by | Aug 4, 2021 9:45 am | Comments (20)
Thomas Breen photos
Bonnie Zapata: The rent is too damn high.
State Street self-storage unit.
The line is backed up for spots at local self-storage centers — thanks primarily to college students leaving town for the summer, but also to rising rents and monopolization of the low-income real estate market.
Continue reading ‘Self-Storage Crunch Reflects Renters In Flux’
by | Jul 26, 2021 9:05 am | Comments (2)
Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
“Rosie the Riveter” cake for Edie Fishman.
Edie Fishman celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by bubbles, bright balloons, and flowers in Wooster Square Park.
Comrades, community leaders, neighbors, and friends poured into the park Saturday afternoon to wish her a happy centennial birthday and thank her for her years of work.
Continue reading ‘Former “Rosie the Riveter” Celebrates 100’
by | Jul 21, 2021 3:51 pm | Comments (18)
The owners of Unger’s Flooring have a plan.
The longtime, struggling Grand Avenue retailer is looking to add two floors of apartments to its buildings, add townhouses in the back of the rarely used parking lot, and rescue a long-blighted building adjacent to the lot. The plan would also include converting an old masonry building across the avenue into five more apartments
The result: “An adaptive reuse of three blighted structures in a corridor where there’s a mixture of homeless people, neighborhood people, and it could certainly use some life.”
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Skeptical About Adding Floors To Unger’s Flooring’
by | Jul 15, 2021 2:01 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
335 St. John St., the morning after the wall collapse.
Here’s what neighbors in Wooster Square told the zoning board this week:
A landlord who allows a wall of an historic building to collapse should not be rewarded with legal permission to put in an under-sized basement apartment.
Here’s what the landlord’s attorney said:
We need that apartment to support a new wall to keep the building standing
Continue reading ‘After Wall Collapses, Apartment-Permission Quest Collapses As Well’
by | Jul 14, 2021 4:43 pm | Comments (8)
Epimoni
Renderings for Fair St.
When the easternmost block of Fair Street reopens as a public thoroughfare after 60 years, it will not be a new edition of Court Street with cute benches and shops.
Think rather of a dark alley serving as a driveway for another looming massive private development whose pricey market-rate rents will do little to address affordable housing needs.
One alder, at least, portrayed the planned reopening of that street. Another praised it for bringing back to life a dead street, with the potential to connect Wooster Square to the train station and the Hill.
A slew of Wooster Square neighbors registered opposition to approve the planned street reopening for now. While the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce said, in effect, All aboard!
by | Jun 25, 2021 10:20 am | Comments (27)
Columbus defenders pose with Karen DuBois-Walton.
A photo making the rounds on the web — and then TV — led a mayoral candidate to issue a clarifying statement Thursday night.
Continue reading ‘On Statue Removal Anniversary, Columbus Defenders Get Candidate In Their Photo’
by | Jun 21, 2021 12:50 pm | Comments (2)
Wooster Square Monument Committee
A sample design for the four panels.
Six artists are competing to design a monument to Italian-American heritage to replace the now-removed Christopher Columbus statue in Wooster Square Park.
The Wooster Square Monument Committee now faces the task of narrowing down the options.
Continue reading ‘Six Artists Vie For Columbus Statue Replacement’
by | Jun 21, 2021 11:57 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen photo
424 Chapel: Future home of Health Dept. and public works garage?
The Board of Alders unanimously signed off on the city purchasing a state-owned warehouse, garage and office building on the eastern edge of Wooster Square — where the city plans to move the Health Department and snow plow and streetsweeper maintenance operations.
Continue reading ‘City Rushes To Buy State Office-Warehouse’
by | Jun 18, 2021 11:08 am | Comments (21)
Epimoni
Rendering for 186 new Fair Street apartments.
Thomas Breen photo
Fair Street: Olive & Wooster development on left; next site on right.
Thomas Breen file photo
Builder Seid: Renters will say, “You have to look at Wooster Square.”
Yet another batch of apartments are on tap for Wooster Square’s expanding downtown edge — and a closed road will reopen.
A New York developer plans to build those 186 market-rate apartments and open Fair Street — next to where he is almost done building 299 apartments.
by | Jun 15, 2021 1:08 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photo
La Bella Vita’s current location.
A popular Wooster Street liquor store is looking to move down the block — but first needs a thumb’s up from the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Continue reading ‘Popular Wooster Square Spirits Shop Seeks OK For Move Down The Street’
by | Jun 8, 2021 6:16 pm | Comments (8)
Adam Weber Photo
Newly completed designs in State/Chapel crosswalks.
