A Newhallville homeowner thanked Yale’s president for sending $62,500 to finish building a Lilac Street house — then urged him to send back the student builders, too.
The exchange took place Wednesday afternoon, as Yale President Rick Levin joined Mayor John DeStefano and not-for-profit builder Jim Paley at 32 Lilac in front of a fenced-off foundation for a new home designed by Yale architecture students.
The students started an annual project of designing and building a new home in a low-income city neighborhood. Then two teens knocked an 83-year-old architecture professor, Paul Brouard, on the head at the site on May 9 and made off with his wallet. Levin decided to halt the project and have the students build the house in the West River neighborhood instead.
At first Yale kept the mugging and decision quiet. After the Independent reported on it, neighbors working hard to turn around their neighborhood expressed hurt and dismay. Mayor DeStefano called Levin and suggested the city and Yale “go halves” in paying $125,000 for Paley’s group, Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS), to finish building the house, Levin recalled Wednesday.
“We didn’t hesitate,” Levin said.
Left unspoken was the fact that both Levin and DeStefano are finishing parallel 20-year-terms in office this year (Levin this month). Together the pair have forged a celebrated working relationship, which has included a boom in Yale support for neighborhood-revival efforts. Left as is, the Newhallville episode threatened to affix a downbeat coda to two decades of harmony.
A crowd of neighbors and volunteers greeted Wednesday’s announcement with gratitude for the new decision — as well as some questions.
Property owner Germai Medhanie (pictured) told the officials that new housing will help the neighborhood, but asked what they’ll do to make sure people have jobs in order to afford to stay in those homes.
“Good question,” responded DeStefano. Then he spoke about a new “jobs pipeline” aimed at linking local people to local jobs. Yale played a big part in that project along with city government and other business leaders. The project led to the creation of a New Haven Works center officially opening its doors in Yale-donated space — just 90 minutes after the Lilac Street event.
Then Brandi Marshall spoke up.
Marshall (pictured), a 33-year-old city native who has a cook’s job at Hamden’s Whitney Center, bought a renovated house up the block last October from NHS. She’d been renting from a slumlord on Huntington Street; “I was tired of paying him to go on vacations.”
Like other neighbors, Marshall was thrilled with the Yale building project getting underway on Lilac. She visited the students and thanked them. (Neighbors held a day of celebratory “food, music and conversations” with neighborhood kids to welcome the Yale building project in April.)
Marshall told Levin Tuesday that merely writing a check for someone else to finish building the house doesn’t settle the matter for his decision to pull up stakes.
“If I don’t see the people to thank them for putting their time, their free time as students, into my neighborhood, I’m not too happy about that,” Marshall said.
“I love your money. I’d rather have your bodies.”
The press event ended there without a response. Asked about Marshall’s remark in a conversation, Levin said he felt “compassion and understanding” for her point. (Click on the video at the top of the story to watch him speaking about the episode.)
“Of course it’s a very positive thing when our students get a chance to interact with neighborhood residents. It’s two sided. It’s not just the neighborhood residents that benefit. It’s our students,” Levin said.
He called the attack on Professor Brouard “a pretty traumatic blow.”
“Some of the students were very concerned obviously about returning to the site where this professor had been assaulted. Then there was concern could we protect them from possible recurrences. The combination of factors led us to conclude to move the project,” Levin said.
Levin noted that before he became Yale’s president, the architecture students used to design “a bridge or a modification to a park like in Guilford or Madison or some place out in the suburbs” for their annual hands-on project. Now they do it in New Haven neighborhoods. Levin called the decision to halt the Lilac Street construction an isolated incident. “We’ll be back” in Newhallville in the future, he promised.
In official remarks, DeStefano (at right in photo with Levin) cited facts about Newhallville’s progress: The highest number of community gardens in town. A 40 percent crime drop over the past year. A new charter school under construction. Neighbors who trusted cops enough to help them find the teens who allegedly mugged Professor Brouard.
“In life, you can live by facts or by stereotypes or labels,” DeStefano said. “Newhallville is not a stereotype. It accepts responsibility for itself, takes care of itself.
“It seemed only fair to complete our commitment” to the neighborhood with the completion of 32 Lilac.