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Nora Grace-Flood |
Nov 16, 2023 5:02 pm
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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.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Nov 16, 2023 8:28 am
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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.
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.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 25, 2023 12:50 pm
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Sep 22, 2023 11:34 am
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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.
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.
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Karen Ponzio |
Sep 20, 2023 9:05 am
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MINIPNG.
Audubon Street is a promenade of institutions that ignite creativity and keep it alight. For the past year that street has also housed the storefront of artist/designer MINIPNG (a.k.a. Eiress Hammond), who has made a home away from home for fans of her original handmade clothing as well as lovers of vintage pieces and accessories from the late ’90s and early ’00s. This Saturday, Sept. 23, she is co-presenting an event that will be bringing an even larger creative crew to the street from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
MATCH trainee Ross Stanley: "It's really amazing, because there's so many things we can learn."
At the newly unveiled climate-focused mural at 20 Mill St.
Hill native and former Yale cafeteria worker Ross Stanley took a step closer towards building a career in local manufacturing, as he joined six fellow trainees in a Fair Haven warehouse where lighting fixtures — and industrial jobs — will soon be fabricated.
A long-derelict, publicly-owned former factory building on River Street fell brick by brick to the ground Tuesday, as a demolition crew tore apart a boarded-up three-story building that was one of the last standing remnants of the Bigelow Boiler industrial complex.
ClimateHaven CEO Ryan Dings: “We’re an incubator, accelerator, and a convenor.”
Yale post-doc Wangbiao Guo has just received a patent for a multi-stage system that captures carbon from the air by the use of algae.
All he needs for the next step is about $500,000 to finance a pilot/prototype to begin to take the product to market — and that’s why he was enjoying an American Snappy Lager Thursday night over at 770 Chapel St.
The New Haven Green swarmed with tents. Music boomed from the loudspeakers, covering everything from “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears to “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” by Shakira. The air hung heavy and sweet with the scent of fried dough and freshly-applied sunscreen. The second annual Black Wall Street Festival had begun.
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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 14, 2023 10:21 am
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Karen Ponzio
This photo says it all.
Under a Saturday night sky swelling with the threat of thunderstorms, The Regicides performed to a rapt and enthusiastic audience at A Broken Umbrella Theatre’s current location on Blake Street with a bonus: they were treated to a preview of the theater’s new performance space in the making, and a pitch for assistance to help it come to fruition — all while eating, drinking, and making merry in the truest laugh-a-minute fashion.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 10, 2023 9:03 am
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Aric Isaacs and Ian Alderman inside the space at 280 Blake St. to be developed into a black box theater.
A Broken Umbrella Theatre has big plans for the property at 280 Blake St. in Beaver Hills. If they come to fruition, in a couple years the property will house a roughly 90-seat black box theater as well as a cabaret complete with restaurant and bar. According to Ian Alderman, Broken Umbrella’s executive director, the project will likely cost somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million. Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the state’s Good to Great Program, they’re on their way. To realize their vision in its entirety, they have faith in the strength of the New Haven arts community and its desire to have a space where the arts can be.
When Aaron Daniels was a first year at Yale, he encountered a problem saying goodbye to the ivory tower during move out day. With his roommate having left their belongings behind, he needed an extra luggage bag to pack up their stuff — and fast.
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Laura Glesby |
Aug 7, 2023 12:40 pm
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Laura Glesby photos
Entrepreneur and stylist Kim Poole browses Noir Vintage & Co.'s back room.
Meanwhile, store owner Evelyn Massey, right, hugs supporters in a burst of emotion.
With the snip of a ribbon, Evelyn Massey opened up a portal through time in the form of a vintage shop styled after a Harlem Renaissance salon, the culmination of a long-simmering dream.
Desmone Gambrell-Claxton and Fabian Menges present their group's ideas for the Armory (pictured above).
The abandoned armory on Goffe Street is starting to house dreams of sports facilities, small businesses, social services, and citywide celebrations.
But before neighbors’ visions for the historic structure can become a reality, the building will need to be cleared of asbestos, sealed off from water, and bolstered to support more weight.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Aug 3, 2023 10:24 am
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A rendering of Long Wharf's hoped-for post-rezoning future.
A plan to bring more retail, restaurants, walkability, and form-based thinking to a flood-prone, highway-adjacent industrial district hit a roadblock — as reviewers raised concerns that a Long Wharf rezoning proposal designed to promote mixed-use development might actually hinder growth.