The Hill’s right down the street. Wooster Square? East Rock? Right down those other streets.
by | Jun 7, 2021 1:32 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photos
Alexandra Daum: Raising bar at the zoning board, cashing in on real estate market.
A top state economic development official and local zoning board member is also a city landlord on the move — actively buying, renovating, managing, and selling rental properties in New Haven’s red-hot housing market.
by | Jun 7, 2021 9:18 am | Comments (2)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Dr. Tiffany Renee Jackson
A twice postponed Arts on Call performance got its chance to shine this past Saturday as renowned classical and jazz vocalist Dr. Tiffany Renée Jackson entertained and educated a grateful audience with a special Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn-centered program in a cozy shaded corner of Wooster Square Park.
by | Jun 1, 2021 8:56 am | Comments (3)
Emily Hays Photos
Senior Camp Wender weeds while junior Ahniya Holder waters.
Senior Johanyx Rodriguez: This color is making me happy.
High School in the Community (HSC) seniors returned to their school building after a year of remote school determined to leave a legacy.
For Camp Wender, that meant revitalizing an old school garden. For Johanyx Rodriguez, it meant creating a coral-colored senior lounge.
by | May 27, 2021 5:04 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photos
Thanks to lucky timing, the lumber’s arriving at Tower Lane construction site, where Carlos Rivera (below) was hard at work this week.
The money’s still flowing to fuel New Haven’s building boom — but builders are scrambling to meet soaring lumber prices and find materials disappearing in a backed-up international supply chain.
Continue reading ‘Builders Tackle Supply Snags, Price Hikes’
by | May 25, 2021 3:49 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Eugene Dawson on work break, with “Capricornia.”
Eugene Dawson took a break from building one of New Haven’s new apartment complexes to summon the spirit of the stars and a child’s possibilities.
by | May 25, 2021 9:27 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
There was already one message written on the large black circle with the prompt “I hope,” written in several languages. That first inscribed message read “that our memories will not all be of darkness.”
The disk was located at the entrance to the Wooster Square Farmer’s Market this past Saturday morning. A woman with a child in a stroller approached the disk with a white marker. She knelt and added her own message. Within the hour, many more would follow.
by | May 14, 2021 4:48 pm | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden Photo
The scene at 335 St. John after this week’s partial collapse.
Maybe there was no car.
And maybe that raises questions about why a 169-year-old building partially collapsed in Wooster Square.
by | May 13, 2021 12:46 pm | Comments (13)
Maya McFadden Photos
335 St. John St., the morning after.
Benedict Aarestrup, with Selma, after vacating next-door apartment.
Crews are trying to save a multi-family house after a portion of it collapsed overnight.
by | Apr 30, 2021 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Persephone Hoffman / James Hillhouse High School
“Foraged Picnic”
The following is a poem written by Metropolitan Business Academy student Keiara Orr and republished from the magazine Elm City Sage.
by | Apr 26, 2021 8:52 am | Comments (3)
Maya McFadden Photos
Rae’gean Oakley with park’s new barrels.
Technically, the annual festival was canceled. Crowds still turned out for the second straight weekend to enjoy Wooster Square Park’s cherry blossoms — with the addition of a year-round tribute to their brilliance.
Continue reading ‘Public Art (Cherry) Blossoms In Wooster Sq.’
by | Apr 14, 2021 10:33 am | Comments (5)
Sarah Bass Photos
The magnificent cherry blossoms have begun their annual display of natural beauty in Wooster Square Park.
Continue reading ‘Covid Kills This Year’s Cherry Blossom Festival — But Not The Blossoms’
by | Apr 12, 2021 4:18 pm | Comments (1)
Emily Hays Photos
Al Proto: Grand was the Avenue of the Americas.
A vaudeville theater becomes a church. A church becomes a parole office. An integrated boys’ swim club becomes a swim-focused nonprofit.
A group of dedicated ethnic historians sketched out these transformations and more neighborhood lore in what will eventually become an official Grand Avenue tour.
by | Apr 8, 2021 9:52 am | Comments (5)
Gary Bimonte, at right, demonstrating his pie chops for a 2016 airing of Vice Media’s Pizza Show
Gary Bimonte, co-owner of Wooster Square’s legendary Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, died Wednesday night after a heart attack, police reported.
by | Mar 29, 2021 9:00 am | Comments (14)
Alder Ellen Cupo, Hunter Ian Cupo Dunn and Alli Warshaw at Saturday’s cleanup.
Emily Hays Photos
Dominic Warshaw wanted to meet their neighbors.
Roughly 30 people came out Saturday to Lyon Street and William Street for a “gayborhood” cleanup, with a dual focus on beautifying the blocks and meeting fellow LGBTQ neighbors.