by | Jan 30, 2025 10:28 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Chris Brunetti of Trench CT.
Rage found an outlet in voices and beats as three Connecticut bands — Remedies, Trench CT, and Psycho Brat — took to the stage at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night. With newspaper headlines full of political tension, the bands’ sets of hardcore and punk made a place for release.
by | Jan 24, 2025 3:19 pm | Comments (28)
Newman Architects rendering
The latest design for 450-ish apartments planned for State St.
Zachary Groz photo
Newman Architects' Paul Santos: Looking for mix of traditional and modern.
(Updated) A development team’s plan to build nearly 450 apartments atop a publicly owned parking lot on State Street inched forward — with a second community meeting, a refined design and an estimated price tag of $125 million.
Continue reading ‘State St. Parking-To-Housing Plan Advances’
by | Dec 17, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (0)
Matt Wilson.
Drummer Matt Wilson had much to say at Firehouse 12 on Friday night, but there was one word he used the most. He used it when bassist Paul Sikivie unfurled a series of ideas on his instrument, again when Sikivie and reeds player Jeff Lederer played as if they were talking, again when all three of them executed an elegant turn of phrase. Again and again, that word was “beautiful.”
by | Dec 16, 2024 2:17 pm | Comments (29)
Thomas Breen photos
Mayor Elicker and Spinnaker VP Frank Caico (center) ...
... celebrate new apartments at the "Anthem at Square 10" ...
... as property manager Alves (right) shows off common area "plant wall."
Brian Alves reached back in time to his teenage years attending concerts by Aerosmith and Huey Lewis and the News at the Coliseum — as he gave reporters a tour of the shiny new mixed-use building that has risen from the ex-venue’s ashes, complete with 200 apartments, ground-floor retail space, a pool, a gym, and a common room buttressed by a “real life plant wall.”
Continue reading ‘At Long Last, Ex-Coliseum Apartments Open’
by | Dec 6, 2024 12:15 pm | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Tommy V and David Ramos.
There are people who talk about helping and change and making the world a better place one day, and then there’s Joey Batts and the CT hip hop community, who for the past 11 years have gathered for a series of shows at multiple venues throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts to actually do it. Hip Hop for the Homeless began its annual December run raising funds and collecting donations for local groups on Thursday night.
First stop: New Haven’s Cafe Nine, where host for the evening Sketch tha Cataclysm brought forth a healthy and harmonious collection of CT-based hip hop artists to entertain for a worthy cause: Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen.
Continue reading ‘Hip Hop For The Homeless Launches Year 11’
by | Nov 21, 2024 8:35 am | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby photos
No empty seats at the table, at Trans Day of Remembrance.
Simon: "I'm not inherently political."
There were no empty chairs around the New Haven Pride Center’s communal dinner table, though there were missing people.
Continue reading ‘Trans Lives Remembered; "I Just Want To Live"’
by | Nov 8, 2024 4:31 pm | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Sterling Valentine dances out his stress.
Xiomarie LaBeija reminds the crowd: In case nobody told you today, you're special.
Legal rights may be fragile, but community isn’t.
That message resounded through a post-election gathering at the New Haven Pride Center on Thursday evening, where attendees reeling from Donald Trump’s presidential victory found a salve in art, dance, drag, mindfulness, and mutual support.
by | Nov 5, 2024 7:55 am | Comments (0)
Allen Lowe.
On Friday night, the latest show in Firehouse 12’s fall concert series featured a journey through the American music of the 20th century before the rise of hip hop, as imaginatively seen through the eyes of one of jazz’s most central figures, Louis Armstrong. In walking decades in the icon’s shoes, it was also a trip through the latest compositional ideas of musician and writer Allen Lowe.
Continue reading ‘Allen Lowe Rolls Six Decades Into Six Songs’
by | Oct 18, 2024 1:37 pm | Comments (4)
Karen Ponzio photo
Olmo-Rivera, Zumwalt-Hathaway, and Werlin.
What happens when a Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen volunteer and New Haven arts and culture scene superfan decides to combine the two things near and dear to his heart? The New Haven Cares Festival of Arts and Music is born.
The brain child of Andrew Zumwalt-Hathaway, this newly created fundraising event will transform some of the city’s hottest night spots into places where donations can be collected for the annual DESK Thanksgiving For All program, offering both good will and a good time.
by | Oct 10, 2024 3:17 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
Looking through the Chapel Street window glass at an empty Elm City Market.
(Updated) Elm City Market has officially closed its 360 State St. location — in advance of the grocery store’s planned move to a smaller space a few blocks away at the “Square 10” development at the former Coliseum site.
by | Sep 30, 2024 8:37 am | Comments (0)
Kelly Jensen Photo
Taylor Ho Bynum.
Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum smiled from the stage at Firehouse 12 Friday night, explaining how good it was to be back there. “I cannot imagine my life without it,” he said, from his collaborations with Anthony Braxton to his numerous performances there with other groups. On Friday, however, he was there with UK-based pianist Alexander Hawkins, as part of the Crown Street bar- recording studio-performance space’s fall jazz series, running now into December.
by | Sep 19, 2024 9:36 am | Comments (0)
Jangly, catchy riffs. Yearning melodies. Rhythms designed for dancing. Three bands — Floater Verses, Toy Cities, and Los Shadows — deployed all three elements to great effect at Cafe Nine Wednesday night, adding up to one of the poppiest nights the club on State and Crown has booked in recent memory.
by | Sep 13, 2024 11:02 am | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby Photo
Kent Mawhinney and Alexis Kang: Give pinot noir a chance.
