by | Feb 14, 2025 2:31 pm | Comments (28)
Thomas Breen photo
The Whit sold for .... The What??
Two Wooster Square lots that languished for years amid landlord lawsuits — and then burst forth into 230 high-end apartments amid a neighborhood building frenzy — have now sold to a pair of real estate investment firms for $71 million.
Continue reading ‘They Came. They Built. They Sold For $71M’
by | Feb 14, 2025 11:35 am | Comments (15)
Laura Glesby photos
Local licenses, inspections are on the horizon for tobacco retailers.
Health Director Maritza Bond: Inspections would protect kids from exposure to addictive carcinogens.
The city’s Health Department could soon have the power to crack down on smoke shops that violate the law — by way of a proposed municipal license system that would allow for stricter local regulation of the 212 businesses already OK’d by the state to sell tobacco in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Municipal Tobacco License Proposal Advances’
by | Feb 14, 2025 9:00 am | Comments (17)
Not Godfrey's goat. But you get the idea.
A parking garage under the Green? Not on the Proprietors' watch.
The Green almost had an underground parking garage and a statue of JFK — and it did at one time have a state house and Seth Godfrey’s goat.
As the city, the Proprietors, the just-formed New Haven Green Conservancy and other “stakeholders” of all kinds are weighing in on the next turn in the evolution of the Green’s uses, here is just a taste of what was and what might have been on the city’s central greenspace over the past four centuries.
by | Feb 13, 2025 5:06 pm | Comments (11)
West Haven Officer Robert Rappa's body-worn camera footage. Note: Videos show graphic violence.
West Haven police had been following Aaron Freeman for seven months — setting up controlled buys of crack cocaine, watching him allegedly come and go from a Mill River Crossing apartment rented by a woman he appeared to be in a relationship with.
That drug-focused investigation culminated with an early-morning raid of the Grand Avenue residence that led to the cops’ seizure of nearly $6,600 in cash, multiple cellphones, and dozens of pills and baggies filled with white and tan powder substances.
That raid also sparked a shoot-out between police and Freeman, 35, in front of an 8‑year-old girl, a 32-year-old woman, and a 52-year-old grandfather, killing Freeman and injuring two West Haven cops.
by | Feb 13, 2025 5:02 pm | Comments (19)
Murphy (right) to McMahon (left) at Thursday's hearing: Possibility of revoking funding for schools with programming based on ethnic or racial identity is "chilling."
WASHINGTON — After grilling her at a confirmation hearing, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Thursday he is a “hell no” on confirming Connecticut businesswoman Linda McMahon to be U.S. secretary of education, saying President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing diversity programs would result in the beleaguered agency “micromanaging” public school curricula.
by | Feb 13, 2025 12:01 pm | Comments (4)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Acting ED Bruton: Trying to raise $50K in 8 weeks.
Best Video Film and Cultural Center is reaching out for help.
The Spring Glen third space — which has morphed over the years from a cool spot to seek out the most eclectic videotapes to a beloved gathering place where performances, speakers, and other live events happen alongside rows and rows of films that are old and new (and yes, there are still some videotapes) — has launched a fundraising campaign to keep the nonprofit afloat and sailing into its future.
by | Feb 13, 2025 9:28 am | Comments (30)
Zachary Groz photo
Atticus Market: Another bathroom to come?
Rendering of proposed addition, as viewed from Linden.
A group of East Rock neighbors are raising a stink about Atticus Market’s plan to tack on a new 600-square foot structure to the grocery and convenience store to make way for another bathroom.
by | Feb 12, 2025 3:01 pm | Comments (6)
Dereen Shirnekhi photo
Terri Ricks (in red), with Mark Griffin (right), thanks Mandy's Ari Hoffman and Sara Bigman and pushes for them to encourage other management companies to enact similar policies.
After settling a tenant-discrimination case that changed how Mandy Management approaches renters with criminal histories, Mark Griffin is ready to take his fair-housing fight to the state legislature — as he also awaits a full pardon for his decades-old misdemeanor conviction.
by and | Feb 12, 2025 1:11 pm | Comments (22)
Zachary Groz photo
Applicant Villanueva: Spot is a "gold mine"
Thomas Breen photo
Landlord Marty Halprin: Time to look for another potential tenant.
A new smoke shop won’t be able to open up next to a methadone clinic and a strip club — after city zoners stamped out the latest bid to convert a vacant storefront into a tobacco sales “gold mine.”
by | Feb 12, 2025 10:53 am | Comments (11)
Laura Glesby file photo
Typhanie Jackson: "There are some places where we have had some gaps."
High burnout rates, low pay, and insufficient state funding have led to an untenable shortage of special education staff in New Haven public schools.
School employees and parents conveyed that message to Education Committee alders — calling attention to lapsed services for some of the city’s highest-needs students.
by | Feb 12, 2025 8:25 am | Comments (11)
CT Mirror | Shahrzad Rasekh photo
City climate czar Winter: "It's maddening."
Ask Steve Winter how many times a day he’s checked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant funds portal since Jan. 21 and he answers with a wry laugh: “I couldn’t even say.”
Jan. 21 — one day into the Trump administration — he received a notification that the $20 million Community Change grant the City of New Haven had won, in partnership with a coalition of local groups, would be available for use.
But he has not been able to access the account.
by | Feb 11, 2025 3:48 pm | Comments (13)
Thomas Breen file photo
Mandy CEO Gurevitch: Transparency benefits landlords and tenants.
One of the city’s largest landlords has settled a tenant-discrimination case by agreeing to adopt a formal policy detailing which criminal convictions it will and won’t consider before signing a lease with a prospective renter.
by | Feb 11, 2025 1:29 pm | Comments (26)
Maya McFadden photo
Blatteau: "If we can't be safe in our buildings, what else matters here?"
(Updated) The president of the city’s teachers union has filed a state workplace safety complaint against the public school district for persistent problems with mold, leaks, air quality, and other conditions concerns at New Haven’s two largest high schools.
by | Feb 11, 2025 9:45 am | Comments (2)
Author Josaphat: The Panther story needed a novelist's eye.
Kingdom of No Tomorrow
By Fabienne Josaphat
Algonquin Books/Hatchette
Nettie Boileau had choices to make.
Should she sign up with the revolution taking shape in Oakland, the way her father fought back against Papa Doc in Haiti? Or should she pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor?
Which lover should she make a life with? Clia, who brought her into the Black Panther Party? Or Melvin, the magnetic rising party leader?
by | Feb 10, 2025 4:38 pm | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen photo
Looking through the Chapel Street window glass at an empty Elm City Market, last October.
An independent, full-service grocery store will be moving into the old Elm City Market space on the ground floor of 360 State St. this spring.