by | May 13, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass photo
C.J. Fucci crew at work Monday on Orange Street.
Two years after digging up curbs at Orange and Grove streets — and then stopping part-way — construction workers returned to the spot Monday.
by | May 13, 2024 11:22 am | Comments (16)
221, 215, and 209 Church (with green ex-bank awning), now all now owned by Biohaven.
Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company, bought its third building on the same block of Church Street, transforming the commercial mission of a downtown block once known for banking.
by | May 13, 2024 8:40 am | Comments (0)
Klein and DeAngelis.
“Hell is other people.” That famous line from Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit might be altered, for Jacqueline Bircher’s play Webster’s Bitch, to “hell is the other people you have to work with.”
by | May 8, 2024 3:44 pm | Comments (34)
Thomas Breen Photo
Dude, where's my building? 166 York.
Yale has knocked down a historic, dilapidated three-story downtown building that used to be home to the York Street Noodle House.
by | May 8, 2024 11:11 am | Comments (4)
Brian Slattery Photo
On the canal trail by the William "King" Lanson statue.
The history of New Haven entrepreneurship past and present. The fortunes of a neighborhood rising and falling, and rising again. The legacies of environmental depredation, and the work to create healthier, more sustainable places.
All these themes were touched upon in the latest walk from the New Haven Bioregional Group, in which Aaron Goode of Friends of the Farmington Canal Greenway led a group of about 30 walkers through the New Haven section of the urban trail that today connects almost seamlessly to Northampton, Mass.
Continue reading ‘Canal Walk Connects City's Past, Present, Future’
by | May 6, 2024 7:57 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
The Decemberists' Colin Meloy ...
... and opening act Ratboys, at College St. Music Hall.
The Decemberists brought May to a magnificent start on Saturday night when they returned to College Street Music Hall for the fourth show of their 2024 A Peaceable Kingdom North American tour.
Fans filled the room from floor to balcony, up the stairs and to the edges of the stage barrier, to bask in the multicolored hues of the lights and lofty sounds of some of their favorites, mixed in with new material from the band’s aptly titled upcoming album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again.
by | May 6, 2024 7:43 am | Comments (1)
T. Charles Erickson Photos
Zheng and Shih.
“Sometimes the memory is more sad than the forgetting.” Gee (David Shih) is an ailing man, plagued by forgetting, when he says this to a pregnant woman named Yuen (Joyce Meimei Zheng) in Lloyd Suh’s The Far Country, playing through May 18 at Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Ralph B. Peña.
The scene is 1930s San Francisco, and Yuen is married to Moon Gyet (Hao Feng), who Gee brought from Hoisan, their native county in China, claiming him as his son for immigration — and exploitation — purposes. The textures of memory and forgetting suggest the vast scope of the hardships, fears, lies, and hopes for the future of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. from 1909 to 1930 in Suh’s ambitious, episodic play.
by | May 3, 2024 8:41 am | Comments (1)
Melida McKenzie-Alford
From Across the Waters.
From its subject to its materials to its execution, Melida McKenzie-Alford’s From Across the Waters partakes of the aesthetic and techniques of traditional African art, hearkening back to the origins of culture. But in the end it’s the overall shape of the piece (which isn’t and perhaps can’t be captured in a photograph) that draws the viewer’s attention. It starts high on the wall and cascades downward, a serene waterfall.
In the place where it’s currently hung at Known, on the fourth floor of the Palladium Building at 139 Orange St., it bids the viewer to stop for a moment and take a minute for contemplation. Which, as it turns out, is part of the point.
by | May 2, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
Melissa Rodriguez stays rooted to El Salvador family gardening memories.
As New Haven Academy junior Melissa Rodriguez planted pink and red “Busy Lizzies” at school, she thought back fondly on the days of helping her grandmother in El Salvador tend to her vibrant flower garden and fruit trees.
That was the scene Wednesday afternoon as New Haven Academy students worked to liven up the school’s garden beds as part of a week of environmental activities at the 444 Orange St. magnet high school.
by | May 1, 2024 11:47 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Brian Meacham and student archivists.
Yale Film Archive turned one of its screening events over to students Tuesday night as members of the Spring 2024 Film and Media Studies 604 class shared their archivist projects — which included everything from a not-so-silent Dutch short that focused on the rain to a Looney Tunes cartoon that focused on a not-so-cool cat — with a room full of appreciative movie fans.
Continue reading ‘Yale Film Archive Showcases Student Archivists’
by | May 1, 2024 8:10 am | Comments (0)
Orpheus is smitten with Eurydice before they even speak. Hermes, Orpheus’s wingman, helps him work up his courage to ask her out. “Orpheus,” he warns, “don’t come on too strong.”
Orpheus extends his hand to Eurydice, offers flowers. “Come home with me,” he says, to audience laughter. “Who are you?” Eurydice responds. “The man who’s gonna marry you. I’m Orpheus,” he says.
Continue reading ‘"Hadestown" Keeps Up The Fight At The Shubert’
by | Apr 30, 2024 1:49 pm | Comments (14)
Laura Glesby Photo
Megan Fountain co-leads a seder, calls for a ceasefire.
It is not enough that God took the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt, according to a group of pro-Palestine activists on Monday evening who turned a traditional Passover song on its head by singing “Lo dayeinu.”
by | Apr 30, 2024 12:24 pm | Comments (0)
Stagger.
