Eric Traester said he feels like he’s living in a prison. Despite the quaint, well-kept brick front of his Dwight apartment building, every time he looks out his window he’s confronted with a looming, shiny metal fence he feels is more suited to a “white-collar prison complex” than a residential neighborhood. When he slips out his back door and through the Miya’s‑adjacent parking lot to Howe Street, he’s confronted by another fence with three rows of razor wire.
“The fences give people the wrong impression about the neighborhood,” Traester said. He’s especially peeved about the taller one, recently erected in place of what he claims was a shorter version, and calls the replacement “an eyesore” and “overkill.”
These fences enclose the backside of 70 Howe, an attractive brick apartment building owned by Howe Place Apartments.
Like a provocative work of art, the fence is viewed differently by different viewers. Their strong feelings reflect a deeper divide over how to respond to crime in an urban neighborhood that is on the upswing.
Susan Bradford, the leasing agent, said that the new fence is the exact same height and form as the old one, except for stronger posts.
“We put our tenant safety and security first,. Some neighbors had a determination to knock [the old fence] down,” Bradford explained, so Howe Place Apartments chose to construct a stronger fence due to various damages.
Miriam Felton-Dansky, a resident of 70 Howe, received a general notice about the new fence but hadn’t seen it yet. Asked if she felt safe in her neighborhood, Felton-Dansky replied, “New Haven has a lot of economic disparity and that’s evident in this neighborhood. But I don’t feel unsafe here.”
Neither does Jennifer Nelson, who lives in the neighborhood. Though she hadn’t seen the fence either, she said she thought it was “probably not helping. I believe in more concrete measures rather than signposts indicating something’s wrong.”
The Chelsea Company has taken these concrete measures, said Matt Short, who manages the company with his mother, Ardelle Cowie. They’ve installed security cameras, better lighting, and electronic lock systems and have cultivated relationships with the police and public works departments. Short removed a chain-link fence behind 80 Howe to avoid what he calls the “broken window effect” — when a property looks rundown or overly fortified and thus attracts more crime. “I frankly don’t have any idea why [Howe Place Apartments] is choosing to do this,” he said about the new fence. “Before the changes were made, their approach was already 100 percent different from ours. Now it’s 110 percent.”
Ardelle Cowie and her husband began buying properties in the Dwight neighborhood during the late ’70s, and her family retained faith in the area even when it was known as a red-light district during the 1980s. Now, with focused efforts by the city as well as Yale expansion projects — a new sculpture building (pictured) sits at 32 Edgewood, while a sleek gray parking lot hovers over a new Yale security station directly across from 70 Howe — the neighborhood has seen the addition of more attractive housing options and hip restaurants like Ahimsa.
“This neighborhood is in great shape,” Short said, “and it’s only continuing to improve. The question is, what does this fence communicate about our neighborhood?”
When asked whether she thought the new fence was a necessary security measure even in the improved neighborhood, Bradford replied: “I will leave it to you to look at police reports and make that decision.”
To follow Bradford’s instructions, take a look at the Independent’s Crime Log. Within the month of August, the quarter-mile radius around Chapel and Howe saw 110 incidents ranging from false fire alarms and traffic tickets to auto theft and assault.
Ultimately, it will not be up to Bradford to decide whether the new fence is a necessary measure for her tenants’ safety. Frank Gargiulo, a zoning administrator at the Livable City Initiative, explained that any fence equipped with razor wire or over eight feet tall is against state statutes. If the new fence is indeed taller than the old one, a LCI inspector could call for removal or alteration. As for the other, razor-wired fence (shown), many neighbors wonder why, in the burgeoning neighborhood around Chapel and Howe, it’s still standing.