by | Jan 16, 2024 4:00 pm | Comments (48)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Trachten in the office: Fed up with people saying, "We have a crisis -- so all rules out the window; we can do whatever the fuck we want.”
If you’ve ever had to go before the Board of Zoning Appeals, you probably know Ben Trachten.
by | Jan 15, 2024 11:57 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen Photo
Aric Isaacs and Ian Alderman inside the space at 280 Blake St. to be developed into a black box theater.
A local theater troupe is setting the stage to bring a black box theater to Blake Street.
Continue reading ‘Broken Umbrella Pushes Black Box For Blake’
by | Jan 12, 2024 11:32 am | Comments (49)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
City Plan chief Laura Brown Thursday night: Help us chart city's future.
The city invited the public to a launch party for a once-in-a-decade rewrite of New Haven’s primary land use document — and the community showed up.
by | Jan 9, 2024 3:45 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen Photo
Anesthesia's storefront: "Thirsty Trap" for sale?
The state is suing Chapel Street’s Anesthesia Convenience & Smoke Shop as part of a crackdown on stores allegedly selling illegal cannabis products.
Continue reading ‘State Sues Smoke Shop For Alleged Cannabis Sales’
by | Jan 9, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (31)
Brian Slattery Photo
Artist and customer Susan Clinard in Artist & Craftsman on Monday: "It’s one of those last-standing real art stores.”
“It is a disaster for our block. We LOVE this store. I am so angry.” “It’s my life’s blood.” “This is a huge bummer … I’m there weekly with buying materials for my work or for my class at CAW.” “I feel bad for us but also the wonderful staff who have always been so great.”
These were a few of the many outcries from New Haven artists and citizens as news spread yesterday that Artist & Craftsman Supply, at 821 – 825 Chapel St., had announced it would be closing in early March.
by | Jan 8, 2024 4:27 pm | Comments (25)
Paul Bass Photo
Jisu Sheen helps customer Monday at soon-to-close Artist & Craftsman.
Jisu Sheen refuses to sign away her rights in return for four weeks of severance pay. Including to a company she supposedly “owns.”
Continue reading ‘Worker-"Owner" Won't Shut Up For Severance’
by | Jan 8, 2024 11:26 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Hallie "Rock" Bolden, Jr. with Hallie "Bizzy" Bolden III.
The bell above the door sounded at DA’W.O.R.L.D., the Whalley Avenue mecca for men’s urban clothing.
“Coming in for some love,” the customer said, dapping up DA’W.O.R.L.D. manager Hallie “Bizzy” Bolden III, wardrobe consultant Tariq “Riq” Bolden and owner Hallie “Rock” Bolden, Jr. behind the counter. “Have a good one.”
by | Jan 4, 2024 1:15 pm | Comments (16)
Contributed photo
These kids can't drive or park on River Street, but they'll be able to kick the ball.
What if 12 kids playing soccer in a vacant warehouse becomes 200?
City Plan commissioners debated that allegedly nightmare scenario for an hour before deciding they could live with it after all — as long as the number of players, benchwarmers and spectators doesn’t escalate beyond that cap.
Continue reading ‘Commission Frets Over Kids Playing Soccer’
by | Jan 3, 2024 3:27 pm | Comments (8)
At work Wednesday on new "Square 10" apartment building next to where a bioscience builder hopes to get to work next.
Paul Bass Photos
The Next Carter Winstanley?: New Haven's newest biobuilder, Peter Calkins, at Wednesday's brownfields grant announcement.
No one brought shovels. At least not yet.
Continue reading ‘State $1M To Unearth Buried Coliseum Detritus’
by | Jan 1, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (47)
Twining / L&M designs
Design for "Winchester Green" apartments and retail on a vacant lot within Science Park, complete with a new interior street grid.
The money’s in. So the next apartment complex slated for a fast-changing stretch of the Dixwell-Newhallville border is ready to rise.
