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Brian Slattery |
Feb 18, 2021 11:11 am
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On Tuesday evening, Michael J. Morand, president of the New Haven Free Public Library Foundation, stood in the almost empty main room of the Ives branch of the library. In years past, that space had been transformed into a raucous Mardi Gras party that functioned as the library’s annual blowout fundraiser. Not this year.
“Welcome to the first and hopefully last virtual celebration,” he said to his online audience — with firm hopes of reuniting again in 2022, and with plenty of festivities and good news regarding how the city library system adapted and continued to develop during the Covid-19 pandemic.
by
Brian Slattery |
Feb 11, 2021 11:21 am
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Courtesy Jill Marie Snyder
The Snyder family in 1969.
When New Haven-based author Jill Marie Snyder found the letters detailing the romance between her parents when they were young, it was the beginning of a journey that led her to learn more about not only her own family, but the history of the Black community in New Haven, and how both contended with the racism they faced in their lives.
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Allison Hadley |
Jan 18, 2021 10:17 am
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Martorana and Mills .
Socialism or barbarism? Reform or revolution? These phrases both describe modern political debates and essays written by leftist political theorist Rosa Luxemburg over 100 years ago. The New Haven Free Public Library made this connection explicit Friday night in its event “Rosa Luxemburg and a Century of World-Changing Women,” featuring a talk with Luxemburg biographer Dana Mills and adult services librarian Rory Martorana during lunch hours, on Zoom and Facebook Live.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 1, 2020 2:24 pm
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Chris Randall Photo
Dest and Green.
There’s a moment in Stephen Dest‘s film I Am Shakespeare that sums up the inspiration for a book about film that Dest is — as of last week — under contract to write. It’s partly about social justice and partly about digital filmmaking, and all about moving into the future.
In the scene, Henry Green, the subject of the film, is “talking to a doctor about how he once looked,” before he was wounded by a gunshot in 2009. “He does this physical gesture, and I remember when I was editing, I wasn’t picking up on it.” Dest said. When he screened the film, “audiences under 30 would react to it and no one else did.”
The gesture was a quick, repetitive flick of the thumb. Green, Dest said, was “scrolling through his mental phone,” bringing back images from the past, “even though he doesn’t have his phone with him.”
“I’m so glad I was stupid enough not to cut it out,” Dest added. “It really was telling, in how people reacted to it.”
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 2, 2020 10:30 am
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Arts maven Bitsie Clark welcomed her virtual audience to her 89th birthday party on Friday evening with a cheeky rendition of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It.” But there was a serious intent behind the festivities: to check in with the 2019 recipients of the Bitsie Clark Fund’s annual $5,000 grants, and to award another $5,000 grant to a new artist for 2020.
Women’s suffrage speaker greets workers at plant entrance, ca. 1916.
Paul Bass Photo
Cavanagh, Criscola outside ex-factory entrance; their new book (below).
If you closed your eyes, you could imagine hearing the factory whistle blow and seeing thousands of workers streaming past Joan Cavanagh and Jeanne Criscola the other day.
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Maya McFadden |
Oct 16, 2020 12:45 pm
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Contributed photo
Angela Robinson.
After retiring as a judge in 2018, Angela Robinson began educating the younger generation in New Haven full-time about the legal profession in hopes of diversifying the field.
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Allison Hadley |
Oct 1, 2020 10:09 am
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Allison Hadley Photos
You’ve probably seen the posters for The Crowd around town. Black and white, and affixed to everything, from the usual light poles to more avant-garde trash receptacles, they shout at passersby to “vote early, vote often” and portray such illustrious figures as socialist and trade unionist Eugene Debs.
The posters are part agitprop and part advertisement. But there is no contact information. The poster points the way, but to find the Crowd requires more digging.
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Allison Hadley |
Sep 1, 2020 7:23 am
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Everyone knows Frank Sinatra, but no one knows about his agitation for leftist causes in the 1930s and ‘40s. Fiorello La Guardia got an airport, but Sacco and Vanzetti got a march and a folk song. Italian-Americans are known for their cultural contributions to American society and, of course, New Haven in particular — look no further than Wooster Street, the cradle of pizza civilization — but what about their political legacy as a group that often struck and organized for worker’s rights and better treatment by White society? The path to assimilation was not smooth, and the very organizing that got them there seems to have been lost to public consciousness.
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Laura Glesby |
Jun 1, 2020 1:13 pm
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The NHFPL Facebook Page
Stuck at home in this era of sheltering in place, many have turned back to long-forgotten lists of hobbies they had wanted to try, people they had meant to reach out to, personal goals they had hoped to achieve.
For the past month, five local librarians followed the trend by each setting out to read one book they’d never gotten around to reading. They gathered to discuss their experiences — and found themselves questioning what makes a book worth wanting to read in the first place.
Author Neil Proto went to Yale’s library to start researching the life of A. Bartlett Giamatti, the 39-year-old Italian-American with New Haven roots who became the Ivy League university’s first non-Anglo-Saxon president.
He came across a statement that stunned him — and steered him in an unpredictable direction.
Anna Oppenheimer (pictured) checked out the seventh Wizard of Oz book electronically from the library.
Before the pandemic hit, Cyd Oppenheimer visited the library every Wednesday when dropping off her kids off at Hebrew school. When libraries closed to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Oppenheimer had to find another way to meet her family’s need to read.
The library — now in virtual mode — again became her source.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 21, 2020 10:35 am
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Miss Erinn, a representative of the Miss Kendra Programs, beams over jaunty yet gentle piano music. She speaks directly into the camera. “Oh! Hello! I’ve been waiting for you! Wow, it’s so good to see you. Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s Miss Kendra Time!” children say. Miss Erinn’s smile gets even bigger. “It’s Miss Kendra Time,” she affirms. Without losing her welcoming tone, she continues. “Today we’re going to be talking about the coronavirus and the way that it has been affecting all the kids and families around this community and all over the country — even all over the world.”
The Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists, established in 2018, is now accepting applications from New Haven-area artists for 2020. The deadline to apply is May 1.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 1, 2020 7:13 pm
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Marriages gone bad. Greek and Roman mythology. Midwinter malaise. These were a handful of many themes in the fifth installment of “Songs and Stories,” organized and hosted by Saul Fussiner and held at Next Door on Humphrey Street — a full Saturday evening of storytelling from Jeni Bonaldo, Marco Rafalà, and Mike Isko, and music from Kriss Santala and Stefany Brown, Shandy Lawson, and Daniel Eugene that packed the pizza place’s back room and turned it into a listening room.
William “Juneboy” Outlaw III was New Haven’s top cocaine dealer before he reached the age of 20. Then he spent decades behind bars, staring at death.
This week Outlaw, who’s now 51, hit the big time again — this time as a star street outreach worker featured on the Today Show and in a biography about to rock the nation with a tale of personal redemption.
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Markeshia Ricks |
Nov 11, 2019 12:51 pm
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Markeshia Ricks Photos
Brown-Dean reads from her new book at Kehler Liddell Gallery …
… and signs a copy for ConnCAT CEO Erik Clemons.
As you reflect on Veterans Day, Khalilah L. Brown-Dean asks you to think of Jimmie Lee Jackson and Leonard Matlovich.
And when you think of them she wants you to consider how their identities and the politics and policies that shaped their lives still have much to teach us today.
