Abiba Biao photos
Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters: "A natural beauty" to the Mill River underpass (pictured below).
Among the weeds and overgrown vegetation of a highway underpass off of State Street, Achievement First Amistad High School juniors Madison Mcgregor and Karriema Peters couldn’t help but see potential.
The soil, still damp and moist from a recent downpour, could make fertile land for a community garden in the future. What type of foods they would grow is still up for debate.
Mcgregor and Peters were two of more than 20 New Haven high school students to show up at the Ralph Walker Hockey Rink at 1080 State St. last Thursday for the first ever youth design team meeting for the Mill River Underpass Project.
The project aims to collect input from youth and community members to design and build a community park alongside the soon-to-be-constructed Mill River Trail beneath Interstate I‑91 at State and James Street behind the Ralph Walker Hockey Rink.
East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith showing students a wooden replica of the overpasses.
“In this ward alone, there are four underpasses that divide these two amazing neighborhoods of East Rock and Fair Haven,” said the event’s organizer, East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, in an opening address to the students. “This project is really ultimately about transformation, and it’s about reconnection. How do we take this site…and reimagine it and transform it into a site that actually reconnects these two neighborhoods?”
Members of the project include architect and Olympic skateboarder Alexis Sablone, Grand Avenue Special Services District director Erick Gonzalez, SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz, Elm City COMPASS’s Ana Juarez, and Mill River Trail volunteer J.R. Logan, among others.
“High school students and youth in general are not invited typically to shape the conversations or public spaces … and I’ve always felt like in New Haven, we have an absence of public spaces that reflect the youthfulness of New Haven,” Berkowitz said. So having young people gather and think together about “how this amazing space could reflect them and be a home for them is incredible.”
Jack Grindley: Let them skate.
Jack Grindley, a junior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, showed up to Thursday’s design team meeting in pursuit of his goal of “reversing the negative effects of redlining” for the next generation of New Haveners.
“It [redlining] can teach us a lot about why certain neighborhoods are more underprivileged than others and why certain areas have more crime, because they’ve been forced to by being divided, having no recreation, no opportunities,” he said. “This is a massive problem.”
On Thursday, Grindley put his mind to use, imagining the underpass as a recreational hub for high schoolers as the group made their way on foot from the Ralph Walker rink to the site of the potential new park. “I do [like] a lot of the scenery,” he said, taking in the view of Mill River. He suggested that a skate park be installed in the area, as there aren’t any on the east side of town. “Kids who go to Cross could skate here instead of going all the way across the city.”
Charles Nixon.
Another attendee at Thursday’s meeting, Charles Nixon, reflected fondly on his time living in the neighborhood. He remembered living on Humphrey Street, going fishing in the summer at the Mill River, watching baseball games at Blake Field, and chowing down on warm fried dough from the pizza truck that became a popular attraction for kids and parents alike.
That’s why when Nixon got word of the Mill River Underpass Project, he knew he had to join.
“It’s just a no brainer for me to be part of something and to hear some of the ideas that are being talked about and the potential for this space because growing up, I used it every day in the summertime,” he said.
After the students reconvened from their mini exploration session, they filled a poster with their ideas for the park, which included everything from canoe and kayak docks to a flea market.
For Peters, the possibilities for the space were limitless. She said that there was a “natural beauty” to the underpass. She suggested that the underpass be repurposed as a mural space for local artists or a warm-up center for people experiencing homelessness in addition to making room for a garden.
“There’s a lot of trees and a lot of vegetation and I feel like if we can make a green space…if the soil is good, and give the food to a different community, that would be good too,” she said.
“These are future alders or future architects or future leaders of the city and current leaders,” Smith said about Thursday’s youth design group, “so it’s really cool to hear them incorporate really thoughtful design principles” for this “shared space between these two neighborhoods.”
The Mill River Underpass crew.