by | Jul 10, 2023 1:30 pm | Comments (37)
Laura Glesby photo
Attendees, Zola (center) squeeze for a group photo at campaign launch.
To find Andrea DiLieto Zola’s alder campaign party, all guests had to do was “follow the rose petals.”
Continue reading ‘Challenger Campaign Kicks Off With Cello, CBD Mocktails’
by | Jun 23, 2023 5:03 pm | Comments (2)
Kian Ahmadi photo
Fran Calabrese stands by her "Amalfi" shirt tent
Dressed in a blue tee shirt with “Amalfi” printed across the chest, Fran Calabrese remembered walking hand in hand with her grandfather to a Wooster Square-hosted celebration of St. Andrew when she was just three years old.
Now 70, Calabrese returned on Thursday to that very same neighborhood Italian festa — which for her is about carrying on the traditions of Amalfi and honoring the miracle performed by New Haven’s patron saint.
by | Jun 21, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (37)
Gregg Wies & Gardner design rendering
The proposed new apartment building at 873-897 Grand.
Thomas Breen photo
873-887 Grand as it looks today.
A New York-based landlord plans to knock down two vacant Grand Avenue commercial buildings and build 112 new apartments in their stead on the northern end of Wooster Square.
by | Jun 15, 2023 1:54 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass
Carmen Pajarillo took a break from studying for a medical board exam Thursday morning by bringing her dog Honey to a hidden pocket of paradise.
Continue reading ‘The Word On Jefferson Street: An Urban Oasis Beckons’
by | Jun 14, 2023 3:47 pm | Comments (1)
Abiba Biao photo
HSC Salutatorian Gian Rodriguez: "The future is ours to say."
Try to find a way to make the world a bit brighter than it is today.
Local artist Kwadwo Adae and High School in the Community Salutatorian Gian Rodriguez delivered that hope- and sorrow-filled challenge in separate graduation ceremony speeches Tuesday as they painted a path forward in Wooster Square Park.
by | May 30, 2023 11:22 am | Comments (40)
Laura Glesby photo
Ward 8 alder challenger Andrea Zola and incumbent Ellen Cupo.
A bridal business owner with local political history roots has filed to run against Wooster Square’s two-term, union-affiliated incumbent alder in a Democratic race that sheds light on a neighborhood in flux.
Continue reading ‘Alder Challenge Charts Changing Wooster Sq’
by | May 11, 2023 5:00 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
Ian Christmann Photo
Paul Bass Photo
Fire inspector Tomas Reyes Jr. (at right) speaks with Abate's staffers Regi Corona, Carolina Hernandez, and Isaac Cerezo at the scene.
Regi Corona was sauteeing chicken in the kitchen of Abate’s Apizza & Restaurant Thursday when someone shouted, “There’s a fire!”
by | May 9, 2023 11:02 am | Comments (5)
Marc Massaro design
The approved new Wooster Square monument.
A Wooster Square Park arts committee has raised $225,000 so far to help put up a new Italian heritage-celebrating sculpture in place of the long-gone Christopher Columbus statue — and is still looking for donations for a goal that now tops $300,000.
Continue reading ‘$225K Raised So Far For New Wooster Square Statue’
by | Apr 19, 2023 2:50 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Outdoor fitness equipment slated for Wooster Memorial Park.
Wooster Street parkgoers should soon have a new climbing structure, pull up bars, and other outdoor fitness equipment to help them exercise in the public greenspace, thanks to a donation from the Dalio Foundation.
by | Apr 17, 2023 3:33 pm | Comments (7)
Lisa Reisman photos
A shower of pink, for 50th straight year.
Valentina Simon doing her thing at Sunday's fest.
Amid a riot of pink blossoms, the scent of spring in the air, and the sounds of Airborne’s “Groovin’ on a Sunday Afternoon,” Valentina Simon leapt and spun and twirled in front of the bandstand, prompting others to join her.
Continue reading ‘Wooster Square Blooms At 50th Blossom Fest’
by | Apr 11, 2023 11:50 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photo
Exchanging student stories -- and building empathy -- at HSC.
High School in the Community (HSC) freshman Kiley was convinced she would never get along with a senior student she found herself sitting across the table from.
After each high-schooler opened up to “exchange” personal, vulnerable stories with the other, the two students wound up trading phone numbers — and found they had more in common than they first thought.
by | Apr 10, 2023 1:30 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Surprise! Instead of staring at his computer, Nick Murphy found himself strolling through cherry blossom-budding Wooster Square Monday en route to picking up iced vanilla lattes.
Continue reading ‘Sprung From Work, Nick Samples City's Buzz’
by | Apr 10, 2023 9:23 am | Comments (6)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
The Y2Y temporary shelter site at 924 Grand: Construction to start this summer?
New Youth Continuum CEO Mike Moynihan: “I am totally psyched to get this thing going again."
