by | Dec 19, 2022 11:00 am | Comments (7)
Commercial kitchen El Amigo Felix to get new neighbors.
A plan to build six new apartments atop the former El Amigo Felix restaurant on Whalley Avenue won its final needed city approval — marking the first new development OK’d for that recently rezoned “commercial gateway” corridor.
by | Dec 16, 2022 3:03 pm | Comments (33)
Thomas Breen file photos
LCI Board Member Nadine Horton (left): "Rewarding bad behavior." LCI Director Arlevia Samuel (right): "Investing in community.”
Nora Grace Flood photo
The derelict former Monterey Jazz club on Dixwell.
A debate about how to revitalize the Dixwell neighborhood without rewarding a megalandlord for bad behavior has delayed a key vote on the Elicker Administration’s plans to buy four rundown properties for a combined sum of $1.3 million.
by | Dec 16, 2022 1:10 pm | Comments (10)
Paul Bass Photo
Members of two species gather to cut the ribbon at the new Cambria Hotel on Route 34.
New Haven closed out the year with two of three planned new hotels getting past the finish line and opening to the public with a festive holiday party.
by | Dec 14, 2022 4:27 pm | Comments (8)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
At the Greenwich Ave. C-Town: More aisles, coming soon?
A Kimberly Square supermarket is looking to stock more shelves and serve more shoppers — by first paving more parking spaces and later tearing down a two-family home.
by | Dec 14, 2022 1:33 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden file photo
At Angela's Unique Creations ribbon cutting on Kimberly Ave. in February.
An online holiday party replete with ugly sweaters and good cheer brought into focus a vision for a bustling, business-friendly Kimberly Square .
Continue reading ‘Hill Holiday Party Q: How To Help Kimberly Square?’
by | Dec 14, 2022 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Tuesday evening at Three Sheets on Elm Street found not a band onstage, but a vast assortment of paper with arrays of compelling images on them — from owls to goat people to skeletal horses, as well as letters, dingbats, and geometric shapes — along with scissors, pieces of cardboard, and glue sticks. The tables and chairs in the room were full of people using those materials to make collages — and try what Three Sheets and Hershey, Penn.-based brewer Tröegs Independent Brewing had to offer.
Continue reading ‘Three Sheets Combines Tasting With Cutting And Pasting’
by | Dec 13, 2022 11:40 am | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen file photo
City Plan Director Laura Brown: Land uses are "bread & butter" of comp plan.
It’s time for New Haven’s comprehensive plan to get a rewrite — and for a public refresher concerning what that vaguely named document is designed to do.
Continue reading ‘Comprehensive Planners, Start Your Engines’
by | Dec 12, 2022 9:16 am | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden photos
Semilla's Tortillería Collective co-founders: Ariana Shapiro, Elizabeth Gonzalez, Anabel Hernandez, Martina Perez, and Javier Gonzalez-Villatoro.
Freshly made tortillas, hot off the comal.
Standing over a hot comal filled with half-cooked handmade tortillas, Elizabeth Gonzalez pinched her thumb with her index and middle fingers to grip the corner of a puffy tortilla and flipped it over — showing in a single swift motion how she and a small group of worker-owner chefs hope to bring a Central American and Mexican staple to the streets of New Haven.
by | Dec 12, 2022 9:07 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
New Haven-based ska band The Simulators had finished the second song of its skank-filled set at College Street Music Hall on Saturday afternoon when bassist Zachary Yost had a question: “Who’s enjoying spending all their money on all these lovely local vendors?” He meant the dozens of artists and artisans who had jammed into the place for the College Street Punk Rock Holiday Flea, which, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., changed the College Street performance space into a bazaar for original art, thrift clothing, instruments, records, and much more.
Continue reading ‘Punk Rock Flea Market Skanks Into The Season’
by | Dec 9, 2022 6:04 pm | Comments (5)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Pharmacist and medical marijuana distributor Ray Pantalena: Cannabis legalization “took a little longer than most people wanted — but we’re just super excited to finally see it coming.”
Cannabis consumers aged 21 and up will be able to purchase legal joints, vape cartridges and marijuana flower at a Whalley Avenue medical dispensary come Jan. 10 — now that the state has signed off on the city’s first retailer of adult-use recreational weed selling to more than just patients.
Continue reading ‘City's First Recreational Canna-Biz To Open Jan. 10’
by | Dec 8, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
On Wednesday evening, dozens gathered in KNOWN, the co-work space in the Palladium Building at 139 Orange St. It was part of KNOWN’s Wind-Down Wednesdays, a chance for people to exchange ideas and just relax. But the art on the walls — like Daniel Ramos’s Monk at the Ojo de Agua — wasn’t there as a coincidence; this particular Wednesday evening was a chance to celebrate the opening of “Assemblage,” a show put together by Kim Weston of Wábi Gallery. As it turned out, the gathering of humans at KNOWN was mirrored by the exhibition itself, which Weston conceived of as its own gathering of artists, and the ideas and spirit they share.
by | Dec 2, 2022 3:30 pm | Comments (36)
The former famed Monterey jazz club, one of 4 Ocean-owned buildings on Dixwell Ave. that the city is looking to buy for $1.3 million.
Thomas Breen file photo
LCI's Evan Trachten: Ocean has "had the site for several years and failed to develop it."
The Elicker Administration plans to purchase a handful of rundown Dixwell Avenue properties from affiliates of Ocean Management for $350,000 more than those properties’ combined city-appraised value — and for $800,000 more than what the megalandlord paid to buy those same buildings six years ago — as part of a public effort to develop affordable housing in a revitalizing stretch of the Dixwell neighborhood.
