by | May 30, 2019 12:43 pm | Comments (21)
Melanie Espinal Photo
Mayoral hopeful Justin Elicker at Bella Vista Wednesday evening.
Justin Elicker didn’t tell the seniors at Bella Vista everything they wanted to hear. But he promised to stand by them.
In song. The one by Ben E. King.
by | May 21, 2019 3:01 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Tuesday afternoon’s Board of Ethics meeting.
Should the sister of a city employee be able to purchase a city-built two-family home in Fair Haven Heights? Should she qualify for city-financed down payment assistance for her mortgage?
by | May 6, 2019 3:11 pm | Comments (2)
Ian Christmann Photos
A forest of pinwheels, spinning in the spring air, sprang up along the Quinnipiac River on Saturday morning to guide hundreds of children, families, and friends on a 1.5‑mile stroll around the Quinnipiac’s bridges.
With Mayor Toni Harp in the vanguard, the marchers were lending their support to high-quality early childhood education, as part of the ninth annual Fair Haven Family Stroll and Festival.
by | Apr 22, 2019 3:42 pm | Comments (0)
Ian Christmann Photo
The following was provided by The Community Foundation For Greater New Haven.
The Quinnipiac River Fund has awarded $138,000 in grants to study the Quinnipiac River and its wildlife, reduce pollution, and increase access and recreational opportunities. Eleven competitive grants were awarded to organizations working in Greater New Haven, according to a press release from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Quinnipiac River Fund Announces 2019 Awardees’
by | Apr 11, 2019 7:39 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, Mayor Toni Harp, CT State Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno, and Alder Rose Santana cut the ribbon.
For more than a decade after old condos were torn down and the city claimed the property, the empty lots atop Judith Terrace were vacant. Dumpers littered them. Joy-riders swooped through to evade the police.
The land was cleaned up over the years and bollards deployed. But a profounder change at the top of Judith Terrace was celebrated Wednesday afternoon — new life in the form of five brand new two-family homes.
by | Apr 3, 2019 1:20 pm | Comments (13)
Allan Appel Photo
Armmand and Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes at Tuesday night’s meeting.
With only a little more than a month left before the May 9 deadline for submission, only two of the 12 community management teams have sent in to the mayor their nominations for the city’s new police Civilian Review Board.
Some confusion reigns about aspects of the nomination process, like which specific application form is legal.
Continue reading ‘Management Teams Slow On Civilian Review Names’
by | Mar 18, 2019 7:53 am | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
Schiavone and Bye.
With the help of $1 million, a new group called NH ChILD has kicked off a 10-year effort to transform the landscape of early child education in New Haven.
If all goes according to ambitious plans, the initiative will provide access to top quality early learning for all of the city’s kids from birth to 8 years old.
Continue reading ‘Effort Launched To Revolutionize Early Childhood Ed In New Haven’
by | Mar 14, 2019 4:24 pm | Comments (1)
IAN CHRISTMANN PHOTO
The Quinnipiac River: Soon to be a state wildlife refuge?
Local waterfowl can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now, that a bill that would designate both the Quinnipiac River and the Mill River as wildlife refuges has won a key sign-off from a state legislative committee.
by | Mar 7, 2019 6:09 pm | Comments (6)
Allan Appel Photo
Pilgrim Congregational.
The cell phone array, completely enclosed in the church steeple, is completely safe. It provides income badly needed by an historic church. It looks fine. Property values will be unaffected.
Or … Who really wants to live next to a nine-antennae array? And the science is not definitive over whether radio frequency emanations cause cancer.
by | Feb 20, 2019 1:20 pm | Comments (0)
East Shore cops conducted 58 motor vehicle stops in a week — and caught an erratic moped driver and a woman who allegedly fled the scene of a Valentine’s Day crash.
by | Feb 20, 2019 8:29 am | Comments (5)
Tortora, on right, with customer Kerby Long.
Ben Tortora’s Grand Vin wine shop lost 15 – 18 percent of its business when the sidewalk all around the store was dug up during the two-year-long Quinnipiac Avenue redo beginning back in 2011.
Now the 73-year-old merchant fears losing 25 percent of his business when Grand Avenue Bridge closes for a year and more of major renovations.
by | Feb 18, 2019 3:24 pm | Comments (2)
Patriquin Architects
The new design.
It’s not every day that neighbors dispatch their lawyer before a city commission for the sole purpose of expressing joy at an outcome.
Continue reading ‘Oyster Farm Expansion, Redesigned, Wins Support’
by | Feb 14, 2019 3:51 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
The Grand Avenue Bridge.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn at City Hall on Thursday.
The newly rehabbed Grand Avenue Bridge won’t just be adjacent to a public park along the Quinnipiac River.
It will be a public space in its own right, with a newly widened path for pedestrians and bicycles that will look south over the water.
Continue reading ‘Wider Foot-Bike Path Coming To Rehabbed Bridge’
by | Feb 6, 2019 2:18 pm | Comments (18)
Allan Appel Photo
Budget critics Dennis Serfilippi and Pat Kane, after the colloquoy.
Will police-controlled drones be the city’s answer to solving the chronic and sometimes terrifying dirt bike problem?
And why is the city not incorporating into the budget-in-progress a Financial Review and Audit Commission (FRAC) recommendation for a $25,00- to-$50,000 study for an “operational audit” of the police and fire departments?
