by and | Mar 24, 2023 3:23 pm | Comments (37)
Contributed photo
Police cars on Lewis Street after Thursday evening's shooting.
When seven gunshots popped from a car outside a Lewis Street rental home, the children next door wailed and trembled, and their parents scrambled to explain away the sounds as fireworks.
Continue reading ‘Drive-By Shooting Spotlights Problem House’
by | Nov 8, 2022 9:25 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery photo
“We rise by lifting others,” reads a phrase from 19th-century writer and orator Robert Ingersoll, which now adorns a colorful mural on a wall on Fair Haven’s Grand Avenue.
As if in literal demonstration of the quotation, on Friday morning, a woman hefted a small child into the air to paint a butterfly on the mural that otherwise would have been just out of reach.
by | Nov 2, 2022 2:24 pm | Comments (11)
Pennrose rendering
Pennrose's design for 58 new Strong School apartments.
The Elicker Administration has selected the national affordable housing developer Pennrose to convert the vacant former Strong School on Grand Avenue into 58 new affordable apartments, an artists’ community, and a public gathering space.
Continue reading ‘Pennrose Picked As Strong School Redeveloper’
by | Jul 20, 2022 5:48 pm | Comments (3)
The former Strong School building was the site Wednesday of a two-alarm fire.
Continue reading ‘NHFD Extinguishes 2-Alarm Fire At Former Strong School’
by | Jun 13, 2022 9:28 am | Comments (6)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Mussels from La Molienda Restaurant and Bar
Enchiladas, ceviche, plantains, and pastries were served up with a side of history, as the Grand Avenue Gastronomy Tour returned as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas Saturday. Twenty participants, led by Lee Cruz of the Chatham Square Neighborhood Association, ate their way down and around Fair Haven while also learning about the neighborhood itself: past, present, and future.
Continue reading ‘Gastronomy Tour Puts The Grand In Grand Avenue’
by | Dec 10, 2021 12:12 pm | Comments (3)
Former Strong School on Grand Avenue.
It can work to preserve and repurpose a century-old historic brick school building into a nonprofit community youth and arts center — but only if the complex includes revenue-producing market-rate-ish apartments, along with ground-floor commercial space.
Continue reading ‘A Vision Emerges For Redeveloping The Strong School’
by | Aug 12, 2021 8:39 am | Comments (9)
Interboro Partners
A former Strong School hallway in disrepair.
A long-vacant Grand Avenue school building could become a cafe where Fair Haven kids learn about agriculture, cooking, and entrepreneurship. Or a housing complex specifically for teachers, with a child-oriented gathering space in the former elementary school gym — or a “makerspace” collective, buzzing with artists at work.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Brainstorm Strong School Future’
by | Dec 9, 2020 10:57 am | Comments (13)
Paul Bass Pre-Pandemic File Photo
Neighbors Lee Cruz and Christel Manning outside the empty school.
Three years after its last failed attempt, the city is gearing up again to find someone to redevelop the vacant former Strong School — this time by extending the vision of change to the surrounding “district.”
by | May 8, 2020 11:38 am | Comments (1)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Chatham Square neighbors showing support this past weekend for Mary Wade Home.
The Mary Wade Home survived the 1918 influenza epidemic. It’s now toughing out the health and financial challenges of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic — thanks in part to neighbors’ emotional support and $4,953.19 gift.
That money went to pay for protective gowns, recently donated by members of the Fair Haven Community Management Team.
Continue reading ‘Community Helps Mary Wade Weather The Storm’
by | Mar 31, 2020 12:27 pm | Comments (4)
Lee Cruz Photos
Despite ongoing efforts to keep the vacant former Strong School closed, a squatter apparently got inside — and a fire followed.
Continue reading ‘NHPS: Break-In Preceded Strong School Fire’
by | Mar 30, 2020 4:15 pm | Comments (1)
The Mary Wade Home, an historic and anchoring institution of the Chatham Square section of Fair Haven, and its largest employer, has issued a plea for donations of masks, tablets, and financial support in the wake of the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic.
by | Mar 3, 2020 1:20 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Cheila Serrano and Bruni Pizarro accept donation check from neighborhood children.
In three weeks, the Fair Haven community came up with $1,000 in donations to support local refugees displaced by the earthquakes in Puerto Rico — and neighbors topped it off with a community soup night.
Continue reading ‘Fair Haven Raises $1,000 For Puerto Rican Refugees’
by | Sep 18, 2019 12:18 pm | Comments (0)
MBH Architecture
Design of planned new wing.
Ground was ceremonially broken Wednesday morning on a new expanded campus of the Mary Wade Home.
The 75,000 square-foot building will house 84 one and two-bedroom assisted living units, including 20 especially equipped for people in need of “memory care.”