Continue reading ‘Desperate Dixwell Deal Profits Megalandlord’
by | Dec 2, 2022 11:08 am | Comments (13)
Mustafa Abdul-Salaam
Mustafa Abdul-Salaam remembers how tough it was to include his neighbors’ voices in the development of New Haven’s Science Park — and is bringing insights gained back then to a last-stand anti-gentrification battle in the nation’s capital.
Continue reading ‘Newhallville Lesson Inspires “Chocolate City” Quest’
by | Nov 30, 2022 5:08 pm | Comments (9)
Paul Bass Photo
Jim Turcio looked down from 14 stories above New Haven and marveled at a landscape that has been changing before his eyes — with his OK required at every step.
Continue reading ‘Turcio, City's Building Boom Boss, To Retire’
by | Nov 30, 2022 9:42 am | Comments (17)
Paul Bass Photo
Valerie Tanner, pictured, helped her cousin Quiana Tanner pitch her local "Try This Pie" bean pie business to attendees at Tuesday's economic summit.
Job creation? Or filling jobs already created?
Economic development gatherings have tended to focus on the first question. A statewide confab held in New Haven Tuesday afternoon pivoted to the latter.
by | Nov 29, 2022 12:55 pm | Comments (25)
Paul Bass Photo
Treasure hunters broke into an historic New Haven bank — and the bank was gone. Its future, meanwhile, came into view.
by | Nov 28, 2022 3:00 pm | Comments (2)
On “Small Business Saturday,” a stack of Michelle Obama’s latest books made its way from the shelf of New Haven’s newest local bookstore to the former First Lady’s Facebook page.
Continue reading ‘Former FLOTUS "Fistbumps" Possible Futures’
by | Nov 23, 2022 1:30 pm | Comments (5)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
The homemade spice rack Tsering Yangzom draws from while cooking.
Tibetan Kitchen partners in business and life: Yangzom and Sherab Gyaltsen.
Sherab Gyaltsen and Tsering Yangzom weren’t willing to spill the secret of their homemade magical mainstay chili spice-blend — but they did plump eight dumplings into a sizzling pan to reveal how to make momos you won’t forget.
Continue reading ‘Spice Mixed Just Right In Tibetan Kitchen’
by | Nov 22, 2022 12:20 pm | Comments (3)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Bloom owner Alisha Crutchfield with a gift box she designed for the holidays.
Alisha Crutchfield gathered a blank journal, pens promising that “You Got This,” a homemade candle bathed in “blessings,” a chain necklace with the reminder that “Black Femmes Aren’t Your Playground” — and then labeled the overflowing arrangement the perfect present for “the person who loves self care and spending time alone after a long day of work.”
In other words, Crutchfield, the founder and owner of a year-old Westville lifestyle boutique called BLOOM, curated that care package with herself in mind.
She did so to show how she busily assembles her top-selling products in personalized baskets for those seeking professional help upping their gift giving game — and as part of a broader effort to urge New Haveners to shop local this holiday season.
Continue reading ‘BLOOM Blossoms In Buy-Local Holiday Spotlight’
by | Nov 22, 2022 11:58 am | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby file photo
Alex Depavloff swirls Nan Rosa's oat milk chocolate cone.
Nan, Lux, Ben, and Gus Rosa with their dad, Evan, digging in on some Sunday afternoon East Rock ice cream.
As New Haven’s first wintery weekend settled over Orange Street, the sign outside Elena’s On Orange lit up — and welcomed a steady stream of families seeking solace from the acerbic wind in a sweeter kind of cold.
by | Nov 21, 2022 3:23 pm | Comments (10)
Don't Blame Me: A senator (pictured at Monday New Haven press conference), a singing star, and a super-seller point fingers for ticket fiasco.
There will be hell to pay for screwing up ticket sales to pop phenom Taylor Swift’s first tour in four years, if Richard Blumenthal has his way.
by and | Nov 21, 2022 11:00 am | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby photo
Fair Haven Health CEO Suzanne Lagarde and attorney Meaghan Miles at Thursday's Board of Alders Legislation Committee meeting.
Fair Haven Community Health Care (FHCHC) is on its way to getting new city approvals to bring more cars to its grounds — as the nonprofit advances towards executing a broader vision of expanding its community healthcare campus on Grand Avenue.
Continue reading ‘Clinic's Parking, Expansion Plan Advances’
by | Nov 17, 2022 12:19 pm | Comments (3)
Daycare approved for 97 Whitney Ave.
An Orange-based Hebrew day school is one big step closer to opening a new childcare center at the vacant site of a former private school on Whitney Avenue, thanks to a unanimous vote of support by city zoners.
Continue reading ‘Daycare, Housing OK'd; Convenience Rejected’
by | Nov 17, 2022 8:56 am | Comments (6)
Take a last look: Sign changes to "G Cafe" next week.
Keeping the joe flowing: Andrea Corazzini.
New Haven may still be part of a blue state, but it is no longer a safe space for Blue State Coffee.
by and | Nov 16, 2022 4:53 pm | Comments (20)
Paul Bass Photo
Newly tapped next state economic development Commissioner Alexandra Daum with Gov. Ned Lamont at Thursday's announcement at Hotel Marcel.
Gov. Ned Lamont turned to a New Havener from within the ranks of his administration to shepherd Connecticut’s economic development for the next four years.