by | Apr 19, 2024 10:10 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
Daniel Wood, Jeremy Tremblay, Stephany Miller, Paul Bloom, Aaron Goode, and Millie Grenough on Thursday.
City peace commissioners and a crew of freshmen from Albertus Magnus College ventured out to a green patch off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard with rakes, gloves, bags, and high hopes for adding a little color and joy to the world.
by | Apr 10, 2024 4:10 pm | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen file photo
Joseph: "Verbal agreement" in place for med-office parking.
Should a planned new medical office building on a West River superblock be allowed to have 0 off-street parking spaces — when there’s a 700-space parking garage right next door?
by | Mar 28, 2024 4:27 pm | Comments (22)
Thomas Breen photos
Ceremonial shovels, at the ready...
... for 56 new apartments in West River.
Officials joined West River neighbors to celebrate the government-backed construction of 56 new affordable apartments where Urban Renewal’s bulldozers once plowed through the Oak Street neighborhood six decades ago to make way for a mini-highway.
by | Mar 26, 2024 3:27 pm | Comments (19)
Laura Glesby Photo
Developer Joseph: Big plans for Rte 34.
Four stories of medical research will join a daycare, a 130-room hotel, and a social services center — as the last development in the decade-long construction of the Route 34 West “superblock.”
by | Feb 27, 2024 11:33 am | Comments (0)
A second-alarm house fire on Winthrop Avenue Tuesday morning displaced seven New Haveners.
by | Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm | Comments (8)
X'Nique suggests to City Engineer Giovanni Zinn that city prioritize shade and sensory play.
A tire swing. A skate park. “A lot of butterflies.” And toys promoting “sensory play.”
Neighborhood children eagerly offered those visions for a planned redesign of Kensington Playground, following years of adult-dominated debates over the future of the park.
by | Dec 8, 2023 1:03 pm | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen photo
The now-removed asbestos hazard sign, which was up at 16 Miller on Nov. 29.
The asbestos hazard signs have come down — and 56 new affordable homes are going up, now that a nonprofit development duo has officially acquired and begun construction at a cleaned-up, long-vacant strip of Route 34 land.
Continue reading ‘Construction Begins On Curtis Cofield II Estates’
by | Oct 27, 2023 5:36 pm | Comments (12)
Laura Glesby Photo
Jennifer Stanfield: "I can’t stand all that stress. Trying to move, trying to pack, and trying to keep up with my health as well."
Jennifer Stanfield is packing to go to a place she hasn’t yet found.
She’s removed all the art from the walls. Sorted summer and winter clothes into different boxes. Set aside whole weekends to clearing every possession from the turquoise house on Parmelee Avenue where she and her husband have lived, at times with kids and grandkids, for seven years.
“I don’t know where I’m taking it,” she said, “but I’m packing.”
by | Aug 2, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (32)
Thomas Breen photo
1476 Chapel tenant Shaquita Alston (right) with sister Katina Kitchens: "Why keep selling it if it needs to be torn down?"
An affiliate of Ocean Management has sold a 20-unit West River apartment complex, which is home to a newly formed tenants union, for $2.44 million — as the local megalandlord continues to unload rental properties at prices well above what it paid to buy them over the past decade.
Continue reading ‘Ocean Sells 15 Buildings In 7 Months For $7.8M+’
by | May 15, 2023 3:30 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photos
The pastrami egg and cheese sandwiches were flying at a George Street construction site Monday as Jillian Ledic kept a food truck moving so her moms could bring some of the trickle-down dollars of New Haven’s construction boom to Vegas.
Continue reading ‘Word On George Street: Boomtime Breaktime’
by | May 11, 2023 10:44 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Sixth graders Tiranke Keita, Grace Sherman, and Issac Oliver in Barnard's garden bed.
Barnard sixth grader Tiranke Keita dug a hole in the bed of her school’s garden, Grace Sherman filled it in with a handful of rich compost, and Issac Oliver nestled in a starter plant of lettuce — kicking off the Derby Avenue PreK‑8 school’s latest effort in hands-on, hands-in-the-dirt learning.
Continue reading ‘Barnard's Classroom Garden Springs to Life’
by | Mar 24, 2023 11:09 am | Comments (17)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Tent City, bulldozed on March 16: It doesn't have to be like this.
(Opinion) Last week the City of New Haven bulldozed an encampment of tents and make-shift structures along the West River called Tent City that was built by people experiencing homelessness.
City residents responded with cheers, harsh condemnation, and everything in between.
While everyone will not agree on what to do about encampments, we can agree that we would prefer to live in a community where people do not feel that long-term camping by the river is their best option.
by | Mar 23, 2023 5:00 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
MonaLisa Massallo and Ronald Belton with baby Kalayah on Chapel Street.
