by | Jan 3, 2020 3:17 pm | Comments (40)
Paul Bass Photo
Crew razing the old Webster Bank at 80 Elm to make way for new hotel.
New Haven’s economy is set to expand by thousands of apartments, hundreds of hotel rooms, and a nearly $1 billion new neuroscience center in the coming years — if projects in the pipeline proceed as planned in 2020.
by | Jan 3, 2020 8:53 am | Comments (4)
Chef Bun Lai at Miya’s: 12 months of culinary mayhem remain.
Miya’s, the Howe Street restaurant that changed New Haven and then the world, is planning to end its long run — but not for another year.
by | Dec 24, 2019 7:51 am | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photos
Cop accountability protesters shut down College Street in April.
Climate emergency activists outside City Hall in August.
In 12 months of near-constant protests, New Haveners took to the streets — and to City Hall, the Board of Education, public parks, rezoning meetings, out-of-state immigrant detention centers, the Yale Bowl, and many, many more places besides.
These demonstrators sometimes won what they asked for. They always sparked debate. And they seemed to herald a new era of vibrant, disruptive participatory democracy at a time when civic unrest has swept the country and the globe.
Continue reading ‘2019’s Perpetual Protests Produced Results’
by | Dec 23, 2019 1:42 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Poreyah Benton at work in the mobile Vegan Ahava kitchen.
Plant-based cooking in the Elm City.
It was Thursday, so the orders were coming in for the meatless, dairy-free “Philly Cheesesteak” inside New Haven’s newest — and first vegan — food truck.
Continue reading ‘Bloodless “Cheesesteak” Served, With Love’
by | Dec 20, 2019 1:33 pm | Comments (5)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Loubabatou Harris rose by 5 a.m. First she prayed; then she hit the road to Hartford to pick up a delivery of meat. It was time to stock up for the holidays on food that many of her African-born customers remember from the motherland — and can find only at Motherland Market.
by | Dec 17, 2019 4:49 pm | Comments (7)
Christopher Peak Photo
SOM Dean Kerwin Charles (at center) with other members of the Partnership for Connecticut’s board at Monday’s meeting.
Aspiring school superintendents will soon pour into Yale’s School of Management for lessons in how to close a budget deficit, retain staff, and deal with journalists.
by | Dec 16, 2019 10:07 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photo
Murphy’s “round”-table discussion at Known co-working space.
Chris Murphy came to New Haven’s newest co-working space with a cause he believes can unite Democrats with Republicans in Washington, and tech execs with fast-food workers in the trenches.
The cause: Banning non-compete clauses. Not just for top executives. Not just for burger-flippers. For just about everyone in America.
by | Dec 16, 2019 5:32 pm | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
David Pearlstone shows DECD deputy Gwendolyn Thames his company’s holographic imaging headset for surgical procedures.
Get us faster trains, more airplanes, less risk-averse large corporations, and most of all, better access to venture capital.
Start-up founders at New Haven’s hottest new business incubator gave Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz that holiday-season wish list Monday.
by | Dec 12, 2019 3:37 pm | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photo
Cortigiano at Take 5.
For owner Ralph Cortigiano, Saturday’s last day of business at Take 5 Audio isn’t a memorial. It’s a victory lap.
by | Dec 11, 2019 5:28 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photos
Grand Avenue looking east from Olive Street: No longer part of the plan.
Rezoning skeptics at Tuesday night’s hearing.
Grand Avenue and affordability mandates were both dropped from a long-in-the-works rezoning initiative that now advances to the full Board of Alders with only Whalley Avenue slated to be affected.
Continue reading ‘Biz Renewal Plan OK’d; Grand, Affordability Dropped’
by | Dec 11, 2019 1:59 pm | Comments (4)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Worker Junor Patel at A.L.K.
It’s been about 15 years since you could walk into the old Tommy K’s Video at 1636 Dixwell Ave. and rent a video. After many years, the store will get a new life — peddling not films, but wine and spirits.
by | Dec 6, 2019 8:29 am | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Site of planned new Cambria hotel at corner of Dwight and MLK.
A Maryland-based hotel chain that plans to build a 130-room upscale hotel on the “Route 34 West” superblock bought the parcel for $2.8 million, in the city’s latest property sales.
by | Dec 5, 2019 4:50 pm | Comments (20)
Eli Broad.
A Los Angeles billionaire known for his promotion of charter schools has set up Yale’s School of Management (SOM) to “reimagine” how America’s public schools are run.