Continue reading ‘$90M In Hand To Start Building "Winchester Green"’
by | Dec 13, 2023 12:15 pm | Comments (6)
Jeanne Newman photo
Past and present SNET/Frontier employees, at the 4 Hamilton St. garage. Back row: Charles Nixon, Tommy Joyner, Earl McCoy Sr., Webster Zackery. Front row: James Jones, Rodney Diggs, Edward McClain, Jermaine Allen.
Earl McCoy, Sr. grabbed a rung on the phone company ladder, lifting other Black New Haveners along with him into lives of stable employment at a livable wage.
He and other SNET “legends” connected offline to reflect on that journey, and where it’s headed today.
by | Dec 8, 2023 6:52 pm | Comments (24)
Rite Aid cashiers Tyrek Caesar and Claire Hernandez ...
... on one of their last shifts at the soon-to-close Church St. Rite Aid.
After Monday, Tyrek Caesar and Claire Hernandez will no longer be able to walk right across the street from class at Gateway Community College to work at the Rite Aid on Church Street — because the downtown pharmacy is shuttering for good, the latest victim to a wave of bankruptcy-induced closures for the national chain.
by | Dec 8, 2023 4:08 pm | Comments (17)
The Yale Golf Course, as pictured in a City Plan presentation.
Yale has won city permission to cut down more than 1,000 trees and renovate its Upper Westville golf course as part of a plan that university officials pitched as making 200 acres of fairways and tees more “sustainable” — and that local activists criticized as environmentally backwards.
Continue reading ‘Yale's Tree-Cutting Golf Course Renovation Plan OK'd’
by | Nov 30, 2023 9:59 am | Comments (4)
Allan Appel photo
Co-owner Michael Massey with a young customer.
The Black Corner Store on Edgewood Avenue isn’t closing. For now. But it is up for sale, as Kenia and Michael Massey try to find a way to keep their neighborhood storefront afloat as both a for-profit business and a nonprofit hub for classes in financial literacy and other community resources.
by | Nov 22, 2023 12:19 pm | Comments (21)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
669 Dixwell today: what will best boost the Avenue?
Ricotta pies and pepperoni slices may replace the ghosts of bygone fifths and whiskey bottles at a former Dixwell Avenue liquor store — though neighbors are offering mixed reviews about a potential pizzeria on their main commercial strip.
Continue reading ‘Pizza Pitch Splits Newhallville Neighbors’
by | Nov 16, 2023 5:02 pm | Comments (32)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
87 Webster St. destroyed, in preparation for Dixwell block's rebirth.
As an excavator arm reached out to tear down the wall of the old Elks Club at Webster Street and Dixwell Avenue, Beverly Barnes lifted a hand to shield her face from the sight — then readjusted her focus to an anticipated future of bustling sidewalks, modernized apartments and new neighbors.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Elks Lodge Demolished For Dixwell Plaza Redev’
by | Nov 16, 2023 8:28 am | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Jacqueline James-Boyd at Newhallville meetup: Cannabis cash meant to address "all the issues we have in Black and Brown communities.”
Millions of dollars in cannabis-legalization money are slated to trickle back into New Haven’s neighborhoods most negatively impacted by the War on Drugs — and residents are responding with programmatic pitches to put those funds towards community revitalization, from serving the homeless hot meals to mentoring Black billionaires in the making.
Continue reading ‘Neighborhood Q: How To Spend State Cannabis Cash?’
by | Nov 10, 2023 9:48 am | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Cool Amps' Lonnie Garris III and Nick Anderson, with their company's "laminar flow extraction module" prototype.
Retired Air Force colonel and eco-entrepreneur Lonnie Garris III returned to his home city Thursday evening to help show that the path to a climate-friendlier future — and a less carbon-intensive means of recycling lithium-ion batteries — goes through Chapel Street.
