Neighborhoods

Police Chief: New Contract = More Cops In Beaver Hills

by | Dec 5, 2024 4:39 pm | Comments (4)

Arthur Delot-Vilain photo

Alder Hogan (second from left) with Beaver Hills neighbors at latest crime-focused meetup.

Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills neighbors should expect to see more police officers in their part of town next spring — thanks to what the police chief anticipates will be a surge in hiring due to a newly inked union contract.

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Zoning Hurdle Removed For Childcare

by | Dec 5, 2024 3:09 pm | Comments (13)

Contributed by Melissa Cardoso Guerrero

Melissa Cardoso Guerrero (right): Zoning approval "was kind of a challenging process."

Longtime early educator Melissa Cardoso Guerrero spent multiple months and $350 seeking zoning relief this past summer, with the goal of expanding her Fair Haven-based childcare center beyond her current six-child limit.

As of this week, childcare providers no longer have to go through that zoning board process in order to open up in a residential district — an effort to remove one barrier for those hoping to start, move, or expand a childcare center in New Haven.

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Ribbon Cut On 'r kids Resiliency Center

by | Dec 2, 2024 11:13 am | Comments (2)

Lisa Reisman photo

The Resiliency Center team, including interim executive director Judy Barron, co-founder Sergio Rodriguez, director Lorraine Rogers, and educational consultant Andrenna Paolillo.

There’s a wall hanging in the entrance hall of the new Resiliency Center, a reconnection agency on Dixwell Avenue that opened as part of r kids Family Center with a recent ribbon-cutting. 

It’s headed: How to Really Love a Child.” 

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Kaleidoscopic Mural Unveiled On Chapel

by | Nov 19, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (10)

Thomas Breen photo

Whoa!

Lisa Reisman photo

Payton, Ellis, and Anaya with muralists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn: “This is why we’re doing this.”

The challenge was steep. To scour the globe for a muralist to lend such pizzazz to a 240-foot blank warehouse wall that it would bring life to a faded stretch of town. 

In the end, one factor sealed the deal: cartwheels.

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"Kia Boys" Steal Spotlight At Candidate Forum

by | Nov 13, 2024 11:02 am | Comments (18)

Laura Glesby photos

Candidates Gary Hogan and Claudette Robinson-Thorpe.

Former Alder Jill Marks: "I am a victim" of the Kia Boys.

Abe Vail stood up in the middle of an alder candidate forum to ask 50 of his Beaver Hills neighbors a question.

Show of hands,” he said: How many people here have had cars stolen, allegedly by TikTok-inspired teenagers who call themselves Kia Boys”?

Nearly a dozen hands shot up.

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Time For Supervised Injection Sites?

by | Sep 20, 2024 3:51 pm | Comments (71)

Laura Glesby photo

Myra Smith: "I feel powerless when it comes to this population."

Myra Smith walked into the Wilson Library Branch with her mind made up about supervised substance use centers: It is NOT coming to the Hill. It’s not.” 

She left with more openness to the concept as a way to address the opioid crisis that has overwhelmed her neighborhood. I’m not saying I’m totally against it. This sounds wonderful,” she said — as long as it’s implemented with care for the surrounding community.

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"Union Square" Sketches Revealed

by | Sep 13, 2024 4:22 pm | Comments (65)

Contributed Rendering

Renderings for the future of the Church Street South site, including a "central green" pictured here, were revealed...

Laura Glesby Photo

...at a packed meeting on Thursday.

Townhomes shift into high-rises as the buildings transition from the Hill to Downtown, anchored by a central green.” In the mix is a coffee kiosk, an outdoor theater, and a pedestrian promenade.

A team of architects and designers sketched out those ideas on Thursday for a future mixed-use, mixed-income development at the vacant site of the former Church Street South housing complex and the current Robert T. Wolfe public housing apartments.

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Poultry Market Proposal Slaughtered

by | Sep 11, 2024 2:00 pm | Comments (21)

Laura Glesby photo

Thomasine Shaw, next to BZA member Gemini Rorie: The proposed poultry market would have been too close to people, "endangering their health."

The Board of Zoning Appeals denied a proposed poultry market with on-site, on-demand chicken slaughtering on Tuesday night, following a stream of contentious public testimony that invoked concerns about Islamophobia, bird flu, and the wellbeing of the neighborhood.

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Candidate Commits To Community, Communication

by | Sep 5, 2024 3:40 pm | Comments (12)

Jabez Choi Photo

Miguel and Sandra Pittman, on the Hill campaign trail.

Shauna Williams-Smith had never been visited by a local politician before this week. She also didn’t know about the Board of Alders, let alone the special election to replace former Ward 3 Alder Ron Hurt later this month. 

But on Wednesday, Miguel Pittman showed up at her Stevens Street door to pitch his run for the neighborhood legislative role — and won a pledge of support from a Hill resident newly engaged with local politics.

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Addiction Anguish Heard On The Doors

by | Sep 3, 2024 10:34 am | Comments (17)

Laura Glesby photos

Ward 3 alder candidate Angel Hubbard kicks off the campaign launch: “I will never judge anyone for having an addiction. We do need programs.”

