Won’t You Be My Neighbor, ​“Dr. Robinson Way”?

The corner of Dixwell and Argyle might soon bear Dr. Ann Garrett Robinson’s name, in honor of a beloved champion of local Black history who, in 89 years of life so far, has made a mark on history herself. 

Dixwell Alder Troy Streater has begun gathering petition signatures to rename the street corner ​“Dr. Ann E. Garrett Robinson Way,” positioned so that Robinson can see an emblem of her impact simply by looking out her window.

The petition drive follows a recent street corner naming that Robinson herself had championed in honor of the first known Black resident of New Haven, a woman enslaved by the colony governor until eventually securing her freedom. In 2022, after years of Robinson’s research and advocacy, the Downtown corner of Orange and Elm was officially named Lucretia’s Corner. 

Now, Streater and other community members have received Robinson’s blessing to try and honor her own legacy: the path she forged for generations of Black female psychologists, the lessons she imparted upon thousands of her students, and the impact of her everyday actions as a ​“good neighbor.” 

A group of petitioners have embarked on a quest to gather the requisite 250 signatures for Robinson’s own street corner. The petition would then head to the Board of Alders for review and a potential final vote.

“It’s a wonderful feeling,” Robinson said of the honor. Addressing Streater and other petitioners, she said, ​“Thank you for giving me my flowers.”

In 1970, Robinson moved with her family from North Branford into the red house where she still resides on Dixwell Avenue. 

“People were fleeing the city, out to the suburbs,” Robinson said. ​“There were questions about why we would do such a thing.” 

To some, civil unrest against racial oppression and rising unemployment had cemented the reputation of Black neighborhoods like Dixwell as ​“dangerous” or ​“undesirable.” People would warn her, ​“be careful, be careful,” she said.

But Robinson found a sense of purpose in moving to the neighborhood, where she already attended Dixwell United Congregational Church. ​“We wanted to contribute to peace by being good neighbors,” she said.

She would tell naysayers, ​“I need the city and the city needs me.”

Academic & Neighborhood Legacies

By then, Robinson was no stranger to forging her own path and thwarting expectations.

Her professional life was marked by many ​“firsts,” she said. ​“I became a first of this, a first of that” — the first Black woman to join the Trinity College faculty, one of the earliest Black women to be a researcher at Yale, and the first Black certified psychological examiner in the New Haven Public Schools system.

As a professor at Gateway Community College, Robinson left her mark on a sea of students who passed through her class. Former students often approach her with fond memories of her class, to the point that her son George used to ask her, ​“Did you teach everybody?” 

One former student, Trina Greene, has become an ​“adopted Goddaughter” to Robinson. In class, Green recalled, Robinson pushed her to put her best effort into everything, even when she could slack off and still earn an ​“A.”

All the while, Robinson and her family set down roots in Dixwell-Newhallville. 

Her kids attended the former Martin Luther King School up the street. She shopped for groceries at Bob’s Market — ​“Bob had the best food of all kinds.” She found friends in her new neighbors, despite the warnings she’d received.

She had absorbed an idea of neighborliness from her childhood in Greenville, North Carolina, where ​“people cared about each other and never let litter be on their yard.” She sought to carry on that culture in Dixwell-Newhallville — whether in ​“a cheerful ​‘Thank you,’ a pleasant ​‘Good morning,’ ” or in weightier ways of ​“helping each other in need.”

The Robinsons hosted cookouts and concerts in their backyard. Every Thanksgiving, they cooked for about 80 international students at local colleges, who were spending the school break ​“far away from home.” 

And Dr. Robinson watched over the neighborhood kids, becoming a familiar face to some and a mentor to others.

Kendtrick Small, a lifelong Newhallville resident whom Streater approached with the corner naming petition on Monday afternoon, immediately agreed to sign his name. 

How did he know Robinson? ​“Well, the neighborhood!” he said. 

Fellow Dixwell Avenue resident Quinn Melton, who helped Robinson gather signatures for Lucretia, said the professor has earned her street sign, too, with ​“what she has poured into Black and Brown people, into young girls.”

He said he looks forward to the day that ​“she can look out her window and say, ​‘Hey, that’s my name.’ ”

Robinson, meanwhile, hopes people will honor more than her own name if the corner sign comes to fruition. She hopes the sign will represent that ​“Dixwell Avenue is a place to live, to work, to worship, and to grow an even better world than we have now.”