A photographer encountering the supernatural. Forty days of rain after the loss of a son. A six-decade love note to Hong Kong. According to playwright Danielle Stagger, the Carlotta Festival of New Plays 2024 — running May 2 to May 10 at the Iseman Theatre on Chapel Street — features three “funky plays” that are “not what you might imagine coming from Yale playwriting.”
Continue reading ‘Carlotta Festival Takes On Love, Grief, And Ghosts’
by | Apr 30, 2024 8:28 am | Comments (0)
Eva Skewes Photo
Stacey Strange, Dani Bobbi Lee, Nicholas Strange.
Exploring the malaise of being caught in travel limbo. Examining the foibles of other people and yourself, and the way they can begin to grate. Satisfying the desire to keep learning and growing as circus performers. All these factors went into Layovers, the latest show from Air Temple Arts, which will appear for two shows on May 4 at the ACES ECA Arts Hall. “Though really,” said Stacey Strange, Air Temple Arts’ founder and creative director, “it was the suitcases.”
by | Apr 30, 2024 7:29 am | Comments (49)
Yale facilities workers remove empty tents ...
... after Yale PD issued dispersal warnings early Tuesday morning.
(Updated 8:12 a.m., Tuesday, April 30, with university comment) Yale and city police cleared another pro-Palestinian tent encampment from the university’s downtown campus early Tuesday morning — but this time, there were no arrests.
by | Apr 28, 2024 3:15 pm | Comments (79)
Chris Volpe photo
At Sunday's protest on Chapel Street and (below) the Green.
Thomas Breen photo
More than 1,500 pro-Palestinian protesters from across the state on Sunday marched downtown in the latest mass public demonstration of outrage with Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
Continue reading ‘Pro-Palestinian Protest Fills Downtown Streets’
by | Apr 26, 2024 6:24 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photos
Margaret Olin and Josh Weinstein ...
... at Friday afternoon's "humanity vigil" at Yale.
There were no flags at Friday afternoon’s “humanity vigil” on Yale’s downtown campus.
There were only people — from New Haven and Jerusalem and Haifa and beyond — eager for a place to talk about peace in a time of death and discord.
by and | Apr 26, 2024 4:14 pm | Comments (18)
Laura Glesby Photo
Alex Nieves checks out a freshly-cleaned portable toilet on Thursday afternoon.
An accumulation of feces, old clothes, and drug paraphernalia prompted the city to increase the number of portable restrooms on the New Haven Green from two to six, as city officials search for a more permanent bathroom solution.
by | Apr 25, 2024 11:54 am | Comments (17)
Schiavone at 80 performs in the living room of a Chapel Street frat house apartment while fighting an eviction.
Joel Schiavone, the sockless banjo-strumming real estate developer who launched New Haven’s downtown renaissance, has died at the age of 87, leaving behind a legacy that will long outlive him.
by | Apr 25, 2024 8:52 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
Sketch Tha Cataclysm at Three Sheets.
“Hello several people, rap professionals, and various cool people,” said Sketch Tha Cataclysm from the Three Sheets stage, as he and fellow New Haven hip hop stalwart Mo Niklz hosted a group of touring artists from Chicago for a night of high-energy indie hip hop.
by | Apr 12, 2024 4:42 pm | Comments (44)
Laura Glesby photo
NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón (second from right) at budget workshop.
Should New Haven wait until 2025 to begin closing some of its 41 schools? Or should it speed up that consolidation process and start this year?
by | Apr 10, 2024 2:41 pm | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
Stephanie Bartocetti (center), using her outside voice.
It was not the time for inside voices on the Green on Wednesday morning.
by | Apr 9, 2024 9:02 am | Comments (0)
A still from La Practica.
On Monday night Yale Film Archive’s Cinemix series offered a selection that exemplified its description of itself as “stand alone screenings of standout films.” La Práctica (The Practice) — the latest from Argentinian writer/director Martín Rejtman — is the story of a yoga instructor’s interactions with students old and new as he maneuvers his way through his ever-changing world. Presented in conjunction with the Latino and Iberian Film festival at Yale (LIFFY), the event included a post-film Q&A with Rejtman, moderated by LIFFY’s founder and executive director Margherita Tortora.
Continue reading ‘"La Práctica" Balances Humor And Humanity’
by | Apr 5, 2024 11:25 am | Comments (1)
Still from Within Our Gates.
As Yale Film Archive launches into the last quarter of its 2024 spring semester programming, it offered something a little different on Thursday evening: silent films that each had a special distinction.
The first, presented in conjunction with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, was a selection of Solomon Sir Jones Films from 1924 to 1928 that are currently a part of the library’s holdings. The second was a showing of Within Our Gates, a 1920 film written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux; it’s the oldest known surviving film with a Black director. One more bonus: both films on this evening were accompanied by live music, played by pianist Donald Sosin.
by | Apr 4, 2024 9:10 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
Chappell Roan on Wednesday at College St.
The jury is still out on whether American culture, or the music industry, can create another superstar, like Michael Jackson or Prince, like Madonna or Bruce Springsteen. Maybe Beyoncé, now 42 years old, and Taylor Swift, 34, are the last of their kind. But if future superstars are still possible, one of its more likely candidates — Chappell Roan — played at College Street Music Hall on Wednesday night to an ecstatic, sold-out crowd that couldn’t get enough.