by | Mar 24, 2025 2:27 pm | Comments (20)
Thomas Breen photos
Now closed: Walgreens, at 436 Whalley.
Soon to open: New smoke shop, at 837 Whalley.
(Updated) Whalley Avenue customers now have to head downtown to fill their Walgreens prescriptions — even as a new smoke shop moves in to satisfy their Westville smoking needs.
by | Feb 17, 2025 11:55 am | Comments (19)
Another New Haven pharmacy is closing, this time the Walgreens at Whalley and Ellsworth avenues near Ella Grasso Blvd.
by | Jan 30, 2025 2:00 pm | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen File Photo
The jail at 245 Whalley Ave.
Laura Glesby photo
Raymond Hagan: Will the community have input?
Mayor Justin Elicker came to a Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills community meeting with a question: Should the Whalley Avenue jail move somewhere else?
by | Jan 17, 2025 8:58 pm | Comments (10)
Allan Appel photo
Mikhila Pingili and Carlos Eyzaguirre at Friday's renovation ribbon cutting.
When Stop & Shop announced last year the planned closing of what turned out to be 32 stores across five states, city economic officials and the Greater Dwight Development Corporation (GDDC) went into action.
Their aim: To make sure the Whalley Avenue supermarket, an anchor for the community, would not be on the list.
The advocacy paid off, and on Friday morning, GDDC Assistant Director Mikhila Pingili and Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre were on hand along with Stop & Shop brass — not just to celebrate that the 150 Whalley Ave. store remained open, but also to cut the ribbon on an extensive renovation.
by | Dec 13, 2024 1:12 pm | Comments (26)
Thomas Breen photo
Ex-El Amigo Felix on Whalley: Still the pits.
A 14-block rezoning that was intended to promote dense, mixed-use development on Whalley Avenue has yielded no new places to live in the nearly five years since it was approved by the Board of Alders.
by | Dec 5, 2024 4:39 pm | Comments (4)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Alder Hogan (second from left) with Beaver Hills neighbors at latest crime-focused meetup.
Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills neighbors should expect to see more police officers in their part of town next spring — thanks to what the police chief anticipates will be a surge in hiring due to a newly inked union contract.
Continue reading ‘Police Chief: New Contract = More Cops In Beaver Hills’
by | Dec 3, 2024 1:49 pm | Comments (27)
The St. Luke's proposed $32M development ... before it lost its sixth floor.
A long-delayed Whalley Avenue redevelopment lost a floor — and saved $2 million, because of how much more expensive it is to build with steel and concrete instead of just wood.
by | Oct 17, 2024 1:47 pm | Comments (25)
Thomas Breen file photo
Get ready to get regulated?
The long-awaited ordinance-in-progress will treat smoke shops similarly to liquor stores with requirements like they not be located near schools and churches or too close to each other.
But there will also likely be a lot more detail.
by | Oct 2, 2024 10:30 am | Comments (1)
A former corrections officer at the New Haven Correctional Center on Whalley Avenue was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to selling drugs to inmates — a crime that his lawyer says was brought on by his own addiction.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Prison Guard Sentenced To 3 Years For Smuggling Drugs’
by | Sep 30, 2024 1:31 pm | Comments (11)
City police are investigating a suspicious death after a 23-year-old Manchester resident fell from a downtown parking garage.
by | Sep 23, 2024 11:46 am | Comments (16)
Glendower Group renderings
63 new apartments approved for 201 Hazel ...
... and 50 senior dwellings approved for 34 Level.
The City Plan Commission signed off on 162 new mostly affordable apartments to be built in Newhallville, West Rock, and Whalley — as part of three more new-construction projects involving the housing authority’s nonprofit development affiliate, the Glendower Group.
by | Jul 19, 2024 10:18 am | Comments (2)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
David Council: "Making sure everything runs good" at Russell Speeder's.
David Council gives a heart sign, a wave, or a double thumbs-up to every car that drives through New Haven’s newest car wash — the local outpost of a private equity-owned chain he helps manage on Whalley Avenue.
The suds might look familiar to customers of traditional mom-and-pop cleansers. The financing behind the wheel? A new business model for the car-wash highway.
by | Jul 16, 2024 9:07 am | Comments (1)
Jabez Choi Photo
Yusuf Gürsey at a pro-Palestinian rally in April, before his death.
At a memorial service for 70-year-old local peace activist Yusuf Gürsey, friends and colleagues joined in person and over Zoom from all over the world — California, Puerto Rico, Turkey — to share stories and poems for the hit-and-run victim.
All knew him as a lover of languages, a beach fanatic, and a seemingly shy but loyal friend who had a fierce commitment to the liberation of all oppressed people.
Continue reading ‘Killed Peace Activist's Memory Kept Alive’
by | Jul 15, 2024 8:45 pm | Comments (6)
City development official Carlos Eyzaguirre, Whalley leader Allen McCollum, Eddie Eckhaus, Rabbi Andre Malek, Mayor Justin Elicker at Monday's ribbon-cutting.
