Food, music, friendly tug-of-war unite Fair Haven, Heights as 2‑year closing looms.
The bridge will be out of commission for two years starting in April for the drivers and walkers who use it to cross the Quinnipiac River. New Haven has hired Plantsville-based Mohawk Northeast, Inc. to replace most of the current bridge pieces but keep its historic design.
“This is the most historic, beautiful bridge in New Haven, right?” city economic development chief Michael Piscitelli asked the crowd on Friday, to cheers.
The party was an idea generated by the surrounding neighborhoods to strengthen communication between the city and neighbors and businesses affected by the bridge replacement. Piscitelli predicted this process will proceed more smoothly than the six-year Ferry Street Bridge replacement.
Singers Thabisa Rich and Isabella Mendes Lira warmed up the crowd with a wishful rendition of the jazz standard “Summertime,” while Alexis Robbins tap-danced to the beat. The three then cleared the stage for the team behind the bridge and party planning, including artist and now block party consultant Luciana McClure.
Mayor Justin Elicker and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn followed Piscitelli with minute-long speeches on the reasons for the party while holding bundled-up children.
“The two sides of the bridge, Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights, will be apart physically but together in spirit,” Elicker said.
“We will be back to celebrate the bridge reopening in very late 2021 or very early 2022,” Zinn said.
After the speeches, Fair Haven organizer Lee Cruz led a handful of attendees on a walking history lesson of the bridge and its surroundings. He often leads longer tours of the neighborhood and organizes Fair Haven-based events like Fourth of July fireworks viewings through the Chatham Square Association.
“The bridge is pretty much the same one that was built in 1927. It will not be when they finish, because they have to replace so many parts,” Cruz said.
He said that the original bridge had wooden pieces that people had to pick up to let boats pass. He picked a yacht club and oyster business out of the night next to the river. Only one side of the river is deep enough for boats, he explained. The other side is where oyster farming happens.
A staircase in the middle of the Grand Avenue Bridge leads up to a small cabin, where bridge operators watch for boats in 12-hour shifts. Cruz explained that Grand Avenue, Ferry Street, and the Mill River each have different kinds of operable bridges; the Grand Avenue Bridge rotates and opens.
Cruz varied between the history of more recent real estate developments and early Fair Haven history. Fair Haven was once called “Dragon”, after English sailors seeing seals there for the first time. Business people renamed the district in 1824.
“The business people thought if you want to develop an area, Dragon is not the most conducive name,” Cruz noted.
In the last landmark on the tour, Cruz gathered his listeners around a signpost that the Chatham Square Association installed with contributions from local businesses. The sign displays a route from the Grand Avenue to the Ferry Street bridge and around Fair Haven. It’s part of an initiative to increase safety and health in the neighborhood, with help from the Yale School of Public Health.
“The neighborhood would be safer if more people walked, and people would be healthier if they walked more,” he said.
This is why the bridge closure “kind of bums me out,” Cruz said after the tour. Closing the bridge cuts off part of the loop, a path he walks frequently.
Meanwhile, neighbor and outdoorsman Chris Ozyck was feeding two fire pits as his contribution to the festivities.
“I knew it would be cold. Fire brings everyone together. The kids will remember it forever -– the time we made s’mores on the bridge,” Ozyck said.
Ozyck brought three bags of marshmallows; they were all gone in an hour. His wife Rosemary was in charge during the frenzy.
“That was brutal. I will never man the s’mores table again,” she said.
“It was like they never had food before,” Ozyck joked.
The Ozycs’s friends, Joana and Michael Martinez (pictured), were enjoying the party, knowing that the bridge closure would affect how they get to work and how their kids get to East Rock School.
“I’m pretty stressed about the bridge closure, but the party is fun,” Michael Martinez said.
Fair Haven Heights neighbor Tracy Blanford had drawn her friend Nancy Dittes out to Grand Avenue. Both relaxed by the fire pits.
Tracy Blanford and Nancy Dittes
“I think it’s good of the city to try to do something for the neighborhoods affected. It’s going to be a pain in the ass,” Blanford said.
“I guess so is falling in the river,” Dittes pointed out.
Behind the two women, Chris Ozyck started setting up a test of Elicker’s statement about the closeness of the bridge’s two sides: a tug of war between Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights.
The Fair Haven side …
Neighbors piled onto each side as they noticed their side losing ground. After a few minutes and despite some major muscle on the Fair Haven side, the greater number of Fair Haven Heights neighbors won the challenge.
