The “community room” at the Dwight Elementary School might as well have been lined in silver.
“It’s clear that we’re going to have a rough year or two, but those times in my experience are actually good times to plan ahead,” said Alan Plattus (pictured), the director of the Yale Urban Design Workshop who is helping to lead planned revival of the neighborhood. “When the resources aren’t immediately available, people get even more creative… You have to think about how you’re going to spend the limited resources that you have.”
The comment, delivered during June’s Dwight Community Management Team meeting Tuesday night, was just one of several attempts during the discussion to find bright sides of otherwise-inopportune scenarios playing out in the neighborhood.
Such as the impending closure of the Dwight School.
“I was like ‘Ahh!’ in shock when I [saw the news], and then you start thinking about it, and you think maybe there is an opportunity here,” Plattus said.
Dwight Alderwoman Gina Calder (pictured speaking with management team member Michael Shanklin) was similarly sanguine.
She promised residents that the very room at Dwight School in which the meeting was being held would, with proper fund-raising and lobbying, become the neighborhood’s long-awaited community center.
“As far as I’m concerned, they will not have this room,” Calder said, referring to the New Haven Public Schools, specifically the students of Vincent E. Mauro Elementary School who will occupy most of the building as a swing space for two years. “As far as I know, there have not yet been any conversations about us losing this space.”
The latest draft of the Dwight Neighborhood Plan — presented to residents in a 38-page packet complete with photographs and sketches — says in its introduction that it “points toward a better Dwight, and hopes to spark the political and economic imagination needed to shape a path toward real action.”
(Click here for a previous story on the plan.)
The central concept is “Great Neighborhood Streets,” each of which “has developed a unique character” that should be embraced. Chapel Street is the Arts and Business Corridor, Edgewood Avenue is the Educational Corridor, Whaley Avenue is the Commercial Corridor and Route 34 is the Mixed Use Corridor.
It is on the Edgewood Avenue Corridor, Plattus emphasized, that Dwight could find new possibilities. And so in light of news that the Dwight School would close, the team reconceived of the street in an attempt to better utilize the multi-purpose rooms and uninhabited fields behind the school.
The neighborhood revival should strive, according to the document, toward “a thoughtful redesign and re-use of the Dwight Elementary School and campus [that] reflect[s] the needs and interests of the whole neighborhood.”
The street, it proposes, would contain a “greater connection” to Edgewood and West Rock Parks, a neighborhood gateway, a bike path (and rental kiosk) and a roundabout designed to “calm” traffic, among other features. The Dwight School would contain a community center as well as community gardens.
“The re-use of the Dwight School campus in the coming years is an opportunity to create a community-oriented campus that provides open space, improves the safety of the children, positively influences traffic and parking, and enhances the visual character of the neighborhood.”
Management Team Chairperson Florita Gillespie half-joked as the meeting drew to a close — and after Plattus received enthusiastic applause for his presentation — when she insisted in emphatic terms that Dwight would see success thanks to her team’s foresight.
“Unlike the other management teams, we plan ahead,” she said. “We cannot depend on anyone to give us anything.”
More Bikes Than Cars?
In his customary monthly debriefing, Lt. Ray Hassett resurrected his pet project — bicycle-traffic laws.
“It’s time for a big push,” he said, “and then the enforcement push goes after that.” With gas prices swelling, Hassett said a flood of adults would drop their cars for bicycles soon, but with a catch: In many cases, Hassett said, “Last time they road a bike, they believed in Santa Claus.” As a result, he predicted, the roads may become particularly unruly this summer, filled with riders unaware of basic laws.
For Hassett, important rules include not riding on sidewalks, obeying traditional traffic laws — stopping at stop signs, signaling turns, riding with the traffic on one-way streets — and, for children, wearing helmets.
One city resident, Abi Hassen (pictured), 30, a member of Elm City Cycling and an employee of the Center for a New Economy, raised his hand and offered an additional, albeit long-term, solution. Pressure the city, he urged the officer, to create bike lanes. Hassett nodded. “Certainly,” he said.
“The police voice is a powerful voice in the city,” Hassen said later, explaining that from his experience living in Brooklyn, he knows that “if he city as a whole wants there to be bike lanes — if the political will is there — they could be made fairly quickly.”
Bicycles were not just on the mind of the neighborhood beat cop and local riders.
Plattus, in outlining the updated plans for Dwight, said he believes that the city is “at a point now where we have the worst of both worlds: the cars are still badly behaved and the bicycles don’t know what they’re doing.”
Plus, who knows: Soon, he said, the Elm City might outgrow automobiles altogether, a possibility factored into the grand design.
“The younger among us,” Plattus said, “might live to see the day when there are more bikes than cars in New Haven.”