The Hill

Tent City Bulldozed

by and | Mar 16, 2023 9:10 am | Comments (59)

Nora Grace-Flood Photos

Cops swarm into Tent City, under supervision of Sgt Justin Cole (center right) and Lt. Nicholas Marcusio (walking away at right).

Last to leave: Paul C packs up after police evict him Thursday from Tent City.

Police swarmed onto the tent city off the Boulevard early Thursday morning to clear the holdout campers and bulldoze the site — and make sure the press and public couldn’t watch what they were doing.

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Career High School Lifts Every Voice & Sings

by | Mar 9, 2023 9:04 am | Comments (2)

Maya McFadden Photos

Career office clerk Shirley Love joins school choir in "Lift Every Voice and Sing," performed at Black History assembly and celebration.

Hill Regional Career High School’s auditorium rang like a rolling sea as students lifted their voices to sing the Black National Anthem alongside school staffer Shirley Love, whose voice left the school full of the hope. 

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Patient Presses Politician On APT Critique

by | Mar 7, 2023 3:41 pm | Comments (19)

Thomas Breen photos

Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg: "This is an inappropriate place" for a methadone clinic.

APT patient Jeffrey Culp: "What happens to the people where this place saved their lives?"

A Democratic mayoral candidate traveled to Congress Avenue to call for the immediate closure and relocation of a controversial methadone clinic.

One of the clinic’s patients posed the candidate a question: What about the many lives that have been saved from the depths of heroin addiction by the APT Foundation’s treatments? One saved life, he continued, is his own.

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Opinion: My Week Visiting Methadone Clinics

by | Mar 7, 2023 12:25 pm | Comments (3)

Tom Goldenberg photo

The APT Foundation's 495 Congress Ave. building and parking lot.

The following writeup was submitted by Democratic mayoral candidate Tom Goldenberg chronicling his five days of traveling around to different methadone clinics in and near New Haven.

Click here to read Goldenberg’s recent opinion essay in the Register laying out various proposals for how the city should handle local methadone clinics. Click here to read a recent Independent article about how the Elicker Administration and the APT Foundation are looking to move the clinic’s main Congress Avenue location to a new building on Long Wharf.

Goldenberg plans on holding a press conference at 1 p.m. Tuesday outside APT’s Congress Avenue site to talk about his methadone clinic policy proposals.

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How A Gun Chase Turned Less-Lethal

by | Feb 23, 2023 3:32 pm | Comments (10)

NHPD body camera

Tased & Defused: 2 a.m. foot chase on Daggett Street.

Paul Bass Photo

Next-gen cops Nick Samartino, Trevor Canace, Daniel Smith, Thomas Brunski.

The fleeing man probably has a gun, the police officers chasing him figured.

One officer chased him with his own gun out. The other ran while pointing a taser.

If they needed to fire, they were hoping the latter weapon would do the trick.

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Hill Properties Sold For 194-Apt Plan

by | Feb 23, 2023 11:29 am | Comments (31)

Contributed design rendering

Congress/Davenport apartment plan, slated to replace to-be-demolished properties like 326 and 348 Davenport (below).

Thomas Breen photo

A California-based developer has purchased nine Hill properties for a combined $4.35 million — advancing plans to construct 194 new apartments on Congress and Davenport Avenues.

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Talks Stall On Prime Property’s Future

by | Feb 9, 2023 4:02 pm | Comments (45)

Paul Bass file photo

The former Church Street South property, above and below.

Elicker (at bottom left): "Disappointed & frustrated." Northland's Gottesdiener (bottom right): City's version "inaccurate at best, a lie at worst."

Five years after bulldozers demolished the 30-building Church Street South community across from Union Station, the land remains a fenced-off wasteland of prime real estate with no signs of progress on plans to rebuild.

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APT, Gateway Eye Long Wharf Moves

by | Feb 9, 2023 3:05 pm | Comments (21)

CONTRIBUTED BY THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN

Rendering of a proposed new "Gateway District" on Long Wharf.

Laura Glesby Photo

Community members hear a presentation at the Betsy Ross School Parish Hall.

A park and pedestrian-friendly walkway where cars now roar down Long Wharf Drive. 

An automotive trade school where the former Gateway Community College building is starting to crumble. 

A new home base for all of the APT Foundation’s New Haven substance-use treatment programs in a building specifically designed to address neighbors’ concerns.

Those ideas stand at the center of a new plan put together by top city officials on how to transform Long Wharf — a waterfront neighborhood currently dominated by big-box stores, parking lots, and the highway — into a mixed-use district bustling with education, healthcare, and outdoor recreation.

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Facing Down Phones, Riverside Adapts

by | Feb 6, 2023 3:02 pm | Comments (3)

Maya McFadden photo

History teacher Pete Chase talking hydroponics as a way to keep students present and paying attention in the classroom. “I want to get them off those phones and playing in dirt.”

