City Sets Gaze On A Vanishing Sun

As 92 percent of the sun vanished from New Haven’s sky Monday afternoon, it seemed like 92 percent of the city came outside to pause their daily routines to experience a moment in nature together.

New Haven was not in the direct path of totality, so the sky never got completely dark. The peak moment of dimming sky, eerie chill, and maximum coverage of the sun came at 3:27 p.m.

The 1,000-strong crowd outside Yale’s Leitner Observatory on Prospect Street arose almost spontaneously together at that moment. Applause rippled through the crowd. It felt like a cross between being at a concert and a worship service.

“I’m getting a crick in my neck, but this is oh so beautiful!,” said Tina (“like Tina Turner”) Weston, who was among the 75 viewers gathered at Lighthouse Point Park.

When day failed to turn dramatically into night, her sister Terry was more subdued: ​“Oh well, but I guess we were a part of history,” she said. ​“See you in 2045.”

Clouds almost thwarted the plans of New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA)’s Dan Burns from treating his colleagues to images from his telescope as they gathered in the 200 Orange St. plaza across from their offices. Then clouds parted — and they received real-time images of the disappearing sun without risking their eyesight.

Outside the Fair Haven library, kids offered theories about the eclipse as they struggled to get their too-large special glasses to stay in place.

The eclipse ​“makes the world go dark,” explained 6‑year-old Ezra.

“It’s cold,” he observed as he stood with his older sister and younger nephew. ​“The moon is getting all the heat now.”

It took a few tries for him to find the sliver of the sun behind his glasses. Finally, he caught it. ​“It’s like one side was bitten off!” he described.

Theodore, 4, had come to a similar conclusion about the moon. ​“It would be so hot,” he surmised.

Theodore had learned about the eclipse at King Robinson School. His mom Nadia picked him up from school early at 2:40 so that they could experience the rare astronomical event together.

Theodore held the cardboard glasses up to his eyes and took in the sun’s red crescent. ​“IT’S GLOWING!” he shouted.

Meanwhile, Brian Slattery had a broad perspective from the heights of Sleeping Giant:

As the eclipse began, dogs started barking, but maybe that was a coincidence. Down below, on the Quinnipiac University campus, a formerly empty quad steadily filled with people; from this distance they looked like a crowd of figurines in a train set. A woman took a spot on the same cliff, 20 yards away. Another woman took a perch on an exposed rock 20 yards in another direction. Another person arrived and found another spot. None of us talked. Looking across the valley from the chin, I watched small groups of people congregate on rock outcroppings.

A dad, his two kids, and a dog stopped nearby, taking it in, and decided to move on, off the cliffs. ​“Today is not the day I die,” one of the kids said.

Colors changed all around, from blues and whites to oranges. The temperature dropped. More people suddenly arrived, looking around in the eerie light. ​“Sick,” one of them said. 

At 3:25 my parents texted from central New York, in the path of totality. My mom: ​“Totally dark! The birds think it is night.” My dad: ​“a true game-changing experience.” 

Here the light was just strange, otherworldly. Everything a different color, the shift that lets you see something familiar as if it’s new. At 3:30, the crowd in the quad cheered.

In Sleeping Giant, the peepers all came out and started singing. Hundreds of miles away, in the path of totality, the birds were doing what they always do, when day turns to night and night to day. Today, millions of people noticed. Will they notice tomorrow?

Earlier versions of this article follow.

Crowds Gather Across City To View Eclipse

From Fair Haven Branch Library to Yale’s Prospect Hill to way up on Sleeping Giant, New Haveners staked out their spots to watch Monday’s near-total eclipse.

By 2 p.m., a crowd estimated at 1,000 people had gathered outside Yale’s Leitner Family Observatory on Prospect Hill to watch the imminent partial eclipse. Hundreds lined up for free eclipse glasses.

Others headed from the New Haven Green. Fair Haven’s library was preparing for a program to begin at 3 p.m.

Meanwhile, on her famed Ivy Street porch in Newhallville, Inner City News Editor and WNHH morning show host Babz Rawls-Ivy prepared to set out drinks for the friends who would be coming over soon. 

Her street was quiet, barring a few neighbors. The sky was a little overcast. She still needs to be careful, she said — she couldn’t find any eclipse glasses.

Brandon Sands, an addiction researcher from Nashville, sat on the lower Green at 2:20, a sketchpad in one hand and a Cuban cigar in another. He recalled seeing the solar eclipse in Nashville in 2017 and being struck by the ​“onsetting creep of darkness” during daytime. That’s what he’ll be looking out for and trying to sketch on Monday.

