Catching Porgies With Pablo At Lighthouse Point

Pablo Sumba and his family left their land-locked home in Waterbury early in the morning to fit in as many waterfront activities as they could during a pre-holiday trip to Lighthouse Point Park — including fishing, swimming, grilling (some of the 12 porgies they caught), and just hanging out with five-month-old baby Lucas, who lay on a blanket on the green grass nearby.

They made that trip on the day before July 4th alongside hundreds of fellow parkgoers who had come out to enjoy the East Shore public open space.

Those fellow attendees included grandmothers with little ones in tow, and dozens of city camp campers, and all-day visitors from as far away as Waterbury who filled up the park by noon.

All the while, cooling water sprayed invigoratingly out of the metallic palm tree-esque towers on the park’s capacious splash pad, and the Atlantic Ocean, aka the Long Island Sound, and a sandy beach and excellent swimming area were only 25 yards away. Rising up the adjacent slope was an inviting expanse of green and on it barbecue stands for grilling recently caught porgies and chicken and other holiday comestibles, as well as a nearby historic carousel and a 19^th century lighthouse.

A New Haven park and treasure since 1924, when the city purchased the location from a private amusement company, Lighthouse Point has been a true destination for generations of families and many from the interior of the state where there doesn’t happen to be an ocean.

That was the case Monday with a two-family ensemble — Segundo Merino, Pablo Sumba, Manual Loja, Laura Astudillo, Fatima Teresa and three kids (Pablo and Lucas Sumba and Carolina Merino).

The family, with some serious fishing equipment in tow, left Waterbury early in the morning, arrived at about 9:30 a.m. They paid their $30 admission fee (for New Haven residents there is no entry fee), and proceeded to get in the whole range of activities available — fishing, swimming, grilling (some of the 12 porgies they caught), and just hanging out with five-month-old baby Lucas who lay on a blanket on the green grass nearby.

“I like the view and the sand [and ocean],” said Pablo Sumba as he was grilling chicken, along with a plantain and readying the family’s lunch.

Sumba said he fishes near Waterbury, but a river is not an ocean, and the group planned to stay at the park until around 4:00 p.m. Although this Independence Day was part of a long weekend off from work, it’s by no means the only time they come down to the park. ​“We fish, we catch porgies all summer,” he added.

For New Haven-born Vilma Bell, who was sitting on a bench on the ocean-side promenade and waiting for her grandkids to emerge from the splash pad, coming to Lighthouse Point Park has been a life-long activity.

She and her husband bought a house in the 1980s on Redfield Street in the Hill and have been making regular visits to the park ever since. ​“It’s all the same,” she said as she remembered from those days and even from when she herself was a kid and coming to the park.

“Except there was no splash pad then,” she added, and no large planes zooming up over the water, she added, as one right on cue made a graceful arc up into the blue sky above Tweed Airport and across the water.

A certified nurse’s aide long employed at Genesis Rehab and Nursing Facility in Woodbridge, Bell this day — and week — was in charge of her grandkids Amani, eight and a half, and Soraya, age six. Their parents are in Jamaica for a week’s vacation (the trip was her son’s gift to his wife on her 40^th birthday), and grandma, of course, was available.

She said she has taken the whole week off from her job, what she termed really a calling that God has given to her, to take care of folks at the nursing home, which she did dutifully throughout the Covid pandemic; that included toughing it through two bouts of the disease herself.

“I feel good [here in the park],” she said. ​“It’s big and free and we used to come when we were kids. To me it looks the same.”

Just about entering the splash pad, after a lunch of chicken and Goldfish was three-year-old Sincere Coleman accompanied by yet another older park-goer, his grandma, Tracy Glenn.

Glenn works at night, she said, and her daughter during the day, so Glenn headed to the park on Monday early especially as she heard the weather would be iffier on the day of July 4^th itself.

She had plunked herself on the grassy side of the splash pad as the ocean breezes were blowing the spray in her direction, some natural air conditioning on a humid day.

Unlike Bell, who is a devotee of Lighthouse Point in particular, Glenn said she utilizes parks throughout New Haven and Hamden. She knows many of the parks in the area, especially those with splash pads and water features for little kids like Sincere, who now began to tug on her. Having finished lunch and his last handful of Goldfish, he was ready for the splash pad, but of course she had to go with him.

As they entered, a dozen or so older kids and some of their counselors were exiting. By the marking of some of the t‑shirts being worn, these were kids enrolled in the city’s Youth & Rec Department-run Lighthouse Camp.

There were dozens of them, ages five to 13, in various stages and forms of having fun. Staff members told this reporter that the kids go on field trips and every Thursday they also go to swim in non-ocean water at the Career High School pool. 

But Lighthouse Point Park and the beach is the headquarters, and the splash pad is always busy. 

See below for other recent Independent articles about how New Haveners use and enjoy the city’s many public parks.

• Splashing & Mulching At Kensington Playground With Ranezmay, Pat, Jane, & Friends
• Believe-It-Or-Knotweed In Edgewood Park With Sierra
• Sprucing Up Peat Meadow Park With AnneMarie
• Tuesday In The State St. Triangle With David
• Monday In Scantlebury Park With Jermaine