Rafael Rodriguez and Steven Fontanez (right) are working hard to help themselves and others out of addiction, as they told Hubbard, Valerie Boyd, and Justin Elicker.

Steven Fontanez is running out of time. He has only a few days left to stay at a sober housing program, and he hasn’t had luck finding an apartment.

Giselle Orosco is running out of patience. She’s tired of guessing whether the people who lie down outside her house are overdosing or merely asleep.

Angel Hubbard is running to be an alder for them both.

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Neighbors Turn Out For "Dr. Robinson Way"

by | Jul 17, 2024 9:35 am | Comments (1)

Laura Glesby File Photo

Local historian and history-maker Dr. Robinson.

Dr. Ann Garrett Robinson knows how to advocate for a street corner name. In 2022, she made sure that New Haven’s first known Black resident, Lucretia, would have a place among official city signage.

On Monday, she returned to City Hall to join 20 friends and neighbors in calling for a corner of her own.

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Documentary Spotlights Newhallville Community Activist

by | Jul 9, 2024 2:26 pm | Comments (1)

Lisa Reisman photo

Marcus Harvin at Saturday's doc premiere, with Bill and Kathy Carbone.

In the trunk of his car, Marcus Harvin has a rock from the parking lot of a vacant building on Bassett Street. So does his friend Babatunde Akinjobi. The two met when they were incarcerated at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.

Each of us carries it around, believing that one day soon we will cut a ribbon for that property,” Harvin told a spirited audience of 60 family, friends, and supporters at Peterson Auditorium at the University of New Haven (UNH) on Saturday night. 

The occasion was the premiere of Fresh Start: A Marcus Harvin Story.” The short documentary, which was produced and directed by UNH film students Elisa Broche, Jay Sanders, and Gabe Nelson, chronicles Harvin’s journey from incarceration to Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) graduate to UNH presidential fellow to founder and president of the nonprofit Newhallville Fresh Starts, Inc., an enterprise to feed people’s dreams.

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City Paves Streets, Considers Bike Lanes

by | Jul 8, 2024 5:38 pm | Comments (24)

Arthur Delot-Vilain photos

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming’s Brian Garrity, with Department of Public Works’ Steve Mustakos: “Asphalt is the most recycled product in the world.”

A city-contracted truck removed the top layer of asphalt from Mead Street, kickstarting New Haven’s summer season of tearing up and smoothing out roads.

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Community Presses Mandy At Meet-Up

by | May 31, 2024 3:19 pm | Comments (0)

Lisa Reisman Photo

Newhallville's Jeanette Sykes: "You are taking a step in the right direction."

Questions from Newhallville neighbors flew fast and furious at a community meeting with a representative from Mandy Management on Thursday evening: Why is an old eviction still coming up when I’m applying for an apartment? How do I overcome a bad credit score? And what is the turnaround time for addressing repairs and upkeep?

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Alders Approve Union Station Rezoning

by | May 9, 2024 9:20 am | Comments (47)

Patriquin Architects

A proposed rendering by Patriquin Architects of what a Union Station-adjacent development could look like.

It’s official: Union Station and its adjacent lots are now a Transit Oriented Community,” where taller, denser developments supporting car-free living may soon take shape — so long as new housing builders can navigate an extra bureaucratic step.

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Ceremony Celebrates "Geneva Pollock Way"

by | May 7, 2024 12:26 pm | Comments (3)

Lisa Reisman photo

Well-wishers gathered Sunday for Sister Geneva.

The late Geneva Pollock.

Geneva Pollock showed up.

She showed up for the three generations of students she taught English to at Jackie Robinson Middle School; for the neighbors she met on her Newhallville door-knocking tours; for anyone she heard had lost a loved one and was grieving. 

On a brisk, grey morning, 125 people showed up to honor the legacy of Pollock, who died in May 2020 at 76 years old, with a street corner renaming. 

The four-foot-nine dynamo who grew up picking cotton in Alabama went on to become a teacher, a ward co-chair, an usher, a mother and grandmother, a friend, my friend, and so much more,” said Claudine Wilkins-Chambers, as she waited for the street renaming ceremony to begin. She did so much for so many of us.”

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P&M's "Meat Stylist" Hangs It Up

by | Apr 30, 2024 12:16 pm | Comments (4)

Lisa Reisman photo

Jimmy Apuzzo and Joseph "Pino" Ciccone at the meat counter.

Ex-business owners make the best employees, according to P&M Orange Street Market meat department manager and ex-business owner Jimmy Apuzzo, who’s retiring on May 15. 

I have almost a photographic memory,” Apuzzo, 69, said on a recent morning in the basement storeroom of the East Rock market where he began his working life on Dec. 6, 1967. He was 13. I can walk into the cooler, look around, and instantly know what’s there and what’s not.”

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$5M Boosts Mill River's Possible Futures

by | Apr 12, 2024 1:16 pm | Comments (25)

Laura Glesby Photo

Erick Gonzalez, Annette Genovese, and Rosa at Martinez-hosted meetup.

Colliers Rendering

One possibility: a Mill River boardwalk?

To revitalize a neighborhood known for its warehouses and abandoned factories, focus on nature.

Residents and business owners offered that advice to city officials planning a more walkable, community-oriented Mill River district.

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