by | Feb 11, 2025 9:46 am | Comments (2)
Lisa Reisman photo
Etta Burke, Dr. Carolyn Kinder, and Ruthie Ricks at the Shack's Valentine luncheon.
As the city prepared for a snowstorm, Ruthie Ricks and her cousin Etta Burke settled at a table inside the cafe at the Shack in West Hills, smiling and moving in their seats to the spirited rhythms of the gospel standard “Oh Happy Day,” seemingly unbothered by the day’s forecast.
by | Oct 29, 2024 2:21 pm | Comments (10)
Lisa Reisman photos
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and Honda Smith with firefighters from Engine 15 who work with kids at The Shack ...
... as artist David Coardes stands before mural of Alder Smith painted by Imani Roberts.
In the midst of a spirited game of Bingo among a group of senior citizens at The Shack, there was an interruption. It was U.S. Senator Chris Murphy stopping by — to get an up-close look at what makes the West Hills community center work so well.
Continue reading ‘Shack Teaches Senator Community "Formula"’
by | Oct 16, 2024 11:55 am | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden photos
Alder Furlow (right) prays with Eugenia Morris and her family, during Church at the Shack.
Maya McFadden Photo
At Sunday's service.
Live music, prayer, and reminders from two alders that change is possible uplifted dozens of West Hills neighbors during a gathering of “Church at the Shack.”
by | Jul 26, 2024 9:11 am | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
The 3 Judges, now under new ownership.
Facebook photo
Ishan Dave: New owner of 2 New Haven motels.
Ishan Dave moved from India to the United States in pursuit of his version of the “American dream”: to buy and run hotels he could be proud of.
He’s now the co-owner of two motels in a crime-hotspot stretch of the New Haven-Woodbridge border — where he’s working to fix the properties up into safer, cleaner places to stay where, yes, all of the rooms are finally open.
by | Jun 24, 2024 8:56 am | Comments (7)
Maya McFadden Photo
Valley Street residents Nyla and Kenadi secure strawberry cones.
The temperature rose, and ice cream flowed, as neighborhood fifth-grader Saniyah cooled down during New Haven’s heat wave with the help of an Oreo and fudge vanilla sundae.
by | Jun 19, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (5)
Jabez Choi photo
Officials, including Mayor Elicker, at the ready for Tuesday's presser.
Raised intersections and repaved roadways are coming to Valley Street — now that a three-years-in-the-making traffic calming and infrastructure improvement effort has broken ground.
by | Jun 11, 2024 9:13 am | Comments (1)
Abiba Biao Photos
Eric, Jordan, and Cathy Strother: "A life cut short, a future stolen away."
Through poetry, Jordan Strother is able to capture the complex emotions he feels when he remembers his brothers Eric Lewis and Anthony Strother: he holds happy memories of their endless vitality, but then he’s hit by a wave of sadness when he thinks of how their lives were cut short from gun violence.
He shared some of that poetry at an “Annual Day of Remembrance” ceremony at a Valley Street memorial to homicide victims.
by | May 28, 2024 8:43 am | Comments (3)
Abiba Biao photo
Alder Smith (third from right) and Jamaican American Connection members with The Shack's new sign.
Facebook photo
At Saturday's West Hills parade.
West Hills Alder Honda Smith couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate her 60th birthday than with a bright new sign welcoming guests to a Valley Street community center — and a parade and festival celebrating the neighborhood she calls home.
by | Apr 17, 2024 11:37 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Brandon Haynes and Javon Culbreath on a mission: groceries first, then basketball.
Sixth- and seventh-graders Javon Culbreath and Brandon Haynes headed to The Shack to kick off their spring break playing basketball in the sun — and wound up grabbing some free groceries to take home, too.
by | Feb 20, 2024 1:27 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Monday's financial literacy workshop at The Shack with Chanelle Goldson.
Make your money work for you. Don’t work harder, work smarter. You can’t out-invest bad spending habits.
by | Jan 26, 2024 11:30 am | Comments (17)
As close to actualization as they've gotten: A rough sketch of the future West River apartments.
Tom Breen Photo
Marchand: Would love "another bite" at the environmental apple.
A long-delayed elderly housing development will now open its doors to families of all ages – if it ever does end up actually opening its doors.
by | Jan 15, 2024 11:54 am | Comments (2)
Nobody stole any vehicles in West Hills, West Rock, Westville, or Amity during the first week of 2024.
by | Dec 19, 2023 9:47 am | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen file photo
311 Valley: Future home of Edmonds Cofield Academy?
Rev. Boise Kimber’s plan to open a new boys-focused charter school has received a $2 million state boost — to help try to buy and renovate a vacant former public school building on Valley Street.
by | Sep 5, 2023 11:58 am | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden photo
Saving a gun shot victim at the Shack during a Yale EMT training program.