Wouldn’t that shed needed light on just how the police and fire departments can function well even in lean times, with maybe reduced manpower and maybe not sending fire engines to heart attacks?
by | Feb 5, 2019 2:37 pm | Comments (0)
Not the same vehicle in question.
A Foxon Hill Road resident’s pickup truck was stolen from his driveway. The car was later located in Brooklyn, New York.
There was one small problem. The car was on fire.
Continue reading ‘Stolen Truck Found — On Fire, In Brooklyn’
by | Feb 2, 2019 8:47 pm | Comments (1)
A 58-year-old New Haven man died after a moped he was driving crashed into an unoccupied oil delivery truck parked on Lexington Avenue at 3:45 p.m. Friday, according to police spokesman Capt. Anthony Duff.
by | Jan 30, 2019 8:50 am | Comments (8)
Sketch drawing by Chris Ozyck
Will the rehabbed bridge look in the fog like a scene from a Monet painting?
The Grand Avenue Bridge, a swing span with Erector Set-like trusses and one of the glories of Fair Haven and of the city, was painted black back in 1898 when it was built and has always been so.
A needed full rehabilitation will get under way this fall, complete with vehicle closures that will last all of 2020 and perhaps through the middle of 2021.
When the rebuilt bridge emerges — with new electrical and mechanical systems and new, smoother roadways to endure for future generations — will it be painted the old coal black or Statue of Liberty Green or some shade thereof?
by | Jan 22, 2019 1:13 pm | Comments (2)
A Fair Haven Heights woman received more than nine pounds of marijuana at her doorstep — without asking for it.
Continue reading ‘9-Pound Marijuana Package Delivered To Wrong Address’
by | Jan 15, 2019 5:10 pm | Comments (10)
Allan Appel Photo
Access-limiting fence, in orange, surrounds carriage house.
As its roof continues to threaten to fall in and the foundation crumbles, the quaint 19th-Century carriage house at 515 Quinnipiac Ave. has sprouted an access-limiting orange fabric fence.
That may be a sign, however slight, that the owner, the city, and the New Haven Preservation Trust are getting together to try to put a halt to a wave of “demolitions by neglect” that have caused melancholy along the banks of the river, along with calls for stricter rules to reign in negligent owners of venerable property in the Quinnipiac River Historic District.
by | Jan 4, 2019 8:29 am | Comments (1)
Patriquin Architects Photo
Following on a meeting at the Historic District Commission (HDC) about a major expansion of the historic Copps Island/Norm Bloom & Sons oyster farm on Quinnipiac Avenue, architects invited all abutting neighbors to contribute alternative ideas. Two proposed new massive, view-altering, riverine buildings proved controversial.
The meeting, held in the third floor conference space at Patriquin Architects, on Grand Avenue and Front Street, drew only a handful of neighbors. They made up for their numbers by proposing a massive rethinking and reconfiguration of the plan
by | Dec 17, 2018 8:42 am | Comments (3)
Patriquin Architects Photo
People in the Heights generally love the oyster farm that for decades has been harvesting, shucking, and shipping the bivalves from the banks of the Quinnipiac River just below the Grand Avenue Bridge.
Norm Bloom & Sons keeps alive the local oystering industry and the working waterfront that are part of the area’s history and appeal.
Now the company proposes to build two large new structures that potentially are out of scale with the surrounding residential buildings —and to relocate two historic ones — in order to expand the business. Will the positive relationship continue, or will it become only love on the half shell?
by | Dec 14, 2018 8:40 am | Comments (10)
Allan Appel Photo
The 19th century carriage house set back behind 515 Quinnipiac Ave.
As one historic east side building faced faced imminent demolition, the owner of another historic structure, a charming 19th century carriage house on nearby Quinnipiac Avenue, said he can no longer afford to keep it standing and asked for permission to tear it down.
Historic District Commissioners heard his plea, then denied it.
Yet, echoing the fate of the Brewery Square gatehouse, the commissioners expressed the fear that their very denial — and the public attention their deliberation brings to the structure — might ironically result in the carriage house’s loss.
Continue reading ‘Another Historic Demolition By Neglect Looms’
by | Dec 5, 2018 3:15 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel Photo
Questions pinned up at Tuesday night’s transfer station expansion meeting.
It smells. It doesn’t smell.
It will add pollution. It won’t add pollution.
Rumbling trucks will awaken slumbering residential streets. Nope, the rigs stay mainly on the highways.
The city gets new jobs and taxes. Or … a beleaguered, dense, and poor neighborhood gets dumped on once again.
by | Nov 16, 2018 2:13 pm | Comments (11)
Christopher Peak Photo
Kelly Inga with her students at Quinnipiac STEM School.
Across Connecticut, teachers are stumped by math. Their lessons just don’t seem to be getting through, leaving more than half of all elementary-school students behind grade level.
One fifth-grade teacher in New Haven has hit on a formula that might show the rest of Connecticut how to solve the problem.
by | Nov 5, 2018 8:45 am | Comments (6)
State Rep. Robyn Porter helps serve pizza during Sunday night’s get-out-the-vote rally.
Thomas Breen photo
Lieutenant governor candidate Susan Bysiewicz works the crowd.
Donald Trump wasn’t physically present at the Bella Vista senior complex in the Heights on Sunday night.
But at an annual New Haven pre-election ritual, the Republican president was at the center of nearly every pitch made by a dozen Democratic candidates seeking local, state, and national offices.