Continue reading ‘Ground Broken On Mary Wade Home Expansion’
by | Oct 1, 2018 3:07 pm | Comments (11)
Fair Haveners Sierra-Marie Gerfao and Helene Sapadin at brainstorming session.
Convert a funky parking lot into a local market that remains open at night.
How about another coffee shop?
Pick up the trash in the park more regularly.
Turn a long-vacant but historic school building into a model for inclusionary housing.
And don’t forget to launch that oyster boat business — a a local tourism-oriented vessel that echoes the oystering history of the area that would offer sunset cruises of the river and local historic locales.
by | Nov 16, 2017 5:03 pm | Comments (16)
Newman Architects
Lazarus plan design: Not likely to rise from the dead.
Despite a determined effort to sell off the vacant former Strong School in Fair Haven, the city is back where it started six years ago, unsure what to do with a deteriorating, century-old building.
by | Jul 27, 2017 1:11 pm | Comments (23)
Newman Architects
Rendering of Lazarus’s plan.
Allan Appel Photo
Bekhrad: “Ridiculous.”
Micro-apartments? Wrong for a family neighborhood.
Monthly rents up to $1,700? Non-starters for middle-to-low-income Fair Haven.
This developer? Troubling track record.
Fair Haveners bombarded a selection committee with that take on a developer’s proposal to buy the shuttered Strong School from the city for $500,000 and spend $16.7 million converting it into apartments.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Lacerate Strong School Proposal’
by | Jul 20, 2017 4:02 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
Incoming and outgoing Fair Haven top cops with Mary Wade resident Marian Lemley and neighborhood organizer Lee Cruz.
In the coming days Lt. David Zannelli plans to pull into Anastasio’s Boat House Cafe on Front Street by the Quinnipiac River. He’s going to order a sandwich, or more likely a salad.
And after that he’ll be lunching or meeting with colleagues at as many local eateries as possible.
That’s because Fair Haven’s new top cop is a believer not only in getting to know local businesses but in supporting them, especially those whose owners are community-minded.
by | Jul 10, 2017 12:13 pm | Comments (6)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Lior Trestman and Sawyer Christmann help each other get the hard-to-reach spots.
Sarah Miller Photo
Sunday’s murals on the back of the school.
Just off Grand Avenue, an African woman carries a bundled baby on her back, a purple cloth pressing up into her hair. A half-pigeon, half-dove with pink and blue-green wings flies above. Just a few feet to the left, an activist steps forward, bangled, purple fist slicing the air triumphantly. The Quinnipiac River bridge beckons behind her.
Continue reading ‘Mural Makes Over Vacant Former Strong School’
by | Nov 15, 2016 8:43 am | Comments (35)
Neighbor Paul Hammer presses a question.
What’s an “affordable” one-bedroom apartment in Fair Haven? Neighbors said: $600 a month. An out-of-town developer looking to turn to buy the old Strong School said: not a dollar less than $875.
Newman Architects
Rendering of Lazarus’s plan.
by | Nov 7, 2016 7:54 am | Comments (16)
Newman Architects
Architect’s plan for Strong School renovation.
Saying it has heard complaints that Fair Haveners had been shut out of the process, the Harp administration has slowed down the process of approving the sale of the old Strong School building in order to give neighbors a chance to weigh in.
Continue reading ‘Fair Haven Dealt Into Strong School Process’
by | Aug 5, 2016 11:53 am | Comments (0)
Rohan Naik Photo
High school interns present their work to the crowd.
The first day of her summer job, Sadilka Lopez had “no idea what I was doing.”
by | Jul 12, 2016 11:58 am | Comments (1)
Lee Cruz, Miller, Mateo Cruz.
Mateo Cruz hadn’t even started his second birthday party at the Cityseed Fair Haven Farmers Market, when thunder rumbled in the distance.
by | Jun 16, 2016 7:57 am | Comments (1)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Bekhrad pitches revised plan Wednesday night.
A riverfront developer who wants to turn her vacant Front Street lot into storage space for boats has won over some of her neighbors — but still needs to convince some others as well as the City Plan Commission.
by | May 27, 2016 1:02 pm | Comments (0)
Qi Xu Photo
Chatham Square Park was busier than usual Friday, as the Mary Wade Home celebrated its 150th anniversary along with children and seniors from throughout Fair Haven.
Continue reading ‘Mary Wade Parade Lifts Fair Haven Spirits’
by | May 20, 2016 12:47 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Bekhrad.
Chatham Square neighbors filled a City Hall meeting room to protest a developer’s plan to put RV and boat storage on riverfront property on Front Street.
Continue reading ‘Neighbors Form Front Against Riverfront Developer’