A trio of 3D printers worked at lightning speed making hydroponic-friendly pots in Riverside teacher Camar Graves’ classroom — as the alternative-public-academy educator worked just as diligently finding novel ways to connect with his students at a time when many remain glued to their phones and struggling to focus.

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Refugee Reader Brings Courage To Class

by | Feb 1, 2023 3:23 pm | Comments (4)

Laura Glesby Photos

Gladys Mwilelo reading to Clemente 6th graders Wednesday.

Jeremiah Pierce and classmates listen to Mwilelo's story.

After reciting a verse she composed herself, Gladys Mwilelo asked the class of curious Roberto Clemente sixth-graders peering back at her: Do any of you write poems?”

I share them with my little brother,” answered Yulianisse Féliciano with a wry smile. He laughs at me.”

Mwilelo knows what it means to offer a voice that no one seems to know how to hear. When she first arrived in New Haven as a refugee, she didn’t know a word of English — and none of her classmates could speak Swahili. 

So she responded to Féliciano with encouragement: I promise you, one day I will be glad to read your poem.”

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$690K For A New 2-Family?

by | Jan 24, 2023 11:02 am | Comments (23)

Thomas Breen photo

Two-families on the rise: A construction worker on the job on Downing St.

The only contractor to respond to a city bid to build a new two-family house in the Hill won the contract at a price of $690,000 — or roughly $246 per square foot — raising questions about just how much it costs to construct small-scale residential developments in New Haven in 2023.

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Hill-Museum Artist Housing Approved

by | Jan 19, 2023 5:54 pm | Comments (3)

Paul Bass file photo

Krikko Obbott: “We’ve been wanting to do this for years."

The "warehouse" at 212 West St. Obbott is looking to convert into apartments.

A Hill illustrator and museum owner is moving ahead with plans to attract more creative talent to West Street, after winning a first slate of approvals needed for turning part of his property into artist apartments.

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Fridge Vote Leaves Sandra's In The Cold

by | Jan 19, 2023 9:45 am | Comments (33)

Allan Appel file photo

Sandra's owners Miguel and Sandra Pittman: Planning to push back on zoning board rejection.

Nora Grace-Flood photo

The contested outdoor refrigeration containers on Arch St.

City zoners turned down a Congress Avenue culinary institution’s bid to store five outdoor fridges in a residentially zoned area — following testimony from the restaurant’s neighbor that the restaurant’s expansion has resulted not just in nationally renowned chicken wings, but also pesky rodents and stenches. 

The restaurant’s owners now plan to contest that decision so that they can continue to keep corn, sugar, flour and plenty of perishables nearby as they look to continue serving the neighborhood they’ve long called home.

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South Frontage Safety Fixes Promised

by | Jan 18, 2023 11:17 am | Comments (9)

Laura Glesby Photo

The view down South Frontage from York Street, where the sidewalk ends.

Proposed changes to South Frontage Rd. from York to College St.

What will it take for South Frontage Road to be a safe street for pedestrians and cyclists?

The city is betting on raised crosswalks, a bike lane, and an extension of York Street’s two-way stretch.

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Rent-Cap Doorknockers Hit The Hill

by | Jan 17, 2023 12:28 pm | Comments (23)

Kimberly Wipfler photos

Hannah Srajer and Emmett Santisi (right) make their rent-cap-bill pitch to Hill resident Johnna Davis during Saturday's canvass.

Hitting the doors in the Hill.

Tenants rights advocates from across Connecticut descended on the Hill to knock on nearly 100 doors in their bid to win local renter support for a new rent-hike-stifling legislative campaign.

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Royal Rhythms Rolled Out For 3 Kings Day

by | Jan 6, 2023 9:58 am | Comments (1)

Brian Slattery photos

Movimiento Cultural drummers and dancers liven up Wilson Library.

Kids making crowns for themselves, with and without parental aid.

As Movimiento Cultural Afro-Continentals drummers played driving rhythms and singers instructed families in the traditions of bomba, one young dancer learned fast about the ways that she could converse with lead drummer Kevin Diaz during the ongoing library-hosted Three Kings Day fest. 

She made a gesture, and Diaz, fully attentive, responded with a crack from his drum. She gestured again, and he responded in kind on his instrument. The smiles that passed between them needed no words to convey their meaning.

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Winterfest Wows At Betsy Ross Arts Showcase

by | Dec 16, 2022 5:19 pm | Comments (1)

Maya McFadden File Photo

Eighth grader Dakarai Langley leads "Would Anyone Care?" dance about suicidal awareness.

With a look of defeat, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) eighth grader Dakarai Langley lifted his left foot and dangled it over the edge of an auditorium stage as a song shook the dark room with the lyrics: Would anyone cry if I finally stepped off of this ledge tonight?”

And then Langley kept dancing, proving to everyone in the room before him just how lucky this city is to have this young artist call New Haven his home.

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