Westville

Nail Art Goes To Space

by | Apr 11, 2025 9:40 am | Comments (1)

Abbey Kim photo

Aria Banks and her dad, Phil.

Six-year-old Aria Banks carefully applied navy blue polish to her fingernails before going back in with white accents, creating a tiny galaxy complete with an astronaut on her thumb.

She was one of more than 50 attendees at the Nail Art Workshop on Wednesday afternoon at Mitchell Library, the Westville branch of the New Haven Free Public Library at 37 Harrison St. Kids of all genders and as young as 2 years old showed up to paint with parents in tow.

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Ribbon Cut On Indoor Pickleball Courts

by | Mar 25, 2025 12:58 pm | Comments (14)

Thomas Breen photos

Human pickleballers, including Mayor Elicker (right), indoors ...

... and mural-depicted pups outdoors, at Westville's Pickleville CT.

Mayor Justin Elicker rolled up the sleeves on his collared shirt, didn’t loosen his tie, readied his paddle, and then chased and swung at a yellow perforated plastic ball — to help celebrate the ribbon cutting of the city’s first indoor pickleball courts.

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Miami Comes To Westville

by | Mar 18, 2025 9:22 am | Comments (0)

Gallery co-owner Inger DaSilva, art framers Jonathan Peterson and Libby Boyd, and gallery co-owner Gabe DaSilva.

Miami is Coming to New Haven
DaSilva Gallery
Through March 25

At Miami is Coming to New Haven, the current group show at DaSilva Gallery & Frame Shop in Westville, you can tell the pieces are full of stories, seeming to whisper among each other about who will get your ear, your eye, first.

You can also tell the show is in a working frame shop and busy gallery, with the active energy of a system that never stops.

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Pop-Up Film Series Premieres in Westville

by | Mar 13, 2025 1:55 pm | Comments (2)

Karen Ponzio Photo

The Neighborhood Watch Party Committtee: Travis Carbonella, Lizzy Donius, Noe Jimenez.

While the conversation about needing a new movie theater in New Haven continues ad infinitum, three Westville friends have been busy converting a beloved neighborhood space into a temporary theater to help bridge the gap left by the closing of the Criterion and to foster community by gathering and watching a film together on a big screen. 

Their project, Pop-Up Cinema, presented by The Neighborhood Watch Party, screened its inaugural film in its newest series at Lotta Studios Wednesday night, the first of six different films that will be shown over the next seven days.

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Rawa Serves Up Turkish Tunes

by | Mar 6, 2025 10:41 am | Comments (0)

Using levers to get exactly the right note.

Jisu Sheen photos

Umut Yasmut brings the kanun to RAWA, all the way from New York.

As Umut Yasmut filled the dining area of Westville’s Mediterranean and Middle Eastern fusion restaurant RAWA with cascading melodies, the New York musician said that his instrument, an intricately carved stringed creation, did not exist.

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What Do You Do After School? Math!

by | Jan 31, 2025 9:54 am | Comments (4)

Maya McFadden pHoto

Seventh grader Laila Washington: "You get to learn a lot" at Math Counts.

Sohan Bendre (right) refreshes students on what a variable is.

If you write out the numbers from 1 to 1,000, how many times will you write the number seven? 

That question was posed to a group of 6 – 8th graders at Edgewood School — who had shown up to a voluntary after-school program for students interested in further developing their math skills.

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Can't Sell Soda. Can Sell Cigarettes

by | Jan 21, 2025 4:33 pm | Comments (14)

Thomas Breen photos

Sodas and energy drinks, not allowed ...

... cigarettes and vaping products, still allowed, at 864 Whalley.

A Not For Sale” sign remains taped to the top of a beverage case filled with Monster energy drinks, Powerade and Diet Coke at the Grab n’ Go Market in Westville Village — where city zoners recently rejected Mohammed Ababneh’s bid to sell soda and prepackaged food in addition to vaping products and cigarettes.

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Artists Have The Magic Touch

by | Jan 14, 2025 9:30 am | Comments (0)

The tower is made of small wooden pieces. But as assembled on the floor of Kehler Liddell Gallery, it echoes natural forms, created by ants or bees. Not far away, an abstract piece reveals itself to involve not just pigment, but mirrors, so that the piece changes from every angle you look at it. Not far away, a small sculpture of a figurine in a sled is made, partly, from the shape of a gas mask. 

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Kehler Liddell Paints Holiday Hues

by | Dec 4, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (0)

Craig Frederick

Breath.

Craig Frederick’s Breath looks lighter than its materials. If it were a sea creature, it appears like it could be spiraling through the water. If it were in flight, it could seem like it was made of paper, corkscrewing through the air. It makes space for itself in the gallery, as if it’s just passing through, and we happen to be there when it stops for a minute.

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Best Video, Lyric Hall Pair Up For Film Series

by | Nov 27, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (15)

Karen Ponzio Photos

Best Video's Rai Bruton, with Lyric Hall's John Cavaliere: “Places like this and Best Video will only last if we work together.”

Lyric Hall Theater came full circle on Tuesday night as the beloved Westville venue partnered with Best Video for the first night of its new monthly film series for New Haven movie fans. 

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West Siders Press Pols On Car Theft Quandary

by | Nov 14, 2024 3:21 pm | Comments (41)

Allan Appel Photo

Sen. Winfield (right), with Alder Marx: "Most of the kids are not repeating and do not belong in jail."

A chronically under-staffed police department 90 officers short meets a national post-pandemic rash of juvenile vandalism, car thefts and life-threatening joy riding that makes everyone feel unsafe.

That perfect storm” for policing that has arrived in New Haven was analyzed in a crime and safety-focused Westville-West Hills Community Management team meeting Wednesday night.

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New Haven Picklers Can Now "Dink" Indoors

by | Oct 25, 2024 1:48 pm | Comments (10)

Thomas Breen photo

Welcome to Picklville CT ...

Lisa Reisman photo

... at the intersection of Valley & Blake in Westville.

On a recent afternoon at Pickleville CT, the new Westville indoor pickleball facility along Blake Street and Valley Street near Whalley Avenue, Winny Sanchez was dinking” for the first time in her life. 

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Artists Look Through The Glass

by | Oct 22, 2024 9:57 am | Comments (0)

Eddie Hall

Contuse and Reflex.

Eddie Hall’s artwork at first glance comes across as a high-gloss study of bold geometric shapes, akin to the forms produced by fiber artists or, in some cases, older video games. But the reflective surfaces also give something away: look again and you see that the glass isn’t in front of the canvas; it is the canvas, and part of it is transparent, revealing the wall behind it. Even bolder, sometimes the surface is a mirror. Stand in front of it, and you become part of the image.

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Printmaker Rides The Highs And Lows

by | Oct 16, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (0)

Allan Greenier

Untitled (Karloff).

It’s a transfixing stare, made more intense by the medium. A woodcut hearkens back to an earlier time — and, in German Expressionism, an earlier mode of expressing anxiety. But Allan Greenier’s much more modern piece makes a strong case for the old medium’s abiding ability to create arresting art. He also gives it an interesting spin, in that the face in the picture is that of Boris Karloff, best known as the monster in 1931’s Frankenstein.

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