A years-delayed plan to provide shelter on Grand Avenue for young New Haveners in crisis is moving ahead — with fewer beds, and a new nonprofit director at the helm.
by | Mar 28, 2023 6:27 pm | Comments (38)
Thomas Breen photo
Donald Moody, with Elm City ID / prepaid MasterCard: "That extra $500, it's a big thing."
(Updated) Donald Moody spent the first $200 that he received from a cash-transfer pilot program for formerly incarcerated New Haveners on basketball lessons for his stepson.
How might he use future monthly allotments under the year-long program?
On the occasional restaurant date with his wife and on regular insurance payments for his car and motorcycle and on the many, many other bills that come with living outside prison, Moody said.
And maybe on a tuxedo for his long-planned-for wedding ceremony this July, too.
by | Mar 24, 2023 1:35 pm | Comments (14)
Thomas Breen photo
Conte West Hills Magnet School: Exiled 3rd-grader can return.
A Conte West Hills third-grader can finish out the last few months of the school year at her Wooster Square “magnet” school — thanks to a Board of Education vote to reverse the district administration’s decision to bar the young student from her New Haven classroom after finding out that she lives in Hamden.
by | Mar 15, 2023 6:47 pm | Comments (8)
Paul Bass Photos
Crew prepares to start shooting scene.
The star pooch.
Wooster Square became Brooklyn Wednesday as a film crew took over a block of Chapel Street.
by | Mar 13, 2023 9:09 am | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Carol Horsford signing up with attorney Earle Giovanniello for Wooster Square foreclosure auction.
Investors from Madison, Meriden, Orange, Fairfield, and Westchester County crowded into a Wooster Square parking lot to try to buy a tax-foreclosed carriage house-turned-condo.
The winning bidder: A local real estate broker whose growing business’s signs dot downtown and East Rock.
But winning the auction might not end up meaning obtaining the property.
by | Mar 10, 2023 2:28 pm | Comments (27)
Thomas Breen photos
Robert Greenberg getting lost in New Haven history with St. Thomas students.
Marveling at a relic of Long Wharf commercial history: "William Lanson in 1812 stood next to this book."
A dozen sixth graders took a step back in time — to the 1810s expansion of Long Wharf, to the 1909 planting of the Lincoln Oak, to the 1927 crafting of the Lender bagel — in a tour of an emerging new museum dedicated to New Haven history’s ephemera.
by | Feb 1, 2023 3:45 pm | Comments (13)
Paul Bass Photo
Metropolitan Business Academy students left their smoke-scarred high school Wednesday and assembled in Hillhouse’s Floyd Little Fieldhouse to shoot hoops and play Four Square volleyball — and come together as a community at a time when it’s tough to be a teacher or a student.
by | Jan 24, 2023 5:07 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass Photo
Silas Harris had a spring in his step Tuesday morning after taking a first metaphorical step toward rebuilding his life.
by | Jan 11, 2023 2:04 pm | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Samuel Rosenberg (right) in HSC's "Leadership 101."
Find ways to collaborate with others. Delegate work when you’re overwhelmed. Be open to criticism. And don’t panic when the best laid plans go a bit awry.
Those are a few of the lessons that High School in the Community (HSC) junior and literary magazine editor Samuel Rosenberg has learned in a new class focused on training current student leaders how to excel as the heads of their respective clubs and groups.
by | Jan 6, 2023 3:32 pm | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photo
HSC grad Houston (right) offers current students college advice.
High School in the Community senior Amara Frazier-Conner sat across the table from her future self — in the form of recent grad Tyron Houston — to hear about how best to prepare over the next few months before beginning her own first semester in college.
Houston’s advice: Learn self-control, create study habits, don’t fall victim to peer pressure, and “get harder on yourself” now so you’re ready for the challenges of higher ed come September.
Continue reading ‘High-Schoolers Get Tips From Future Selves’
by | Dec 7, 2022 8:51 am | Comments (1)
Fair Haven Health's parking lot plans.
A Fair Haven community healthcare center has won a key city approval needed to expand its parking lot — and, eventually, its Grand Avenue headquarters.
by and | Nov 22, 2022 9:34 am | Comments (16)
Marc Massaro design
The approved new Wooster Square monument.
Thomas Breen photo
The Wooster Square Monument Committee at the site of the past and future statues on Tuesday.
(Updated) The group charged with coming up with an Italian heritage-celebrating sculpture to replace the long-gone Christopher Columbus statue in Wooster Square Park gathered at the site of the past and future monuments on Tuesday to celebrate a major milestone for the project — and to kick off a $300,000 fundraising drive.
by | Nov 7, 2022 9:21 am | Comments (6)
Tom Breen photo
Greenberg outside 80 Hamilton: "It'll be a magical place for New Haven."
A local artist and historian with a knack for finding lost artifacts has won a key city approval to convert a former Hamilton Street warehouse into his next curatorial space for Elm City ephemera.
Continue reading ‘Warehouse-To-Museum Conversion OK'd For "Lost" City Treasures’