CHR Photo
Cedar Hill Resident #1 Rebecca Turcio sent in the following write-up about this weekend’s block party:
Cedar Hill had a lot to celebrate this weekend, and what a celebration it was! A small little community of New Haven cut off from the city has always had to fight for what they got. But this weekend’s Block Watch party was not one to say hey we are here, but one to say thank you to all that worked so hard for them.
The Cedar Hill Merchants Assoc. has grown and are working to improve the presents of Cedar Hill’s end of State Street. With the help of Economic Development’s Michael Pinto and Clay Williams and Alderman Elicker these changes are starting to show. With some storefront improvements on the way and the placement of many new planter (mums included), the opening of businesses in storefronts that have been empty for years the community is starting to be just that, a really community. For the past few months they have been working hard on getting these new places to join the merchants association and they are! Marie Gallo, David Slone and Shlomi Leon are bringing a new found pride to the merchants of this little community.
This Saturday was a block watch party to be remembered. URI was there with several trees to plant along State Street and flowers to plant in the merchants parking lot. People like Matt Smith (running for ward 9 Alderman) David Streever (Ward 10 co-chair) Michael Pinto (on is off day) along with Chris Ozyck (URI) and Dixon Jimenez an Ecuadorian activist of the community, where among MANY that came to help this community start the party with the tree plantings. With the outgoing personality of Justin their alderman they had a group planting while others where setting up and greeting at the party area.
With a craft table set up and filled with kids making drums from buckets, the party was underway. Hot dogs, hamburgers, fish frying by 2 of Cedar Hills hardest working men Mr Reed and Mr Lawnhorn the people started coming in. Several hundred people came through the gathering with dishes of food in hand. And smiles on their faces. Many meeting each other for the first time and many that have helped with the past events. With the help of the Merchants Association we were able to get entertainment for the event. And we can not forget The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the small grant they give this community. Without that grant this lower income community would not be able to have these community building gatherings.
Then the entertainment part begin with a speech from Mr. Elicker thanking everyone that made it all possible, including Betty Thompson. Betty has been in the hospital for several months waiting for a new heart, but managed to work on the event via phone. For many of us this was a hard one because Miss Betty is the mother of Cedar Hill.
The show began with Micheal Mills and friends “Rhythms from the Heart” from Drums No Guns http://www.drumsnoguns.org/ pulling the kids up front and having them drum. Michael had them playing some fantastic music together! Which lead into some amazing drumming by the group that could be heard throughout the community. It even had the high speed traffic of this part of State Street slowing down. (they say music sleuths the savage beast, maybe that is the key to traffic calming). But Micheal Mills had a surprise for this jazz loving community. Cecelia Lael Calloway daughter of the legendary Cab Calloway, came to the mic and started singing for the crowd and the crowd was singing and dancing with truly surprised excitement. It was the cherry on a perfect day in Cedar Hill!
We have fought for this area and will keep fighting, but this day was proof that when everyone works together magic can happen.
As Micheal Mills said so perfectly….“Make a difference,” and we are doing just that!