Continue reading ‘Tech Hub's Grand Opening Celebrates Less Carbon, More Innovation’
by | Oct 25, 2023 12:50 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen file photo
At Georgia Goldburn's Hope Child Development Center in October 2022.
More early childcare providers, higher wages for those teaching the city’s toddlers, and better help for parents struggling to find the right daycare or pre‑K for their kids.
Those are some changes that could happen here in New Haven, now that the city has committed $3.5 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to help its struggling childcare system — so long as providers come through with proposals about how to spend the money.
by | Oct 19, 2023 11:57 am | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen file photo
45 Church St.: Get ready to club.
Those looking to boogie in a vacant former bank may soon be in luck — now that a new nightclub called “The Vault” has received its final needed city approval to open in the marble-columned confines of the ex-Connecticut Savings Bank on Church Street.
by | Oct 6, 2023 9:18 am | Comments (3)
Allan Appel photo
Rashaan Boyd inside A Hustler's Vibe: "They’ve been looking for me so long, now [here I am!]”
Thanks to a combination of foot traffic and web traffic along with deep neighborhood roots, the newest entrepreneur on lower Edgewood Avenue is about to hit his 1,000th customer and has a new six-month lease in hand.
That entrepreneur, Rashaan Boyd, breathed new life into a vacant storefront at Day and Edgewood with his A Hustler’s Vibe clothing outlet and is going strong.
He is among the merchants the Independent is interviewing who are figuring out how to make small business work along largely residential stretches of Edgewood Avenue.
Continue reading ‘Dwight Entrepreneur Makes The Hustle Work’
by | Sep 29, 2023 3:15 pm | Comments (25)
Thomas Breen photo
Alder Claudia Herrera (right) inside Dayvett's Gifts with co-owner Ines Vidals.
The state has awarded $6 million towards overhauling Grand Avenue to make the bustling Fair Haven commercial corridor safer, cleaner, better-lit, and more pedestrian-friendly.
Those improvements can’t come soon enough for neighborhood stalwarts like Maria Ocotecatl of Grand Fish Market, and Javier Sanchez of Evolution Hair Studio, and Angeles Romero of Rodeo Groceries, and Ines Vidals of Dayvett’s Gifts, who have built up their small businesses because of their diverse and supportive community — and despite some of the conditions that persist outside their shops’ front doors.
by | Sep 27, 2023 10:35 am | Comments (19)
City of New Haven Rendering
A rendering of a proposed "walkable" Long Wharf.
Thomas Breen photo
Cannabis dispensary, now under construction at ex-Long Wharf Theatre site.
“Given the increasing likelihood of more frequent and severe storms, should we as a city pull back from the shoreline, or should we allow more development in coastal areas?”
Westville Alder Adam Marchand posed that question to his fellow local legislators — and successfully urged his colleagues to choose the latter vision and rezone Long Wharf to become more walkable and densely built.
by | Sep 22, 2023 11:34 am | Comments (30)
Contributed photo; Thomas Breen file photo
Newly city-approved cannabis dispensary operators: Kebra Smith-Bolden and David Salinas.
(Updated) New Haven has officially reached its local cannabis limit, with two new dispensaries now key steps closer to opening their doors and bringing the city to its self-imposed maximum of five formal pot shops.
Continue reading ‘2 More Dispensaries OK'd; Local Pot Shop Cap Reached’
by | Sep 21, 2023 8:26 am | Comments (1)
Abiba Biao photos
Dan Moran and Chriss Tuyishime at Sillable launch party.
Sillable co-founders Aaron Daniels, Burton Lyng-Olsen, and Lele Xu.
More handmade goods. Closer community relationships. Increased support for New Haven entrepreneurs — and buy-local customers.
Those were some of the words, phrases, and goals used to describe local small businesses at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale at 17 Prospect St., where the new tech startup Sillable hosted its launch party.
Continue reading ‘Town Shops, Gown Students Unite For App Launch’