by | Feb 9, 2021 2:35 pm | Comments (4)
Pre-pandemic File Photos
Laurie Lopez on the blight beat in Fair Haven.
Laurie Lopez is about to start a new city job that continues the mission she has pursued with passion for decades in Fair Haven: cleaning up trashed public areas so everyone can enjoy them.
by | Feb 8, 2021 10:42 am | Comments (2)
Nancy Dudchik
The Hamden community honored seven people who have been helping care for those affected by COVID-19 with an intimate in-person ceremony, lively online audience and takeout banquet-style meals from a local caterer.
by | Feb 4, 2021 1:56 pm | Comments (9)
Maya McFadden Photo
Marottoli on the Q Avenue beat.
Clamper in hand, Vin Marottoli watched cars roll in and out of the El Mexicano Hand Car Wash across the street as he picked up a receipt and a black ice car freshener from the ground.
by | Feb 1, 2021 10:32 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Honda Smith and Andrea Daniels-Singleton in the kitchen before hitting the road to deliver meals in West Hills.
As temperatures swooped below freezing, New Haveners delivered sustenance to their neighbors: bags of prepared beef and potatoes for seniors in West Hills, groceries for hungry families in the Hill, Mystic cheese and locally produced honey for farmers market shoppers in Wooster Square.
Continue reading ‘1 Day, 3 Pivots: Neighbors Feed Neighbors’
by | Jan 22, 2021 4:14 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photos
Ambassador Lee on his mask giveaway shift on Church Street.
Jeff Lee approached a Church Street bus stop, his gloved hands carrying a plastic brochure holder stacked with 60 bright blue surgical masks.
He paused six feet away from a small crowd seeking shelter from the morning cold, then posed a question.
“Does anybody need an extra mask?”
by | Dec 24, 2020 1:27 pm | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen Photo
Bond at one of countless 2020 Covid press briefings.
Paul Bass Photo
Director Bond, on a mission: Delivering a Covid shutdown notice.
Maritza Bond thought she was returning home to New Haven after 19 years to fix the city’s lead-paint enforcement.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic swept in — and thrust her into the forefront of New Haven’s public-health response.
She was ready.
by | Dec 23, 2020 10:51 am | Comments (0)
Kim Harris rocks the virtual dance floor.
Even from within pixelated Zoom rectangles, the Newhallville Community Management Team found a way to dance.
Continue reading ‘Newhallville Celebrates Holidays, And A Year of Community Power’
by | Dec 15, 2020 1:58 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Rasheed at the Hill substation.
At 10 years old, Jamilah Rasheed had one used pair of shoes for school. Passed down from her cousin, the shoes were a size too small. Her family couldn’t afford anything else. A hole eventually formed in the back of those used shoes until Rasheed couldn’t wear them anymore.
She thinks back on that time as she enlists New Haveners to help a new generation of young people stay warm this the winter.
Continue reading ‘Help “NICE” Neighbors Clothe Kids In Cold’
by | Nov 13, 2020 11:41 am | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt File Photo
Council member Harry Gagliardi.
People knew something was brewing whenever a mischievous grin crept across Harry Gagliardi’s face.
by | Nov 2, 2020 3:20 pm | Comments (1)
Emily Hays Photo
Luis Rivera: I remember being these kids.
Four months after New Haven Academy Spanish teacher Luis Rivera came down with Covid-19, he feels lingering fatigue from the illness.
Rivera still manages to spend hours after school making sure that his students who speak limited English can finish their homework during the pandemic’s remote learning. He was once an English learner too.
Continue reading ‘Teacher Fights Covid Fatigue To Tutor ELLs’
by | Oct 23, 2020 10:52 am | Comments (5)
Laura Glesby Photo
Kyasia Parker shows her new face shield to her mom, Nikki.
The masks had arrived. So Kyasia Parker sprinted door to door, rounding up her neighbors and friends — and keeping up the momentum in a grassroots pandemic-survival effort.
by | Sep 28, 2020 12:24 pm | Comments (3)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Stephanie Allis receiving gifts.
Neighbors decorated Stephanie Allis’s lawn with tissue paper and balloons — not to mourn the life she tried to save, but to celebrate the one she will soon bring into the world.
by | Sep 21, 2020 3:56 pm | Comments (4)
Emily Hays Photo
Shafiq and Salwa Abdussabur on Friday Winthrop Ave. clean-up crew.