“I really do appreciate the magnitude of the greater universe. It reminds me of our feeble mortality” as being just a small speck in the solar system, well as ​“just the joy of getting to experience this kind of thing,” he said about the eclipse. He won’t be looking at the sun directly, he said, as his UV-protecting sunglasses aren’t designed especially for the eclipse. Instead, his eyes and sketchpad pen will be attuned to the surrounding darkness.

“I hope nothing too crazy happens. We already had an earthquake” last week, Skye Blanks said as he sat on the Green waiting for the sky to darken.

Some New Haveners traveled to watch the eclipse in its totality. From Cedar Hill, Texas, Norma Rodriguez-Reyes saw the sky go completely dark, then light return by 2:45 (Eastern time). ​“It’s crazy how the light is slowly returning,” she reported.

The Independent’s Brian Slattery headed up Sleeping Giant, finding a perch on the edge of a sharp cliff facing south.

“Right below me, across Mt. Carmel Avenue, is Quinnipiac University. Looking south, I can see the wide marsh of the Quinnipiac River, the New Haven skyline, the Sound, and Long Island on the horizon,” he texted moments before the 2:12 expected start of the eclipse. 

“No one else is here for long; a couple people have come and gone. Below are voices of people on the trail, dogs barking, machines in the distance, but up here, it’s squirrels, crows, vultures, and peregrine falcons, and they are quiet. The occasional squawk from a crow, keen from a falcon. A steady breeze. Only a little hazy. Maybe the nicest day of the year so far.

“There is nothing to prepare. It’s such a pleasure just to be here.”

Demand Eclipses Glasses Search

New Haveners scrambled for special glasses Monday in advance of a historic near-total solar eclipse — only to learn they’ll need to pursue alternative options.

James Chapman was waiting outside the Warby Parker eyeglass store at Elm and York when it opened at 10 a.m. He’d heard that it was one of the remaining places in town where people could find protective glasses to prevent eye injury when the eclipse is expected to hit New Haven between 2:12 and 4:37 p.m., with the climactic maximum-viewing moment expected at 3:27.

An employee opened the door — and informed Chapman that, alas, supplies had run out last Thursday.

Word was that the public library still had eclipse glasses to hand out.

Within 10 minutes of the main branch’s 10 a.m. opening, staffer Seth Godfrey had fielded over 30 requests. But the library, too — all branches — had depleted its supply as well.

Meanwhile, New Haveners were planning to gather on the Green and other locations throughout town to experience the event together.

Chapman, who works on the loading dock at Yale, wasn’t planning to participate in those events. He would be working. But since he’d be outside, he was concerned about suffering eye damage.

“The way they’re talking,” he said, ​“I don’t want to look up.”

Advice abounded online for creating DIY pinhole projectors (see below) to cereal-box protectors that might make indirect viewing possible. (Here’s one how-to.) One eyeglass store employee suggested checking out the web’s advice — or maybe just making sure to keep your head down.

Getting Ready In Dixwell

Meanwhile, a dozen grandparents and parents and kiddos gathered with Dixwell librarians at Stetson Library at 11 a.m. for an eclipse-themed ​“stay and play.”

Young Minds and Family Learning Librarian Phillip Modeen led the group in singing space-related songs, reading a children’s book called ​“A Few Beautiful Minutes: Experiencing A Solar Eclipse,” and then crayon-coloring black-and-white printouts of the earth and of the moon passing in front of the sun.

“We don’t really have control. This is God’s world. And nature’s going to take its course,” said Gerry Prince, as she reflected on what the eclipse means to her while sitting next to her 2‑year-old granddaughter, LeNai Mascoll. ​“We either appreciate it and enjoy the experience,” or miss out on the world’s wonder.

“It’s exciting,” she said. Especially since this will be the first solar eclipse she’s ever seen.

Prince said she isn’t sure where she’ll be in the afternoon when the eclipse begins at around 2:15. She likely won’t be at the Stetson library’s watch event at Wexler Grant’s track. Instead, she’ll probably be pulling grandparent duty on Orange Street, helping look after her granddaughter and grandson. She picked up a pair of eclipse-viewing glasses, and said she’ll try to step outside to take a look if she has a minute in between looking after her grandkids.

Maya McFadden, Thomas Breen, Allan Appel, Brian Slattery, Babz Rawls-Ivy, Norma Rodriguez-Reyes, Lisa Reisman, Dereen Shirnekhi, Paul Bass, Laura Glesby, Chris Volpe, and Bruce Oren contributed to this story.