by | Jul 25, 2016 7:50 am | Comments (3)
Rohan Naik Photo
Society members and churchgoers pose with a banner.
Tony Vitolo doesn’t move the way he used to, but in his old age he remains just as passionate about his heritage.
by | Jul 22, 2016 4:28 pm | Comments (16)
File Photo
Cofrancesco at a fire commission meeting.
“Help me! Help me!” Patricia Cofrancesco was screaming.
A crowd formed around her. “Motherfucker, you killed her!” came one yell. Another: “Motherfucker, you’re going to get it now.”
by | Jul 22, 2016 8:15 am | Comments (0)
Daniela Brighenti Photo
Ruel Dixon works as a behavior analyst for Middletown’s public schools. In the afternoons, he gets to change out of his work clothes, put on his large-soled boots and step for what he calls it “the love of the art.”
Continue reading ‘Omegas Heading To Vegas For The Step Crown’
by | Jul 21, 2016 7:52 am | Comments (18)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Engineer Tim Onderko explains plan for future U-Haul site.
Plans to turn the former C. Cowles & Co. factory on Water Street in to a U‑Haul storage facility moved closer to reality, while a developer pulled the plug for now on her own plans to provide boat storage along the Qunnipiac River.
Continue reading ‘Bid Fails To Stop U-Haul Storage Facility’
by | Jul 19, 2016 7:41 am | Comments (8)
If pizza-heavy Wooster Street were laid with cobblestone and lined with a mix of Italian and non-Italian-Amiercan businesses — would it attract more pedestrians?
by | Jul 11, 2016 7:25 am | Comments (7)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Opposition organizer Kerekes.
State officials scaled back plans for promoting historic preservation in Wooster Square after a small but vocal group of neighbors protested the proposal.
Continue reading ‘Opposition Kills Historic District Expansion’
by | Jun 27, 2016 7:37 am | Comments (14)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Kerekes: A gateway to more restrictions.
Soto: Opportunity, not risk.
Barbara Iannaconne has spent thousands of dollars on renovations to bring 86 William St. to the modern age from 1870 over the last 29 years. Now she worries that if all of Wooster Square becomes “historic,” she’ll have to spend more money — money she doesn’t have.
by | Jun 24, 2016 7:04 am | Comments (0)
Daniela Brighenti Photo
Standing in front of hundreds, Marie Apicella carefully tugged on one side of a soft, red curtain. On the other side, Anthony Pisanelli did the same, the two unveiling the statue of Saint Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of Amalfi, Italy.
Continue reading ‘St. Andrew Reappears — & The Party Starts’
by | May 30, 2016 9:40 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Rhoda Zahler Samuel leads pilot walking tour.
The former settlement house site, where Cavaliere played as a boy.
A mission to develop New Haven’s rich ethnic history into structured neighborhood “walks” added some new data: Emiddio Cavaliere’s memories of how kindly old Mr. Gitlitz took care of Italian-American kids like him at the original Farnam Neighborhood House, in Wooster Memorial Park.
Continue reading ‘Walking History Project Mines Wooster Sq.’
by | May 18, 2016 7:28 am | Comments (0)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Kraus, Yagovane on site.
Clocks retail a buck fifty.
More than half a century after the New Haven Clock Factory closed, the images of long-gone workers on the factory floor and the artists who squatted there after the machines fell silent appeared on the crumbling walls.
by | Apr 21, 2016 10:04 pm | Comments (12)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Bill Clinton inside Pepe’s Thursday evening.
In Connecticut campaigning for the Democratic presidential campaign of his wife Hillary, former President Bill Clinton surprised the patrons of Wooster Square’s Original Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana at just after 6 p.m. Thursday.
by | Apr 21, 2016 4:53 pm | Comments (15)
Recknagel: Where will cars go?
City of New Haven
Rendering of proposed Olive Street cycletrack.
As transit officials prepare to test a “pop-up” temporary protected bike lane on Olive Street, some neighbors organized against them— while others signed up to help build it.
Continue reading ‘Bike Lane Cheers, Jeers “Pop Up” On Olive’
by | Apr 15, 2016 5:03 pm | Comments (1)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Wooster Square’s spring riot has sprung.
