Westville

Artists Find A Place For Rage

by | May 7, 2018 1:16 pm | Comments (0)

Eric March

Middle Passage.

It takes a second to get your bearing. There’s a woman gazing out at you from Eric March’s canvas, stoic, angry, accusing. As your eye takes in the full image, you see that the funereal flowers aren’t below the woman; they’re floating on the waves lapping a sandy store. You, the viewer, aren’t standing upright. You’re floating in the air just over the waves, looking down. The woman is under the waves, looking up.

The piece is called Middle Passage, and it’s probably the first thing you’ll see when you walk into the Kehler Liddell Gallery on Whalley Avenue for How With This Rage Shall Beauty Hold a Plea?” a 53-artist exhibit about art and political outrage running now through May 27.

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Bysiewicz Not Ceding City To Lamont

by | May 7, 2018 8:05 am | Comments (8)

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Bysiewicz meets potential voters at Manjares Sunday.

Susan Bysiewicz lost New Haven Mayor Toni Harp’s endorsement for her quest to become Connecticut’s next governor, but she demonstrated support Sunday in the heart of high-voting Westvile from people who pull the vote for progressive candidates.

Local supporters included, from left, Westville Ward Co-Chair Janis Underwood, Gabe DaSilva, Alder Darryl Brackeen Jr., Co-Chair Amy Marx, activist Hilary Grant.

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House Passes Billboard Brightness Bill

by | May 3, 2018 7:44 am | Comments (4)

Christine Stuart photo

The General Assembly’s legit electronic billboard shows the House vote on the billboard bill.

Richard Furlow photo

The new Whalley billboard.

Spurred by public opposition to a blinding blinking billboard on New Haven’s Whalley Avenue, state legislators voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would allow cities and towns to regulate the illumination of public advertisements, so long as those signs have the technological ability to calibrate their own brightness.

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Goodnight Blue Moon’s New Album Sees The Light

by | Apr 25, 2018 7:45 am | Comments (1)

Brian Slattery Photo

Goodnight Blue Moon at Cafe Nine in January.

Undertow,” the first single from Goodnight Blue Moons new album Dawning Dream, announces the evolution of the band’s sound right from the start. A hi-hat hisses for the drums to settle into the kind of rhythm Al Green might like. The bass throbs. It’s been a long time coming / I’ve been working overtime,” the vocals croon. The days keep passing by / See fireworks light the sky, so bright.” A violin lays down a runway for a lead guitar to take off with a sparse melody, while another rhythm guitar adds in the planks from an old Motown record.

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Delaney’s Squeaks To Final Approval

by | Apr 11, 2018 8:13 am | Comments (14)

Christopher Peak Photo

Revamped designs for Delaney’s.

BZA’s Mildred Melendez and Anne Stone split on approvals.

Westville Village’s nightlife is poised to change dramatically, after the zoning board Tuesday night gave the green light for two restaurants, Delaney’s Taproom and Manjares Fine Foods, to proceed with building and expansion plans.

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Photographers Capture People Out Of Place

by | Apr 10, 2018 7:46 am | Comments (0)

Marjorie Wolfe

Matera.

At first glance the cityscape looks deserted. It could be a ruin of an old city, or one abandoned due to conflict.

But look closer — much closer — and you can see that there are indeed people there. Someone putting out laundry on one of those miniscule rooftops. Someone else on one of the walkways meandering between the buildings.

Marjorie Wolfe’s Matera, situated in the center of the Kehler Liddell Gallery on Whalley Avenue in Westville, is representative of the works in her exhibit, Far and Wide,” and the paired exhibit Extended Visions,” featuring work by fellow artist Tom Edwards, on view now until April 22. In both exhibits, the artists explore landscapes and objects that are nearly if not completely devoid of people, but in which the presence of humans is still deeply felt.

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Electronic Billboard Bill Advances

by | Apr 3, 2018 8:24 am | Comments (11)

Richard Furlow Photo

The billboard at night: It’s lit.

Hartford—New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon said she received some criticism from colleagues when she introduced a bill that would reinforce cities’ authority to regulate the brightness of digital billboards. Weren’t there more important things for her to draft legislation about?

Then a new sign at Whalley Avenue and Emerson Street was powered on.