Hundreds of new residents will soon be allowed to move into on-the-rise apartments at the ex-Coliseum property — but they won’t be allowed to walk downstairs to buy alcohol at a “high-end” liquor store on site.
by | Sep 9, 2024 8:48 am | Comments (5)
A New Haven Pride rendition of “Pink Pony Club.”
It was 3 p.m. on Saturday, and it had been raining for at least an hour. The New Haven Pride celebration, however, was in full swing.
by | Aug 30, 2024 9:39 am | Comments (0)
Marisa Torrieri photo
Jammin out at Cafe 9 on a Sunday afternoon.
Turkey Vulture — a metal/punk duo of Milford-based couple Jessie May (vocals, guitar) and Jim Clegg (drums) — typically spend Sunday afternoons entertaining their two toddler sons. So when May growled into the mic and ripped into a distorted-guitar riff at Cafe Nine on a recent Sunday afternoon in early August, it felt wholly cathartic.
by | Aug 29, 2024 11:02 am | Comments (1)
ASHER JOSEPH PHOTO
Oren Mendieta and Angeline Rivera: Jobreel video "gives you that human communication that you can’t find on a resumé."
Sisters Elena and Emily Grewal: Putting new job hiring app to work.
With college on the horizon, Wilbur Cross High School seniors Oren Mendieta and Angeline Rivera are on the hunt for a job to cover tuition expenses — so they showed up to a Ninth Square job fair hosted by a new app looking to connect local employers and employees to-be.
by | Aug 29, 2024 9:41 am | Comments (0)
Rappers, producers, and drummers came together at Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown Wednesday night to celebrate the release of a new album, and give a sense of how the underground hip hop scene connects New Haven and New York.
by | Aug 23, 2024 11:02 am | Comments (22)
Laura Glesby Photo
Giulia Gambale: Known was a source of motivation and community.
The coworking space: Relatively quiet, closing in October.
Remote workers, local artists, and self-employed entrepreneurs who currently rent desks at Known will have to find a new place to work by mid-fall.
by | Jul 30, 2024 3:37 pm | Comments (100)
Thomas Breen file photo
Here comes the neighborhood: Potential buildings to come (in white) to transform the Ninth Square. (Cafe 9 is at center near bottom.)
Housing authority head Karen DuBois-Walton: "We need to be building more housing. That is how we move forward."
Builders are ready to un-pave parking lots — and erect hundreds of new mixed-income apartments downtown.
Two dozen officials announced that news Tuesday afternoon alongside developers during a press conference heralding newly inked agreements to redevelop a car-centric stretch of State and George streets.
by | Jul 15, 2024 11:30 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Pat Stone performing with a full band at cafe nine.
“Thanks for coming out on this scorching Sunday,” said Billy Scovill of The Ambulance Chasers as they opened a three-band bill at Cafe Nine Sunday afternoon. It was indeed a scorcher outside, but the corner of State and Crown was the perfect place to cool off with icy drinks and a trio of CT-based bands playing the kind of rock that fires everyone up and almost makes you forget you have to go back to work the next day.
by | Jul 11, 2024 9:17 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Madou Sidiki Diabaté and Salif Bamakora, with their koras at Cafe 9.
The chitchat at Cafe Nine on Wednesday might have been getting a little intense, but a flourish of notes from the 21-string kora of Madou Sidiki Diabaté was enough to silence them.
One by one the voices died down as Diabaté floated phrase after mesmerizing phrase into the air — modern yet informed by a West African culture thousands of years old.
by | Jun 21, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (3)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Re-X Clinic attendees with their pickles.
The kitchen of MakeHaven was cramped and filled to the brim with the strong smell of vegetables, oil, and brine. Eight people gathered with Young Le Do on Thursday night to participate in a pickle-making workshop called Re‑X Clinic: In a Pickle!
Some people brought the contents of their fridge. Others darted across the street to Elm City Market to purchase vegetables and herbs. The group shared ingredients between them, until the air was as filled with camaraderie as the jars were filled with salt.
Continue reading ‘Half Water. Half Vinegar. Some Salt. Much Fun’
by | Jun 19, 2024 9:18 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Shrapknel.
Dying in hospice. Shedding the uniform known as your body. Name-checking Milford. All these topics and more flew through bar after bar of hip hop, as six acts from near and far burned through their sets to the delight of a good-sized audience who had come to hear them at Cafe Nine.
by | Jun 17, 2024 1:26 pm | Comments (0)
Eamon Linehan (Free Artist Production)
Wadada Leo Smith: “I was born in Mississippi where the sunrise comes out of the ground."
Creative Musicians Improvisors Forum (CMIF) co-founder Wadada Leo Smith kept the audience at Firehouse 12 on Saturday enraptured as he detailed a life rooted in musical history, from Mississippi to California to Chicago to Europe to New Haven.
by | Jun 17, 2024 10:56 am | Comments (5)
Laura Glesby Photo
DESK director Werlin (center): Guided by "accessibility."
In order to operate a soon-to-be-renovated four-story hub of meals, healthcare, and gathering for unhoused clients, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) is going to need an elevator.
And in order to dig an elevator shaft, the organization first needs to shore up the foundation of the parking garage next door.