West River

YNHH "Tops Off" New Neuroscience Center

by | Dec 5, 2024 10:18 am | Comments (9)

Zachary Groz photo

Beam me up, YNHH.

High in the sky, two crewmen from CT Ironworkers Local No. 15 & 424 waited for a crane to haul in an enormous beam.

The workers started as motionless dots against the deep blue backdrop. As the beam neared, they went into action, harnessing each side and battling the wind to get the slab to click into place.

When it finally did, the external structure of the Adams Neurosciences Center at Yale New Haven Hospital was officially complete — eight years after concept, and two after groundbreaking.

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Ex-Cleaners Ground Broken For 64 Apartments

by | Nov 12, 2024 2:32 pm | Comments (17)

Thomas Breen photo

Shovels up, for the Monarch ...

Honeycome Real Estate rendering

... the new Monarch apartments, that is ...

Thomas Breen photo

... and not the former linen-cleaning company (pictured).

The route men” are long gone from the former Monarch Cleaners in West River.

So are the pleas of Uncle Sammy, you got a summer job for me?” that sisters Cathy Dziekan and Jan Lougal still remember their dad being asked by extended family in need of work. 

But the history of their family’s long-time laundry business will live on — in the name and in the story behind 64 new affordable apartments now on the rise on Derby Avenue.

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K-8 School Cellphone Ban To Start In January

by | Oct 17, 2024 11:55 am | Comments (20)

Thomas Breen file photo

Barnard Principal Stephanie Skiba shows off a Yondr pouch, where the cellphone goes.

All New Haven public elementary and middle school students will have to stow their phones in magnetically sealed Yondr” pouches starting in January — per a new districtwide policy designed to minimize pocket-buzzing distractions by creating cellphone-free learning environments.

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Yondr At Barnard, Phones Out Of Sight

by | Sep 20, 2024 3:27 pm | Comments (10)

Thomas Breen photo

Owen Agba, Grace Sherman, and Nathaly Ynoa Martinez: No phones, no problems.

When Barnard School eighth-graders Grace Sherman and Nathaly Ynoa Martinez and Owen Agba arrived at school Friday morning, they put their smartphones in magnetically sealed pouches — which they likely wouldn’t unlock until the end of the day. 

After participating in a year-long experiment in phone-free classrooms, they looked forward to another day of in-person learning and socializing with friends, unmired by the distractions of TikTok and Instagram. Meanwhile, their governor and one of their U.S. senators popped into their school to learn about how that’s all going.

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Young Entrepreneurs Learn The Art Of The Sale

by | Aug 20, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (2)

Lisa Reisman photo

Young entrepreneurs (clockwise from left) Erron Duncan, Chance, Tae Cunningham, Michael "MJ" Smith, Nyla Shepard, and Mathieu Duncan, with Gorilla Lemonade's Kristen Threatt.

On a recent sun-drenched morning, Nyla Shepard, a ninth grader at Eli Whitney Tech, approached a white Honda on the corner of Legion and Sherman Avenues, a bottle of lemonade in each hand. The driver shook her head, then redirected her eyes at the road. 

People are gonna do that,” she said, as the light turned green. You just gotta get used to it.”

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Foreclosure Suit: Closed Drug Rehab Center Left Open To Trespassers

by | Aug 5, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (9)

Thomas Breen file photo

Retreat's now-closed 915 Ella T. Grasso location.

Patient records, narcotics, and piles of mail allegedly remained inside a drug rehab center on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard a month after the facility abruptly closed — and were all accessible to anyone able to push through the shuttered complex’s back door.

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Peace Gardeners: Let Water Flow

by | Jul 19, 2024 3:04 pm | Comments (11)

Millie Grenough, Aaron Goode, and Frank Panzarella (behind) empty their bottles at the Peace Garden on Ella T. Grasso Blvd.

New Haven is proudly a United Nations Peace Messenger City — so says the beautiful gladioli-draped welcome sign that even many New Haveners may not know exists because they whiz by on speedy Ella T. Grasso Boulevard between Legion Avenue and North Frontage Road.

Yet New Haven is also a city that doesn’t always provide water hook-ups to all its public green areas, even a gateway location such as this one.

That means that Paul Bloom, Frank and Paula Panzarella, Aaron Goode, Millie Grenough, and other, dedicated, long-time members of the Friends of West River Peace Garden – the site in question — are always carrying tons of water in our cars,” said Grenough.