Paul Bass Photos
Eckhaus's trademark super-stuffed felafel.
It’s a miracle how many toppings Eddie Eckhaus can stuff into a felafel sandwich. But he needed more than a miracle to make his felafel storefront succeed: He needed a maschgiach.
I.e. a rabbi who certifies that a restaurant serves kosher food.
Like Elijah the Prophet on the first night of Passover, that rabbi appeared at Eckhaus’s Lea’s Felafelhaus to-go storefront Monday for a ribbon-cutting bringing hopes for a business resurrection.
Continue reading ‘Vegan Kosher-Certifying Rabbi Rides To Felafelier’s Rescue’
by | Apr 29, 2024 6:43 pm | Comments (33)
LinkedIn Photo
Yusuf Gürsey, who lived on Whalley Avenue and did not have a car.
Seventy-year-old scholar and city peace commission member Yusuf Gürsey died Sunday night after a car fatally struck him — and then fled the scene — while he was walking near his home on Whalley Avenue.
by | Apr 19, 2024 12:04 pm | Comments (32)
The indispensable DFA New Haven weighs in on freshly painted bike lane on long-delayed Edgewood cycletrack.
When the light at Osborn and Whalley turns from red to green, Hilda Kilpatrick counts to ten.
by | Mar 12, 2024 1:39 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photos
It fits! Eddie's Everything Extravaganza, prize item (above) at Whalley's newly opened Lea's Falafelhaus.
Would all those fixings fit into that palm-plus-sized pocket of flexible flatbread?
“We’re gonna learn,” Eddie Eckhaus said, “right now.”
by | Feb 23, 2024 5:11 pm | Comments (13)
A student gifts a book to the Little Free Library.
“Sometimes when you talk, the universe listens.”
That’s what Chris Walker, manager of the new LaundroMax on Whalley Avenue, said to me as we watched 25 kids sit still between rows of gleaming washing machines and a cacophony of dryers tumbling and buzzers going off — and prepare to hear a story read aloud at New Haven’s most innovative new branch library.
by | Jan 22, 2024 12:15 pm | Comments (3)
Jamil Ragland Photo
LaundroMax GM Chris Walker (center) with officials at ribbon-cutting.
By the time officials arrived to cut the ribbon on the west side’s newest laundromat, customers were already inside using the state-of-the-art washing machines. The air was fragrant with the smell of fabric softener and dryer sheets, and the speakers pumped in classic Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu.
by | Jan 8, 2024 11:26 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Hallie "Rock" Bolden, Jr. with Hallie "Bizzy" Bolden III.
The bell above the door sounded at DA’W.O.R.L.D., the Whalley Avenue mecca for men’s urban clothing.
“Coming in for some love,” the customer said, dapping up DA’W.O.R.L.D. manager Hallie “Bizzy” Bolden III, wardrobe consultant Tariq “Riq” Bolden and owner Hallie “Rock” Bolden, Jr. behind the counter. “Have a good one.”
by | Nov 1, 2023 10:55 am | Comments (32)
55 planned new apartments on Whalley, now boosted by state $.
A long-delayed, church-led affordable housing development on Whalley Avenue took a big step towards breaking ground — alongside a suite of traffic calming measures on the perilously car-heavy corridor near Stop & Shop — thanks to a $7 million infusion from the state.
Continue reading ‘$7M In State Aid Flows To Whalley Housing, Traffic-Safety Projects’
by | Nov 1, 2023 10:30 am | Comments (1)
Instagram photo
Priyanshu Agwal.
A 23-year-old University of New Haven graduate student named Priyanshu Agwal died from injuries he sustained in a hit-and-run crash on Whalley Avenue and Amity Road.
by | Oct 30, 2023 11:01 am | Comments (58)
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker: "We cannot wait another 20 years to have a government that runs effectively and efficiently."
Confident in a victory at the polls in November’s contested mayoral election, Democrats from across the city and state turned their attention to a more uncertain proposition: a charter revision ballot question that, if approved, would increase mayoral and aldermanic terms from two to four years each.
by | Oct 12, 2023 8:55 am | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby Photo
Fatou braids a client's hair, hopes for more landlord accountability.
A new layer of city regulation is coming to local hair, piercing, tattoo, and nail salons — sparking a debate over the burden of annual inspection fees, and prompting one African hair braider to hope that more leverage against neglectful commercial landlords is on the horizon.
by | Oct 11, 2023 3:43 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photos
Police have put out a $25K reward for information that leads to the arrest of whoever killed Nico Saraceni (pictured).
Thomas Breen photos
A poetry collage memorial put together by Nico's sister for his funeral.
One year after somebody fatally stabbed Nico Saraceni outside of his Whalley Avenue apartment, city police and the family of the late 29-year-old Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) student are still looking for answers.
About who committed such a tragic act of apparently random violence. About why a young artist who loved the poetry of William Ernest Henley and the films of David Lynch and the pizza of Frank Pepe’s was taken from them so soon and so senselessly.
Continue reading ‘1 Year Later, Unsolved Stabbing Death's Pain Remains’