… and the winning team, Fair Haven Heights.
The challenge for the city is not how to keep the Fair Haven-Fair Haven Heights friendship alive, but how to help keep the businesses that rely on those connections afloat. The party was the first step in business and marketing assistance the city has offered those businesses.
“We’re just making sure those businesses aren’t forgotten,” said city economic development officer Carlos Eyzaguirre (above, with his daughter Edith), who is managing the business side of the bridge project.
The planning for the party began in the fall, along with the bridge-closure planning. New Haven Festival, Inc. funded the event, which Eyzaguirre said cost under $10,000. The city paid in staff hours. The overall budget for the bridge replacement is projected to cost $23.2 million, with a mixture of city and state funding.
Luciana McClure (above) was the main brains behind the party. The city hired the Hamden photographer-feminist as a part-time consultant in the fall. For McClure, the draw was the chance to learn more about the neighborhood and the importance of its old, family-owned businesses.
“First, I was going to do vendors from all over. I realized, no, it should be mostly businesses from here,” she said.
She loved that the event had so many attendees — 300 to 500, she estimated. Some were familiar faces. Some were just crossing the bridge and stayed.
The Grand Avenue Bridge closure may make work easier for one business: Copps Island Oysters. The company harvests clams and oysters along the Quinnipiac River and has plans to expand its facility.
Copps Island Oysters gave away free oysters during the party. The amount of red tape to sell them was not worth it, so the company just got a temporary health license, according to manager and clamboat captain Patty King.
Professional shucker Rachel Precious (pictured above) showed attendees how to eat the shellfish.
The company piles empty shells near the bridge to let them dry out before planting them in July as homes for baby oysters to grow on. That pile has existed in some form since the 1800s, King said.
“Now we use heavy equipment to carry the shells instead of horses,” she joked.
King said that boats will still be allowed to cross under the bridge. The only inconvenience to the company is that they have to move some of the baby oysters already planted in the water.
Copps Island Oysters manager Patty King (left) and professional shucker Rachel Precious.
Partygoers came up to the tent to ask questions about the company. Attendee Emily Sigman was surprised and thrilled that the oysters were free.
“This is like heaven,” she said.
Sigman was also an enthusiastic participant in the city’s poll of which color to paint the new bridge. The city is allowing voters to rank their top choices by April on physical ballots at the businesses next to the bridge.
“I’m very excited to cast my ranked-choice vote. I love ranked-choice voting. I wish we had that on the national level,” she said.
Sigman said she definitely does not want the bridge to be brown. She has a slight preference for green but would be happy with blue. Ranked-choice voting offers that kind of nuance, she explained.
“Otherwise, you might end up with a color that’s really objectionable to a lot of people,” Sigman said.
Singer Thabisa Rich purchases wine from Ben Tortora of Grand Vin.
Sigman cast her ballot at Grand Vin. Shop owner and wine merchant Ben Tortora eyed the customers lingering in his store the last minutes before closing.
Tortora said that the event brought in new business, but he is more worried about his regulars who encountered a temporarily closed bridge this afternoon.
“My only concern is my clients were probably slighted by it,” he said.
Tortora has lost a large chunk of his regular customers before during sidewalk repairs in 2011. Those regulars never returned, he said, and he is worried about whether he will even be able to stay in businesses without the bridge. He already knows that he is going to lose a dozen customers a day without the foot traffic.
“I know the city has no choice,” he said.
Poreyah Benton was cheerier as the owner of New Haven’s first vegan food truck, Vegan Ahava. She stations her truck at Elm and College Street Tuesdays through Saturdays, so her business will not be impacted by the bridge closure.
Benton opened her truck three months ago; this was her second big event. In the truck with her were her friends and event team, Elai Scott and Jalita Manning. Scott grew up in the same community in Israel as Benton. Manning and Benton went to culinary school together.
Manning plans to launch a bakery business in the future. Scott and Benton listed dessert after dessert that Manning makes better than anyone, they said: the best pineapple cake, the best banana pudding, the best peach cobbler …
Friday night, the three women served vegan “chicken” with three sauce options, tofu sandwiches and fries. Customers were surprised that the faux-chicken was not real meat.
“They were buying. They came back for seconds,” Benton recounted.
With the last customers headed home, Benton was ready to eat her first meal of the day. Still, she offered half of her sandwich to this reporter to taste. (The reporter declined.)
At 8 p.m, the goodbye celebration was over. City staff worked quickly to pack up the stage as rain misted the empty bridge.