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Nathaniel Rosenberg | Mar 5, 2025 1:51 pm
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Thomas Breen file photo
City Building Official Robert Dillon (right): Olive & Wooster is a rooming house.
Thomas Breen photo
The luxury rooming house at 87 Union St.
A luxury apartment complex with “collective” rentals is an illegal rooming house, and the building owners could face fines for running it.
That’s according to New Haven’s Building Department, which filed a Cease and Desist order accusing Olive & Wooster, one of the new high-end apartment complexes in Wooster Square, of violating the city’s zoning ordinance by running portions of the building as rooming houses.
Teachers union Prez Blatteau: "We will stand up and fight back."
Maya McFadden Photo
HSC juniors Japhet and Jonaily making a case for their future education.
High School in the Community (HSC) junior Japhet dreams of becoming the first college graduate in his family — but also worries that dream won’t be possible if federal education cuts are made by the Trump administration.
Holding signs reading “People over profit” and “fund our schools,” Japhet marched alongside hundreds of fellow New Haveners to fight for the future of public education.
Tuesday afternoon snapshots of a handful of commuters on the Green revealed bus riders who actually felt quite positive about their bus-taking experiences, if less so about the atmosphere of smoke, noise, and negative behaviors that often surrounds the hub.
Their stories shine a light on what’s working, and what could be a lot better, about New Haven’s state-run public transit system at a time when the hub of the city’s hub-and-spoke bus network is on the verge of some major changes.
Shelly Thompson, Yonatan Zamir, Jeffrey Taylor, and Vorcelia Oliphant-Macher round out a two-day eviction trial.
A two-day eviction trial that revealed how emotionally fraught a long-term tenant-landlord relationship can get has culminated with a judge ordering the renter to leave because her lease has expired.
The legal debate at the trial centered on what counts as landlord “retaliation.” The judge found that a tenant can’t succeed with such a defense unless she proves that a landlord’s “primary motive” in taking her to court was to punish her for speaking out about housing code concerns.
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Maya McFadden | Mar 4, 2025 8:59 am
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Maya McFadden Photo
Fractions on the mind, in Amanda Gonzalez's classroom.
After a full day of learning new vocabulary and all about fractions, taking “brain breaks,” and studying the American Revolution, Conte West Hills K‑8 students and staff concluded that strong relationships, engaging work, and one-on-one instruction are the keys to a successful school day.
Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller quotes the Illinois governor on standing up to tyranny.
At a full Board of Alders meeting on Monday evening, Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller made the case for courage in the face of a constitutional crisis, by way of some “divine guidance” from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
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Laura Glesby | Mar 3, 2025 1:53 pm
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Mamadi Doumbouya photo
Reginald Dwayne Betts' new poetry collection, Doggerel.
When Reginald Dwayne Betts walks his dog at dawn, he knows that she’s “doing the guiding,” even though he’s the one holding the leash.
Some believe that humans are “masters” of their animals, he writes, “But I know I barely control/My wonder these days.”
That confession appears in one of my favorite poems, “What We Know,” from Betts’ new collection Doggerel, a book full of wonder that’s hard to resist. Published by W.W. Norton, Doggerel is Betts’ fifth published poetry collection. Like many of his other works, the book reflects in part on the eight years in prison he served from the age of 16 on a carjacking conviction. Norton is releasing the collection Tuesday on the 20th anniversary of Betts’ release from prison.
Teachers union prez Blatteau (right): "The proposed 2.4% increase is not enough to maintain current staffing levels, in an already understaffed system."
Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed a $5 million increase in municipal education funding for the coming fiscal year — covering less than a quarter of the $23.2 million boost requested by schools Supt. Madeline Negrón.
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Maya McFadden | Mar 3, 2025 10:28 am
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Maya McFadden Photos
"Barack and Michelle Obama" mark Black History Month at BOMUS.
Scenes from the BOMUS "wax museum."
Black History Month ended with a bang at Barack H. Obama Magnet University School (BOMUS) Friday as students, families, and staff welcomed special guests “Barack and Michelle Obama” — in the form of first-graders Jacob Bell and Imani Winfield.
Antonio Portillo presents demand letter alongside ULA members.
(Updated) A pay dispute at a downtown restaurant ended with a manager threatening to call immigration authorities — and pro-immigration activists showing up to demand respect.
With “tremendous uncertainty,” funding-freeze threats, and anticipated “draconian” cuts coming out of Washington, D.C., Mayor Justin Elicker proposed on Friday a “primarily status quo” city budget — which would see the general fund grow by 3.63 percent and the local tax rate rise by 2.3 percent.
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Nathaniel Rosenberg | Feb 28, 2025 10:48 am
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Paul Bass file photo
Another 11 cities and counties — mostly from the West Coast — have joined New Haven’s lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect their sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants.
Rolling up a mattress before bulldozers come in to demolish a Lamberton Street homeless encampment.
File photos
Garrett, Elicker: Neighbors, but not friends (at least in regards to H.B. 7033).
HARTFORD — New Haven and Hamden might be neighbors on a map, but at a Thursday hearing at the state Capitol, the two municipalities were far apart as their Democratic mayors presented dueling testimonies about a state bill on homelessness.
Hamden’s Lauren Garrett threw her support behind the proposal, which would bolster a homeless person’s ability to sleep on public land without fear of penalty.
New Haven’s Justin Elicker, meanwhile, came down hard on the bill, which he warned would allow for permanent encampments.
