reading any — distracted by the phone, the TV or household chores? The Silent Book Club might be perfect for you.
by and | Sep 15, 2023 12:03 pm | Comments (24)
Allan Appel photo
Surprised non-Democrat Anthony Carter, with Bella Vista moderator Patricia Solomon.
“I’ve been a Democrat all my life,” said May, an 81-year-old Newhallville resident who said she’s voted at Lincoln-Bassett School every election since she bought her home in 1985.
Except she wasn’t a Democrat on Tuesday. She found out from a moderator that she had been re-registered as an “unaffiliated” voter, ineligible to vote in the primary.
May was one of at least dozens of people across the city to find out on Tuesday that they couldn’t vote because they weren’t Democrats. To many, including May, that news came as an inexplicable surprise.
Continue reading ‘Unexpected Unaffiliateds Turned Away At Polls’
by | Sep 13, 2023 9:40 am | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
BioLaunch head trainer and lab operations manager Brionna Davis-Reyes sharing the magic of electrophoresis.
The opportunities must have sounded too good to be true for Alfred Washington, Elizabeth Cropper, and Shayne Miller.
But there they were, as part of an open house hosted by the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT).
Washington, a trainee on the cusp of an internship at a New Haven biotech company, was discussing the separation of protein molecules based on their size and electrical charge. Cropper, an instructor, was demonstrating blood draws in the phlebotomy lab. And Shayne Miller, a Culinary Arts Academy grad, was offering guests a cup of green tea lemongrass ice cream artfully wedged with a sesame seed cookie that he had earlier created.
by | Sep 5, 2023 8:56 am | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby photo
Brittiany Mabery-Niblack with "tough cookie" tenant Doretha Mitchell.
Brittiany Mabery-Niblack met with a group of Newhall Gardens tenants to talk about an election — but not the one she’s running in.
by | Aug 29, 2023 2:24 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photos
Lance Thomas, on Winchester Ave: "There's too much gun violence."
414 Dixwell, one of many Ocean properties up for sale.
Ocean Management affiliates sold another nine local rental properties over the past month — while Mandy Management affiliates sold six buildings of their own and bought one anew — as “For Sale” signs continue to pop up on front lawns across Newhallville and Dixwell.
Continue reading ‘"For Sale" Signs Multiply As Ocean Keeps Selling’
by | Aug 24, 2023 4:22 pm | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen photo
Brennan, in front of supporters, in front of "climate hero" parking lot.
One of the keys to curbing local carbon emissions amid an ever-worsening climate crisis might just lie in a Newhallville parking lot on Albertus Magnus College’s campus.
Continue reading ‘Local Climate Crisis Rx: Solar On Parking’
by | Aug 24, 2023 8:30 am | Comments (34)
Thomas Breen photo
Police Chief Karl Jacobson on Monday: "This is a tragedy. This is a terrible incident."
(Updated) A 54-year-old New Havener named Sheila Harris died on Wednesday from injuries she sustained during a domestic-violence-fueled double shooting on Shelton Avenue that had already claimed the life of her alleged abuser.
by | Aug 18, 2023 4:14 pm | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby photo
Kimbrough's supporters include her grandson Warren Kimbrough, local business owner Jesse Crespo (of ADT Auto-Body), her niece Sonya Scott-Campbell, Hamdenite Sonia Powell, and Newhallville resident Brother Born.
“I want a stop sign right there by that school,” said Lossie Gorham. “And a speed bump.” She pointed at Lincoln-Bassett Community School, which stands across the street from where she’s lived for two decades.
Addie Kimbrough, the alder candidate who had knocked on Gorham’s door, nodded and repeated a refrain she’s often voiced on the campaign trail: “Newhallville is being neglected.”
Continue reading ‘Bassett Street Speeding Bumps Into Alder Race’
by | Aug 17, 2023 2:20 pm | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen photos
Liam Brennan (right) with Keith and Yolanda Harper talking through ...
... fewer empty lots, more housing, on Starr Street.
Keith Harper can still remember the three-family house that stood a few doors down from his own family’s Starr Street home. It’s now a vacant city-owned lot.
Mayoral challenger Liam Brennan visited Harper’s Newhallville block to make his pitch for why a house should be standing there again today — and what rules need to be changed to make that denser land-use vision a reality.
by | Jul 24, 2023 12:53 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
Omar Kh with Mohamad Hamasa on Saturday: Looking to flip or rent.
Three months after prevailing at a West Hills foreclosure auction for a house he had planned to move his family into — but which he now intends to rent or flip — Omar Kh came back to New Haven to help a close friend and fellow New Yorker try to get his own foot in the door of investing in rundown, tax-foreclosed local real estate.