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Westville “New Urbanist” Vision Advances

by | Apr 2, 2018 2:43 pm | Comments (18)

Thomas Breen photo

WVRA Executive Director Lizzy Donius pitches a new urbanist vision for Westville to the City Plan Commission.

City of New Haven

Proposed new zone.

City planners voted unanimously to approve the creation of a new zoning district for Westville Village that they hope will serve as a model for how to use zoning regulations to encourage dense, diverse, mixed-use economic development throughout the city.

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Fundraiser Will Challenge “Ovarian Lottery”

by | Apr 2, 2018 12:23 pm | Comments (0)

Courtesy Marycare

Clinic construction.stage.

From groundbreaking to the laying of its foundation, to seeing cinderblock walls rise to support a pitched frame and the steel roof that would cover it, Westville and some New Haven supporters have cheered every stage of construction of a new health clinic located more than 5,000 miles away — one which they helped make happen.

Now there’s more work to do.

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Seeking Students, St. Aedan Tries “STREAM”

by | Mar 28, 2018 1:10 pm | Comments (6)

Allan Appel Photo

Parent Suzan Ali and daughter Khloe receive the news.

Dessara Bryant came to a parents meeting at St. Aedan-St. Brendan School to learn how a new STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts & Math) teaching framework will affect her kids’ learning.

She left with a more existential concern: whether the school she loves will survive.

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All-Way Stops Coming To Treacherous Intersection

by | Mar 21, 2018 12:03 pm | Comments (5)

Paul Bass Photo

Scene at one of the many crashes at the Willard-Yale-Central intersection.

Auguste Fortin and Jeanne Dubin have seen at least seven to ten crashes outside their homes near the intersection of Central Avenue, Yale Avenue and Willard Street.

They celebrated winning a years-long quest Tuesday night to convince the city to put four-way stop signs at that intersection in the hope of seeing far fewer crashes in the future.

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Valley St. Eyed For Homicide Memorial

by | Mar 20, 2018 3:09 pm | Comments (5)

Thomas Breen photo

Marlene Pratt updates management team on plan.

A Career High School biology teacher whose son was shot and killed 20 years ago has a new site in mind and new support from a local architecture firm and forestry nonprofit in her long-running quest to create a public reflection garden in honor of all New Haven victims of gun violence.

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Electronic Billboard Quest Comes To Capitol

by | Mar 20, 2018 8:10 am | Comments (1)

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Furlow testifies at the Capitol Monday..

The fate of a digital billboard erected on Whalley Avenue is clear. It’s not going anywhere.

But west-side neighbors and elected officials said the city should have more explicit power to regulate such future billboards, though outdoor advertising advocates say it already has such powers.

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A Dilemma On Valley Street

by | Mar 13, 2018 4:41 pm | Comments (4)

Markeshia Ricks Photos

Honda Smith and Mike Dorsey on the streets during almost-storm moment.

When the promised snowstorm failed to arrive in New Haven Tuesday afternoon, Honda Smith and a city tag-and-tow team faced a dilemma on Valley Street: Place tickets on 60 cars illegally parked on the odd side of the street? Or let it slide?

Public Space Enforcement Officer Honda Smith had called for the tag and tow team hours before when the snow was flying and the visibility was low.

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Echo Of Maria On Marvelwood Drive

by | Mar 8, 2018 5:18 pm | Comments (2)

Thomas Breen photo

Giant ash that fell across Marvelwood Drive during Storm Elsa.

Jose Jordan (center) with neighbor Esther Comba (left) and New Haven firefighter Lt. Gerard Bellamy.

Jose Jordan’s mother sought refuge from Hurricane Maria by fleeing to her son’s home in Westville — only to have an ash tree topple over power lines in Wednesday night’s storm and plunge the home into cold and darkness.

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Phat Tuesday Was Phat

by | Feb 14, 2018 8:33 pm | Comments (1)

DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTOS

Early reception before transitioning to dance floor.

Exotic masks and costumes seemed in short supply under the shimmering streamers of the annual New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL) Mardi Gras fundraiser celebration this year — but not the celebratory fervor that kicked into high gear at the celebration’s temporary new location in Westville.

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