MonaLisa Massallo was “getting my steps in” on Chapel Street en route to Stop & Shop and a day with the one granddaughter she has left in town.
by | Mar 17, 2023 4:27 pm | Comments (24)
The day after the Elicker administration sent bulldozers and a swarm of cops to clear out a West River homeless encampment, a mayoral candidate criticized the operation as an example of “cruel” “mismanagement and failure of leadership.”
Continue reading ‘Brennan Slams Elicker For "Cruel" Tent City Sweep’
by | Mar 17, 2023 4:10 pm | Comments (15)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Mehul Dalal this week at the West River Tent City.
Among the most difficult choices city officials need to make relate to clearance of encampments. There are no immediate or easy solutions to homelessness. The outreach teams which comprise of city staff in my department and established agencies are experts in engaging, building relationships, and connecting with unhoused individuals. They (and we all must) recognize the right of individuals to not engage with services if they are not ready – this is a core principle of “meeting people where they are.” We aspire to lead with compassion, honoring the dignity of individuals who are often in highest times of need. Yet when conditions warrant, helping people transition from encampments, particularly when the encampments are found to be as hazardous as the one we cleared this week at the West River Memorial Park is consistent with a compassionate approach.
Continue reading ‘Why & How We Took Action At The Encampment’
by | Mar 17, 2023 9:11 am | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden Photo
Katelyn Giusti: "Thank you for your thinking."
“Secure your thinking caps tightly,” Barnard teacher Katelyn Giusti advised her classroom full of kindergartners — as they prepared to dive into a chimpanzee-focused reading assignment and test out a new school district approach to literacy.
Continue reading ‘Books In Hand, Teachers Test Reading Pilot’
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.
by | Mar 15, 2023 4:39 pm | Comments (27)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Organizers help Suki Godek, center, move her things out of Tent City.
The residents of a West River encampment loaded their belongings into backpacks and U‑Hauls Wednesday to comply with a public eviction notice from the Elicker Administration — as organizers pitched new tents to protest a pending, forcible clear-out of the site.
by | Mar 3, 2023 7:11 pm | Comments (21)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Tent City resident Victor peers into the prefab shower to say good-bye.
The crew of volunteers at tent city Friday.
Marcus Williams tied up a load of litter in a black bag and dumped it beside a brand new shower shed and a well-used grill — growing a pile of “garbage” the city demanded be disposed of this week as part of an ultimatum to a self-governed encampment off the West River to clean up or move out.
People living outdoors in the so-called “Tent City” complied with the order, and will be able to stay for now, even as they push back on the city’s threatening to trash belongings they see as necessary to survive.
by | Feb 27, 2023 10:45 am | Comments (0)
Paul Zalonski and Jayne Ryzewski on Sunday.
Even if the war in Ukraine ends tomorrow, which it will not, there will remain an urgent need to rebuild the Eastern European country’s Russian-destroyed economy and infrastructure and to repatriate its citizens.
Continue reading ‘Local Ukrainian Americans Eye New Humanitarian Aid Nonprofit’
by | Feb 23, 2023 10:20 am | Comments (10)
Kenneth Boroson Architects
A 2019 rendering of the proposed Miller Street development.
Alders signed off on more tax relief — for fewer below-market-rent apartments — for a developer team planning to build a 56-unit majority-affordable housing complex atop a long-vacant lot in West River.
Continue reading ‘Updated 17-Year Miller St. Tax Break OK'd’
by | Feb 22, 2023 4:04 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photos
Royale Gibbs: Before painted intersection, car flew into island and flipped in roadway.
Painted pavement around the Derby-Norton-George intersection.
Royale Gibbs remembers well when a car speeding up Derby Avenue rammed into a tree and flipped over a triangular island and into the middle of the street.
That was before the city, in a quick-fix effort to slow down traffic, painted the pavement around the island cerulean blue and put up a bevy of short plastic delineators.
“I remember this spot. This is definitely safer” now, he said.
Continue reading ‘Traffic-Safety "Quick Builds" Get $400K Boost’
by | Jan 11, 2023 3:38 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Kirk Bankasingh checks on a load.
Inside the Wishy Washy Laundry Wednesday morning, Sparks’ eyes were sparkling.
by | Jan 10, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (25)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Nestor "grilling" eggs: “I don’t make so many plans. I live in the moment."
Nestor hooked a tank of propane to a silver grill he had recently rehabbed — and started counting each second to see how long it would take to boil two eggs on the outdoor device, showcasing the living arrangement he set up himself to survive as comfortably as he can at a West River homeless encampment.
by | Dec 22, 2022 9:11 am | Comments (2)
Lisa Reisman photo
Part of the food giveaway crew: Stacy R. Spell, Virginia T. Spell, Tyisha Walker-Myers, Ronald Huggins, Pat Dillon, Gwendolyn Williams, Lisa Staggers.
Six hundred whole chickens. Countless toys. T shirts. Drawstring backpacks.
