Allan Appel Photo
Crossing guard Linda Paecht found a shaded perch for her water bottle as she shepherded summer-school kids across the street — and kept herself cool enough in the process.
The six-year crossing guard vet’s has been going through eight bottles a day as a heat wave continues to bake New Haven. Her strategy was the most common one cited during a tour of the city on another 90-degree afternoon Monday. Other folks found lessons in history to help them stay cool.
From the sun’s rise over a factory in Fair Haven Heights in the east to a cooling center in Westville, here are highlights of what residents, workers, vendors, shoppers, and campers are doing to beat the heat.
Paecht, who grew up around Ferry and Grand, was commanding the safe passage of pedestrians at that intersection, among them many kids attending the summer session over at the Fair Haven School.
At 12:30 she wielded her STOP sign in a light-weight easy-to-see vest and hat. Every few minutes, while the cars whizzed by, Paecht took a sip from a small bottle of water. She kept it cool by placing it in a shaded rectangle leaning against the leg of a table belonging to one of the clothing vendors on the corner.
A few times a week she also goes across Ferry to indulge in an ice at the Catch the Flava ices cart, which was doing a grand business.
As Paecht continued guarding the crosswalk, Luigi DeJesus (pictured) took a break from driving his forklift for Uretek, a 30-year-old factory up on Lenox Street in Fair Haven Heights. The company applies water and fire-proofing polyurethane to fabrics. Before the products go out into the world, DeJesus, a nine-year employee, transports them from the factory floor across a hot lot to a storage area.
On Monday afternoon he was hatless as he worked; he draped a purple awning of fabric above the cab of his vehicle.
Two years ago the company air-conditioned the factory floor pumping in cool air. During the hot weather, the company’s 150 workers are urged to drink water or Gatorade throughout the day and all the water fountains are filled with ice, said Jeff Turner, a company manager.
The fluids, along with buckets of ice, are also provided in five-gallon containers distributed throughout the factory floor, said Turner.
Looking up at the tall gently waving trees that line Lenox and provide a good amount of shade, Turner pronounced it “not a bad location.”
Cooling Winds At City Hall
Pincheira with an about-to-be roasted coconut.
At 1:15 the sun was high in the south and aiming its rays down on Claudio Pincheira and his hot nuts wagon in front of City Hall.
Even though he was standing in front of two bowls, one of hot water and one of hot sugar, he looked as fresh as if he had just emerged from the barber shop.
Through customer Mercy Vallejo, who served as translator, Pincheira said the winds swirling around City Hall and the financial center help keep him cool. A native of Chile who spends eight hours a day at the location, Pincheira said the heat did not bother him. Period. It was even good for business.
The hot coconut tray had already sold out. “Hot weather is good for hot nuts,” he said.
Academic campers Contreras and Bolden sip their way to “stage combat.”
At 1:45 Abby Contreras and Ally Bolden were walking down Broadway toward the Payne Whitney Gymnasium. They were two of about 700 high school kids in town participating in Explo At Yale, a combo summer of academics and fun.
These 15-year-olds prepared for their afternoon activity, “stage combat.” Their strategy: drink lots of water, wear light clothes, and, in the case of Contreras, who’s from Lakeland, Florida, remembering that heatwise “this [New Haven] is better.”
History Keeps Him Cool
Callens with church singer Atkinson, who said her prescription for being cool: Stay inside.
Around 2 p.m. Dixwell Avenue and Bassett Street felt baking hot as Franklin Callens and Peggy Atkinson came out of Visel’s Pharmacy.
Callens, who today is the director of the male chorus at Christian Love Center church in the West River neighborhood , said he used to pick cotton as a kid in weather worse than this.
“We sing our hearts out to praise God’s name. Most of us are from the South and not used to air conditioning. We deal with the heat as best we can,” he said.
The Selma, Alabama, native also remembered walking as an 11-year-old in the Selma-Montgomery civil rights march in 1965. It was hot then, not only weather-wise but in the violence marchers faced as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, known in civil rights history as “Bloody Sunday.”
“I’m 61 now. There were people my age back then. This is hot weather, but …” Callens looked towards the sky and made a gesture as if to say: By comparison, nothing.
Librarian Lovett-Graff and Youth-at-Work intern Alex Amatuni. He said other kids who got jobs as counselors are not as lucky as he on these hot days.
Between noon and 2 p.m. period 194 people came into the brilliantly air conditioned Mitchell Library in Westville, said librarian Sharon Lovett-Graff.
The city declared all the libraries to be “cooling centers” for the general public, and Mitchell was thronged. Lovett-Graff ascribed it not only to the heat but to the fact that library users were returning hundreds of items. The library had been closed since Wednesday right before the July 4th holiday.
Local artist Jesse Ricardo showed a cooling-down reporter his painting “The DNA of Antiquity,” which he said is on its way later this month to the Florence Biennale.
Ricardo said he patronizes the library regularly because it has “free wifi, good people, and [it’s] very cool.” Cool not only in terms of temperature, he added, but in terms of an atmosphere where interesting folks visit and smile.