Continue reading ‘Pro-Charter Billionaire Gives Yale SOM $100M To Train Public School Leaders’
by | Dec 5, 2019 3:41 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Tortora with a bottle of nero d’avolo, which he sold to a reporter during the course of an interview.
The original plan was for the Grand Avenue Bridge to close as early as this fall to begin 18 months of renovations..
That would have killed a big part of the holiday business for Ben Tortora, Fair Haven’s only wine merchant, who runs Grand Vin right by the bridge.
Now the start of construction has been pushed back past Christmas — and Tortora is driving back and forth across the bridge to make the personal deliveries at the heart of his business’s success.
Continue reading ‘Wine Merchant Toasts Bridge-Closing Delay’
by | Dec 5, 2019 2:43 pm | Comments (0)
Lee and Smith with a photo of the Fall cohort.
A host of New Haven businesses — from beekeeping to cooking classes for children, digital content creation, student loan debt relief, individualized skin care, and skateboarding — launched Wednesday night from the stage of The State House with pitches to potential funders.
Continue reading ‘Bee, Student Debt, Video Entrepreneurs Pitch’
by | Dec 4, 2019 2:59 pm | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photos
Welcome to Route 80.
Eyzaguirreexplains SSD steps.
When you’re on a pedestiran-unfriendly state road conducive to car-flung litter and dominated by two out-of-town big-box chains, creating a special services district (SSD) to keep the district safe and clean is a heavy lift.
Quinnipiac Meadows neighbors took up the challenge.
by | Dec 3, 2019 3:03 pm | Comments (7)
Paul Bass photo
Demolition workers at site of planned new Elm Street hotel.
Alders unanimously approved updating and extending the city’s tax assessment deferral program for another five years — with a late change that provides a more generous tax break to builders who commit to developing affordable housing.
Continue reading ‘Tax Breaks Pass, With Affordable Incentive’
by | Dec 3, 2019 12:14 pm | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Derrick Draughn.
Derrick Draughn of DCI Resources stood in his new white-walled office space in Hamden Monday evening, pointing out various features to the well-wishers and curious onlookers who trickled in and out.
by | Dec 2, 2019 5:13 pm | Comments (14)
Sven Martson photo
80 Elm St. pre-demolition, when it housed Webster Bank.
Paul Bass photo
The back of 80 Elm St. on Monday
The first chunks of a 1948 art moderne former bank building at 80 Elm St. have begun disappearing as a demolition crew makes way for a planned new 132-room hotel.
by | Nov 25, 2019 2:34 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photos
The Dixwell block that the city is looking to redevelop. Below: LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo pitches plan.
The city is racing to buy and then redevelop a two-story church on Dixwell Avenue as a neighborhood daycare as part of a larger effort to buy up blighted properties on the block — before large private landlord groups scoop them up first.
by | Nov 22, 2019 1:11 pm | Comments (3)
Allan Appel photo
The Lacys with Gerry Garcia and wings.
Aspiring local restaurateurs Lachelle and Linwood Lacy had a productive Thursday: They graduated from the city’s small business academy, and they got word that the lease for their first restaurant, planned for Whalley Avenue near Ramsdell Street, had been signed.
Result: Opening day for the new business, dubbed Woody’s Wings, is coming, and Linwood cried with joy.
by | Nov 21, 2019 5:02 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
The water was gushing, the sheet of steel inserted. And the newest engine of New Haven’s innovation economy was ready to roll.
by | Nov 21, 2019 2:35 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photos
Dixwell rezoning skeptics Jayuan Carter, Jonny Shively, Patricia Solomon, Lillie Chambers, Carla Chappel, Lisa McKnight.
Long-in-the-works zoning changes designed to promote dense, sustainable, and affordable development along New Haven’s “commercial corridors” moved ahead for Whalley Avenue and Grand Avenue — and have been temporarily dropped for Dixwell Avenue, with neighbors thanking city staff for heeding their concerns about potential gentrification.
by | Nov 18, 2019 1:05 pm | Comments (2)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Bob Percopo heard trucks and chainsaws behind his house start up at about 6:30 a.m. on Friday, he said.
Now that the leaves have fallen, he could see right through the woods to where a landscaper has been illegally processing wood and dumping debris 90 feet onto an adjacent property owner’s land. The town plans to take action.
by | Nov 14, 2019 4:50 pm | Comments (6)
Paul Bass Photos
Fresh loaves, fresh joe at Atticus.
Charles Negaro Jr. and Sr.
Charles Negaro Sr. prepared to eat lunch at Atticus Bookstore & Cafe this week — as a customer, not the boss.
Charles Jr. would worry about making sure the place was running. From here on in.