Aspiring Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) Andreanna Adkins, Iijonnia White, and Kimah Davis kneeled down to aid a plastic-dummy “gun shot victim” on Elm Street — inside a West Hills community center, as part of their training to save a real life down the line.
by | Jul 25, 2023 3:02 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen file photo
Closed school, future black box theater, on Valley St?
Maya McFadden photo
Smith dreams of black box theatre and second community center for Ward 30.
If it was up to West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith, her ward would put two now-vacant former public school buildings — including the recently shuttered ex-Clarence Rogers School on Wilmot Road — back to use by creating a black box theater for family-friendly programming, a rental space, a second community center, and an all-boys charter school.
Continue reading ‘What To Do With 2 Closed School Buildings?’
by | May 17, 2023 9:04 am | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photo
Co-op demo, apartment construction in the works on Howard.
A rendering of the to-be-redeveloped ex-Hill Co-Op.
The Board of Alders approved two tax breaks for two different affordable housing projects across town — including at a former Hill co-op, which will see 32 apartments knocked down and 64 built up as part of a first phase of redevelopment.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Hill Co-op, McConaughy Tax Breaks OK'd’
by | Apr 24, 2023 8:45 am | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photo
Ben Ajruli (right) enters another bid as Omar Kh prepares to counter at Saturday's foreclosure auction.
Omar Kh and Ben Ajruli had already gone back and forth and back and forth for 29 rounds at a Hilltop Road tax foreclosure auction when Kh leaned towards his bidding opponent and said seven words that tipped the sale in his favor.
by | Mar 23, 2023 9:01 am | Comments (8)
Last vestiges of the old Valley Townhouses, making way for 2.0.
The Valley Street Townhouses have almost all come down, and are ready to rise.
by | Jan 18, 2023 3:17 pm | Comments (5)
Paul Bass Photo
U.S. Rep. DeLauro with Kristin Song at Wednesday's "Ethan's Law" announcement at the Botanical Garden of Healing.
The latest chapter in the quest to tackle deadly American gun violence began Wednesday with a mix of optimism and cold realism, in a New Haven garden created in that spirit.
by | Jan 12, 2023 1:48 pm | Comments (4)
Allan Appel photo
Neighbors Marjorie Weiner and Meg Friedman checking out Beecher Park photos before Wednesday's meeting.
Lizzy Donius was driving near Valley Street on Dec. 19 with a car full of 16-year-olds, including her own son, when a volley of police vehicles, sirens blaring, raced past.
Later, she learned the cruisers were headed to a nearby scene where another local 16-year-old, Joshua Vazquez, had just been shot and killed while riding his bicycle.
“That’s our community,” Donius recalled, choking back tears.
Continue reading ‘West Side Q: What Makes For A Safer Neighborhood?’
by | Jan 7, 2023 1:18 pm | Comments (7)
A 41-year-old West Haven man named Charles Miller was shot and killed on Pond Lily Avenue on the far west side of town Friday night, becoming the city’s second homicide victim of the year — and the third in the past week.
by | Dec 23, 2022 11:01 am | Comments (10)
Maya McFadden photo
Honda Smith at the Shack: Banking on trust and community.
Honda Smith made a promise to herself and to her West Hills neighbors that, after retiring from three decades of working for the city, she would find a way to keep serving her neighborhood.
As a reborn westside community center thrives under her watch and neighbors keep busy and fed, that promise has been well kept.
by | Dec 20, 2022 6:17 pm | Comments (33)
Maya McFadden File Photo
Joshua Vazquez, second from right, with other West Hills teen "ambassadors" involved in a summer neighborhood clean-up program.
Paul Bass Photo
Remembering a neighbor: Housing authority chief Karen DuBois-Walton with Shelly Holness and Jordan Cunningham at Tuesday press conference.
(Updated) Police have “good leads” and video in their investigation into the shooting death of 16-year-old Joshua Vazquez and are working with his former schools to try to prevent a retaliatory attack.
Continue reading ‘Progress Reported In Teen-Murder Investigation’
by | Nov 28, 2022 3:11 pm | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden photos
Sabrina Gibbs with daughters Xora and Nova.
Alder Smith greets Stetson Librarian Diane Brown.
Sabrina Gibbs and her two daughters Xora and Nova got a slice of their new neighborhood — and a slice or two of pumpkin pie — at a reborn West Hills community center’s inaugural “Our Table” Thanksgiving dinner.
Continue reading ‘Shack Sets "Our Table" For Thanksgiving Feast’
by | Sep 9, 2022 11:21 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen photo
The empty lot at 27 Valley Pl. North today ...
City of New Haven photo
... and in wake of March 5 blaze.
A fire engulfed and destroyed a World War II-era single-family house on the far west side of town in March, leaving the building in such a dangerous state of disarray that the city hired a contractor to demolish it one month later.
This week, the Board of Alders closed the loop on at least one chapter of that now-houseless West Hills property’s history, when local legislators voted unanimously to approve spending $62,585 to cover the cost of tearing down the building.