When the flowers did not bloom in time for the first Cherry Blossom Festival in 1974, “Queen of Wooster Square” Beverly Carbonella wired fake blossoms onto a Yoshino cherry tree for a newspaper photo op.
by | Apr 15, 2016 12:28 pm | Comments (53)
City of New Haven
Rendering of temporary Olive Street cycletrack.
You might have only a month to pedal on New Haven’s first-ever protected bike lane — or it may become permanent. Either way, you can help build it and then decide if it should remain.
by | Apr 12, 2016 7:15 am | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
Without fanfare, the attractive benches have returned to Wooster Square Park, restored, plaqued, spiffy, and bolted into place.
They are there gleaming in the sunlight as if waiting for the hundreds of visitors expected at the upcoming Cherry Blossom Festival on April 24 to have comfortable places to rest and take in the history and beauty of one of the city’s most notable settings.
by | Apr 5, 2016 2:38 pm | Comments (1)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Guest takes helm of the “Toyota rather than the Cadillac.”
Donald Guest joked that he emerged with “no damaged equipment and no damaged people” after his first day of the season training to drive a street sweeper to clean winter’s gunk from the side of the curb.
by | Apr 4, 2016 7:35 am | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photo
A cat on the crumbling steps of 79 William St.
Front entryway.
Michael Smart was walking home on William Street in Wooster Square when a man who spoke little English asked for help: He had no running water in his apartment, he said, and his building was falling apart.
by | Mar 17, 2016 12:04 pm | Comments (3)
Allan Appel Photo
The approved sites are directly north of the entryway at East and Ives in the picture; the proposed new piles of dry materials would be half as high as these salt piles.
Piles of steel, rebar, and other heavy industrial materials are about to grow higher along the banks of the Mill River, despite fears of neighbors about what’s in the dust that gets kicked up in the process.
Continue reading ‘“Robust Dust” Plan Clears Way For Industrial Pile To Grow’
by | Mar 10, 2016 1:02 pm | Comments (5)
Paul Bass Photo
Officer Krause, who died Wednesday at 51.
The medical prognosis called for Wooster Square’s “officer of the year” to turn in his badge and pass quietly into the night.
Instead, he beat that prognosis, survived five years of grueling radiation and chemotherapy treatments for a brain tumor, got married, kept coming to work, and continued living a full life.
by | Mar 3, 2016 4:02 pm | Comments (25)
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Hamilton at her Wooster Square home.
Brand-new heiress Wendy Hamilton said that she wants to donate a million inherited dollars to the city’s poor, black and homeless — a process that’s at times is proving more complicated than she expected.
by | Feb 13, 2016 8:27 pm | Comments (3)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Salvatore presents Cowles plan to Wooster Square neighbors.
The potential sale of an abandoned old Wooster Square factory has been put on hold not because pollution was found there —- but because it wasn’t found there.
Continue reading ‘Enviromental Snag Puts C. Cowles Talks On Hold’
by | Feb 10, 2016 4:38 pm | Comments (0)
At St. Paul and St. James Church on Wooster Street, the band was already swinging through some New Orleans classics and the food was out, a rich spread of gumbo, jambalaya, and rice and beans, complemented by a stack of pies from Pepe’s and a salad.
“Did you get a plate?” a parishioner asked. “It’s Fat Tuesday. You’re supposed to indulge a little.”
Continue reading ‘Elm City Celebrates Mardi Gras At Least Twice’
by | Jan 21, 2016 5:05 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Layne & DeGray cart away the benches, en route to repairs.
If you want to have a seat or enjoy a siesta in Wooster Square on one of these fine, brisk, winter afternoons, you’ll have to settle for the grass, or a rock, or one of the limited places at the DeLauro Family Table on the northern end of the stately park.
by | Dec 25, 2015 9:19 am | Comments (17)
Paul Bass Photo
Tenant Vincenti: Giving up on management, moving out.
It turns out that the Strouse, Adler apartment complex by the State Street train station has far bigger problems than a busted water-heater — and the city has issued an emergency demand for immediate action.
Continue reading ‘Strouse, Adler Complex Hit With New Emergency Order’
by | Dec 24, 2015 2:28 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photos
Inspectors check out the third story exterior …
… then head inside to check further.
Firefighters evacuated all a 12-unit Warren Street apartment building Thursday after part of the veneer collapsed.