Bradley Street Lot Eyed For ​“Mulberry Jam”

A fenced-in, overgrown, and overlooked pocket of state-owned land that sits in the shadow of I‑91 may soon transform into a lush communal greenspace, thanks to the vision — and labor — of a volunteer group of East Rock neighbors.

Local architect Keith Appleby pitched that new mini-park project to roughly 40 fellow East Rockers during the regular monthly meeting of the East Rock Community Management Team at mActivity gym on Nicoll Street.

On Tuesday morning, he joined fellow local architect Ming Thompson and Bradley Street Bicycle Co-Op owner John Martin at the roughly 1,200 square-foot space at the corner of Bradley Street and State Street to talk with the Independent about what the site has been, what it’s like now, and what it might look like in a not-too-distant future.

“It seems like it’s a forgotten piece of DOT property,” Appleby said during the management team meeting, held last week. ​“We all want to come together and create a public space for New Haven.”

The project itself is called Mulberry Jam, named for an eponymous, sprawling-limbed fruit tree that stands near the northeastern edge of the state Department of Transportation-owned parcel immediately adjacent to the bike co-op.

The land is currently surrounded by a six-foot-tall chain-link fence covered by dark-green screen. For years, Martin said, the space has sat vacant, blighted, unused, inaccessible, and all-but-invisible to the surrounding public.

Nearby restaurants formerly discarded used cooking oil on the site, he said. There was a small dinghy in one corner, a shed in another, and a mattress stashed in the back. ​“It was very overgrown,” he added, was occasionally used as a homeless encampment.

Last year, Martin said, he reached out to the DOT about cleaning up the space. The state removed the shed and the dinghy and the mattress, and a group of co-op volunteers cleared some of the other remaining debris.

Martin then applied to the Community Greenspace program run by the local Yale-affiliated forestry nonprofit Urban Resources Initiative (URI), which agreed to provide an intern, gardening tools, plants and soil to help transform the blighted parcel into something lush and attractive.

At the same time, Martin, who also heads the Upper State Street Association, forged a relationship with Appleby and Thompson of the nearby firm Atelier Cho Thompson. They all started piecing together a group of neighborhood volunteers, known as the Friends of Mulberry Jam, dedicated to cleaning the current site and envisioning what a newly established greenspace might look like.

The group got permission from the DOT earlier this spring to start clearing and cleaning the site in earnest in preparation for a potential park, Appleby said.

Which, technically, is a ​“greenspace” and not a ​“park,” he added, as it will not be run by the city but rather by a group of volunteer neighborhood stewards.

Over the course of three days earlier this year, Thompson, Appleby, and Martin said, around a dozen different volunteers used shovels and and hoes and weeding tools to scrape the site clean of weeds and rocks and trash, and laid down a layer of crushed stone materials.

Since then, Appleby said, the Friends of Mulberry Jam have been working on developing a vision for what the space might be in the short and long-term, and honing pitches to be made to the neighborhood management team, the city, and local police.

“It’s important that this enlivens the street” and that it celebrates the corner as a welcoming gateway connecting East Rock and Downtown, Appleby continued. Martin is working on an underpass mural planned for just around the corner that should further transform State and Bradley into a positive, communal entry point to the neighborhood, he said.

As for the work planned for the prospective greenspace, the group plans on replacing the current six-foot fence with a much smaller site-wall: One that still provides a sense of enclosed space, but that can be easily seen over — and even sat upon — and that functions as a part of the greenspace’s communal street furniture.

“We want to bring that way down so that it’s very visible and transparent,” he said. That will make the park much safer, and accessible for those unfamiliar with the space.

The greenspace as currently envisioned will contain a variety of different ​“zones,” he said, geared towards different activities. One will allow for congregating around the mulberry tree, one will allow for barbecuing or more free-flowing movement, one will have tables and benches, and one with tiered seating in the back.

“It’s a very flexible space,” he said. People can come with a meal and a cup of coffee, or just sit and talk with a friend.

“We want to soften the whole rear fence with native plants,” he said, which will have to be shade-loving plants, considering how little sun that area by the highway overpass gets. Plants are a critical component of any successful greenspace, he said, because they help make people feel comfortable at a site.

The group also plans to build a wall to protect the root system of the mulberry tree, and maybe even paint a mural on the side of the bike co-op.

In all, Appleby said, the Friends of Mulberry Jam anticipate they’ll need to raise around $25,000 to $30,000 to make the greenspace dream a reality. They’re looking to apply for money from the East Rock management team’s Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP) grant and from the Could Be Fund.

Are Bradley Street neighbors in support of this project? asked Prospect Hill resident Lynne Street at the management team meeting.

Absolutely, said Bradley Street neighbor and management team vice-chair Kevin McCarthy. Everyone who has been helping out with the park project so far, Appleby said, has come from either Bradley Street or immediately adjacent streets.

Furthermore, he said, one of the requirements of URI’s Community Greenspace program is that a new greenspace project will only receive support if it also establishes a community group to help take care of the site after the park has been built.

“Will it be lighted as all?” asked management team Chair David Budries.

Appleby said the group is considering installing some kind of string lighting high up that would illuminate the space but be out of reach so that people couldn’t easily mess with them. ​“We know it could get expensive very quickly” when it comes to lighting the project, he said.

He said he also plans on petitioning the city to provide public trash receptacles for the site.

As someone who has had a mulberry tree in her backyard for 40 years, said management team secretary Deb Rossi, ​“Don’t put anything under the tree because it will be inaccessible for two months out of the year.”

Mulberry trees are beautiful, she said, but they’re messy, and when the fruit starts to fall, the berries will stain everything. Plus, she said, watch out for hornets. When the fruit is ripe in her backyard, she and her family are always battling against being stung.

“This is why we’re going to have lots of baskets and make mulberry jam” out of those berries, Appleby replied with a smile.

Learn more about the Mulberry Jam project here.