Paul Bass Photo
Three reasons not to walk down Fawn Street: The ruts and puddles. The piled-up junked cars. And the gatekeeper, who orders visitors to stay off the road.
The ripped-up road is technically a public street. But it has become a de facto private junkyard spilling out of next-door Elm City Auto Wrecking.
No houses or stores have addresses on Fawn, which runs seven-tenths of a mile from Middletown Avenue to the Amtrak railroad tracks. On one side is the city’s public works headquarters; on the other is the Elm City junk-car recycling lot.
The stretch of the road closest to Middletown Avenue is dotted with strewn scrap metal and abandoned vehicle parts, the occasional concrete barrier, as well as craters often filled with water.
Closer to the tracks the street becomes a veritable dump, with squashed cars piled on top of each other …
… amid mounds of scrap metal.
Weekdays, you can find a bald-pated man with a goatee holding court in the middle of the street from high atop a Caterpillar 938G Wheel Loader.
He greeted a reporter taking photos of the street one recent day with an extended middle finger.
“You have two minutes to leave,” he commanded. He said the public isn’t allowed on the street. (See the video at the top of the story.)
Asked his name or his authority for the order, he repeated, “You have to go.” If not, “I’ll have the police come.”
When the reporter instead walked behind his vehicle to inspect it, the driver put his vehicle into reverse and rode straight at him.
The driver subsequently denied he had tried to run the reporter over. He remained still, idling in the vehicle. He noted that “it’s not safe” for people to walk on Fawn Street.
Subsequent checks with city offices revealed that Fawn is in fact a public street, though you wouldn’t know that by looking at it.
Former City Engineer Dick Miller, who retired two years ago, said he had researched the property to make sure, then tried in vain to get other city officials to get Elm City Auto to clean up the hazards it kept dumping on Fawn Street.
“‘You’ve got to kick that guy out of there,’” he recalled telling them.
“This has been going on for years and years,” Miller said. “That’s been a bugaboo of mine for a long time. Nobody should be able to do that.”
Elm City Properties — which owns the adjacent Elm City Auto Wrecking property and has the same owners as Elm City Auto Wrecking — tried in the past to purchase Fawn Street, according to city public works chief Jeff Pescosolido (whose agency does business with the junkyard), but it never came to fruition.
Those plans are referenced in a May 16, 2007, report by the City Plan Commission. At the time Elm City Properties needed approval of a new site plan for the junkyard in order to keep operating it. It promised to make improvements. City Plan signed off on the plan.
“Elm City Auto is collaborating with the City on possibly abandoning Fawn Street,” the report noted. “The Commission will not approve the abandonment of Fawn Street without the completion of the site improvements.”
Since then, City Plan has not taken up the issue of abandoning the street, according to City Plan Executive Director Karyn Gilvarg. The Board of Alders, which would have to approve such an abandonment or sale, also has not taken up the issue. The City Engineering Department, pointing to the above map, said Fawn remains a public street.
On a return visit to Elm City Auto Wrecking, a man behind the desk declined to comment on the issue. He referred a reporter to “Stuart” — the same man still sitting in the cab of the Caterpillar 938G. The man identified Stuart as a co-owner of the business.
This time Stuart revved his engine but did not drive at a reporter. He didn’t speak either. Instead, he shielded his face with an upside-down copy of the New Haven Register.
State records identify Stuart Saslafsky of Bethany as the secretary of both Elm City Auto Wrecking and Elm City Properties. It lists Richard Michael Gaboury of Guilford (who appeared before City Plan in 2007) as the president of both companies. Neither of them responded to a subsequent call for comment left with the company.
The 2007 City Plan agreement with the company set some rules, meanwhile, governing Elm City’s actions on the street next to its property.
“No trailer, trucks or other equipment directly related to the scrap metal operation may be stored on Fawn Street,” the report stated.
And: “Any parking of employee or other vehicles on-street shall be parallel to the street.” Pictured above: One such “parking” job.