Saturday’s pond clean-up crew.
Salwa Abdussabur paused while raking up trash to wave at a passing car and call out a greeting to the driver visible through the open window.
It was “Freshin Up Friday” — when Abdussabur and her neighbors take to the streets in a new initiative to improve life in Beaver Hills.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Join To “Freshin Up” Beaver Hills’
by | Aug 25, 2020 6:32 pm | Comments (12)
Steve Roberts (above right, below with co-creator J. Joseph) checks out the contours of the new Scantlebury skatepark.
Paul Bass Photos
Steve Roberts found the flow just where he’d always pictured it — at a new skatepark in the neighborhood where he grew up, and where he can now teach other young people to hone their moves.
by | Aug 11, 2020 12:00 pm | Comments (3)
Courtney Luciana photo
Marchela Corolla lives next to Lighthouse Point Park and loves the water.
Continue reading ‘First Female Quartermaster Sails Towards Success’
by | Jul 25, 2020 9:49 pm | Comments (8)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Shana Jackson.
Hamden mother Shana Jackson watched in horror as she saw Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of a suffocating George Floyd, one hand in his pocket. The policeman’s posture reminded her of the way a hunter stands over their dead prey.
Continue reading ‘2 Months Later After Floyd’s Murder, Hamden Rally Keeps The Message Alive’
by | Jul 18, 2020 9:56 pm | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Colaiacovo at the Council table in December.
Fixing fences is not in the job description of members of Hamden’s Legislative Council, but to Michael Colaiacovo, Jr., serving Hamden’s 7th District was not just about passing budgets. It also meant planting lengths of fence in a constituent’s yard on a scorching Saturday morning.
by | Jul 16, 2020 4:11 pm | Comments (5)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Liz Cox, who’s leaving Common Ground High after 21 years, stands in Javii’s garden, built in memory of student who died in 2014.
When Crystal Fernandez arrived at Common Ground High School in 2001, one of the first people she met was Liz Cox.
by | Jul 9, 2020 3:38 pm | Comments (18)
Paul Bass Photo
Dan Barvir, who is retiring as East Rock Park ranger.
Dan Barvir has noticed chipmunks and bunnies scampering around these days like never before in his 35 years as guardian of East Rock Park.
by | Jul 6, 2020 4:24 pm | Comments (2)
Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Douglas Wardlaw outside the Goffe Street firehouse.
It was Friday night before the fourth of July, and Douglas Wardlaw was hoping he would not need to investigate any fires.
Continue reading ‘Fire Investigator Tackles Covid, Fireworks’
by | May 29, 2020 1:37 pm | Comments (28)
Emily Hays Photo
SoHu Block Watch Captain Lisa Siedlarz.
When Susan Frew’s husband came home from the hospital with Covid-19, a neighborhood network was ready to swing into action to help.
by | May 8, 2020 3:46 pm | Comments (9)
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Costello tends to Roy Law’s foot outside a soup kitchen.
As Phil Costello swept through the city this week helping homeless people weather a pandemic, he couldn’t perform surgery, prescribe expensive medicine, or offer a home.
He did shave down a painful callous, recommend antifungal cream, hand out new socks, and lend a trusted ear.
by | Apr 17, 2020 4:17 pm | Comments (1)
Volunteer tracer Ye: “Stay on the line” and listen.
Jessica Ye asked the Covid-19-positive woman on the other end whom else she has been in contact with.
“I could tell you,” responded the woman, who is in her 60s. “But they’re dead.”
by | Mar 24, 2020 10:32 am | Comments (2)
Bethany Watkins.
Maya McFadden Photo
Immanuel Baptist crew prepares meals to go.
“People’s need for a meal isn’t going to change just because of this crisis,” Immanuel Missionary Baptist Church soup kitchen head Bethany Watkins said as volunteers helped her to put on a version of the church’s weekly soup kitchen modified to keep people safe, and fed, amid the spread of Covid-19.
by | Feb 7, 2020 2:38 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
The dean of Democratic ward chairs, at a Hill meeting.
Johnny Dye, known in the Hill as “Mr. Dye,” was reluctant at first to serve another two-year term as his neighborhood’s Democratic Ward Committee co-chair, a thankless party position he has filled for over two decades.
The 79-year-old Arthur Street stalwart ultimately agreed to sign up for another go — not out of a yearning to attend more late-night meetings, but because the community needed someone to step up.