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YNHH Seeks Orchard Lane Closure During Construction

by | May 22, 2024 11:52 am | Comments (4)

Thomas Breen photo

St. Raph's ambulance drop-off area: Closing for construction. Temp drop-off area to be built next door.

How do you double the size of a hospital’s emergency department without displacing ambulances from a construction zone?

Yale New Haven Hospital is seeking to solve that riddle by shutting down a portion of Orchard Street for 18 months — and paying the city an extra $150,000 for the inconvenience — as it builds a larger emergency department for its St. Raphael’s campus.

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Gardeners Grow The Peace In West River

by | Apr 19, 2024 10:10 am | Comments (2)

Allan Appel Photo

Daniel Wood, Jeremy Tremblay, Stephany Miller, Paul Bloom, Aaron Goode, and Millie Grenough on Thursday.

City peace commissioners and a crew of freshmen from Albertus Magnus College ventured out to a green patch off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard with rakes, gloves, bags, and high hopes for adding a little color and joy to the world.

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Ground Broken On Housing, Not Highway

by | Mar 28, 2024 4:27 pm | Comments (22)

Thomas Breen photos

Ceremonial shovels, at the ready...

... for 56 new apartments in West River.

Officials joined West River neighbors to celebrate the government-backed construction of 56 new affordable apartments where Urban Renewal’s bulldozers once plowed through the Oak Street neighborhood six decades ago to make way for a mini-highway.

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Kensington Kids Envision Park Renewal

by | Jan 30, 2024 3:13 pm | Comments (8)

X'Nique suggests to City Engineer Giovanni Zinn that city prioritize shade and sensory play.

A tire swing. A skate park. A lot of butterflies.” And toys promoting sensory play.”

Neighborhood children eagerly offered those visions for a planned redesign of Kensington Playground, following years of adult-dominated debates over the future of the park.

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Construction Begins On Curtis Cofield II Estates

by | Dec 8, 2023 1:03 pm | Comments (21)

Thomas Breen photo

The now-removed asbestos hazard sign, which was up at 16 Miller on Nov. 29.

The asbestos hazard signs have come down — and 56 new affordable homes are going up, now that a nonprofit development duo has officially acquired and begun construction at a cleaned-up, long-vacant strip of Route 34 land.

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Ocean Sales Send Tenants Packing

by | Oct 27, 2023 5:36 pm | Comments (12)

Laura Glesby Photo

Jennifer Stanfield: "I can’t stand all that stress. Trying to move, trying to pack, and trying to keep up with my health as well."

Jennifer Stanfield is packing to go to a place she hasn’t yet found.

She’s removed all the art from the walls. Sorted summer and winter clothes into different boxes. Set aside whole weekends to clearing every possession from the turquoise house on Parmelee Avenue where she and her husband have lived, at times with kids and grandkids, for seven years.

I don’t know where I’m taking it,” she said, but I’m packing.”

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Ocean Sells 15 Buildings In 7 Months For $7.8M+

by | Aug 2, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (32)

Thomas Breen photo

1476 Chapel tenant Shaquita Alston (right) with sister Katina Kitchens: "Why keep selling it if it needs to be torn down?"

An affiliate of Ocean Management has sold a 20-unit West River apartment complex, which is home to a newly formed tenants union, for $2.44 million — as the local megalandlord continues to unload rental properties at prices well above what it paid to buy them over the past decade.

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Barnard's Classroom Garden Springs to Life

by | May 11, 2023 10:44 am | Comments (2)

Maya McFadden Photo

Sixth graders Tiranke Keita, Grace Sherman, and Issac Oliver in Barnard's garden bed.

Barnard sixth grader Tiranke Keita dug a hole in the bed of her school’s garden, Grace Sherman filled it in with a handful of rich compost, and Issac Oliver nestled in a starter plant of lettuce — kicking off the Derby Avenue PreK‑8 school’s latest effort in hands-on, hands-in-the-dirt learning.

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Don't Like Encampments? Fund Solutions

by | Mar 24, 2023 11:09 am | Comments (17)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Tent City, bulldozed on March 16: It doesn't have to be like this.

(Opinion) Last week the City of New Haven bulldozed an encampment of tents and make-shift structures along the West River called Tent City that was built by people experiencing homelessness.

City residents responded with cheers, harsh condemnation, and everything in between. 

While everyone will not agree on what to do about encampments, we can agree that we would prefer to live in a community where people do not feel that long-term camping by the river is their best option.

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