Ice The Beef’s Home Wrecked After Ida

Hurricane Ida wiped out seven years worth of belongings at the home of the Ice the Beef anti-violence youth group. Now the group is scrambling to get back in and ​“save lives” again.

It’s not clear what that plan will look like in the future.

Ice the Beef has been based out of the Youth and Recreation’s field house building in Goffe Street Park since 2014. The group used the space for programming, meetings, hanging out, and to improve their talents in activities like singing, dancing, and public speaking, all with an aim toward enlisting young people in stopping street violence in New Haven.

Last fall the group vacated the building due to Covid safety precautions and reverted to remote gatherings. Since the switch to remote, the program’s participants have become less active, said Ice The Beef Youth President Manuel Camacho.

The group planned to return to the building in-person this fall.

Now, due to the weather damages and outdated building parts, it can’t. City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said he is working on renovation plans to the building to come in the near future.

But it’s not clear that Ice the Beef will continue to have similar access like in the past to the reopened building that was once its headquarters. The city’s youth department has other plans in the works for the building. Those plan will indeed include space for a wide range of activities for young people, and that can include Ice the Beef, according to city Director of Youth and Recreation Gwendolyn Busch Williams.

Once renovations are complete, Busch Williams said, the building will become the permanent home of the department’s Youth Connect Program to meet an increasing demand for youth programming.

“We still do plan to allow community organizations to use the building after going through the necessary permitting process,” she said. ​“We can’t do this by ourselves; we are not an island.”

Busch Williams said no formal agreement was recorded between the department and Ice the Beef in the past. She would like to establish one in the future for use of the building.

“We do not want to negate any of their work. But we also have to make sure there is a permit process that is followed to allow us to be fair and equitable,” she said.

Busch Williams added that she has received no communication from Ice the Beef about the program’s concerns about returning to the building.

“So Many Lives Saved In This Place”

Ice the Beef President Chaz Carmon said he worries that the changes in the buildings use could limit the program’s anti-violence work.

“There have been so many lives saved in this place,” he said. He said Ice the Beef has involved students in social justice work, performing arts, music, and sports.

When the pandemic hit, students were let down by schools closing, sports ending, and performances getting canceled, Carmon said.

“Now after getting through all that, they have to be let down again because everything we had is gone. I haven’t even told some of them,” he said.

The building’s bookcases filled with Black literature, a drum set, piano, microphones, theater costumes and props were the only access some Ice the Beef participants had to books and instruments to practice with daily, Carmon said. It was also a place where they could discover new interests judgement-free, Camacho added.

For six days a week for the past seven years Ice the Beef youth could depend on going to the field house building for a safe space to engage with peers and discover or improve on personal interests like making art, dancing, and event organizing, Carmon said.

Over the past years, it wasn’t uncommon for Carmon to deal with minor floods of water into the building. He would most often get a broom and brush the water out once the rain stopped. ​“This time, because we weren’t able to be here, the water just stayed and damaged everything,” he said.

The program has lost its drum set, piano, keyboards, microphones, memorabilia, games, wardrobes, and rally posters due to the water damage caused by the heavy rains of Hurricane Ida. All of which were paid for out of pocket by the program. ​“It’s like the last blow,” Carmon said.

The piano was purchased for the programs teen doo-wop group, Kompozure. The drum set was purchased for a group of other students to create a band. The keyboards were purchased for students who dreamed of making music.

The long-term water damage caused mold to grow underneath the group’s hand-built stage made of wood.

The group also lost several memories of former Ice the Beef member Tyrick ​“Reese” Keyes, who was killed at 14 from gun violence in 2017.

“I will put money in by all means necessary,” Carmon said about replacing the damaged Ice the Beef materials.

“We’re saving kids’ lives and these kids need attention now more than ever,” Carmon said. 

Carmon is hopeful that after the renovations the program can resume use of the building again in some capacity to offer more kids a safe space to interact with their peers. ​“There were less shootings and fights when our program was up and running in the building,” Carmon said.

The repairs and changes to the building will be part of an ongoing broader upgrading of Goffe Street Park. Ice the Beef worked alongside city Coordinator of Community Recreation Felicia Shashinka, Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks, State Rep. Toni Walker, and city Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Bombero to obtain more than $200,000 of renovation grant funds for the park from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). So far the DEEP money has been used for a splash pad, picnic tables, grills, and updated playground equipment.

Next Zinn plans to focus on the field house building upgrades. As it turns out, just before the start of the pandemic, Ice the Beef and Yale Architecture School students sat down with Zinn to help create a redesign of the building.

Renovations of the building will take about two to three months, Zinn estimated. Then the field house building will have a studio, built-in stage, stage lighting, and updated HVAC system. Zinn also plans to remove one of two roof trusses to allow for a taller ceiling in the building’s central area. The city has set aside capital to renovate the building after using all of the DEEP grant funds for the outdoor upgrades.

“We want the youth to be able to go into a space that is immediately uplifting,” Zinn said.

The youth department is working on kicking off a year-round youth employment program this November. It is considering using the field house for future events like its annual toy giveaway in December.

The pandemic paused maintenance to all of Youth and Rec’s buildings, Busch Williams said.

“This Building Made Me Who I Am”

Current Ice the Beef Youth President Camacho met Carmon for the first time when Camacho was in seventh grade. Now Camacho is a junior at Hillhouse High School.

The first day Camacho visited the building as a seventh grader. he recalled seeing dozens of teens playing cards, on the stage practicing dance routines, singing, playing piano, and at tables writing and drawing.

​“It was a comfortable place where we were able to let our guards down,” Camacho said. ​“We all would have one hundred and one problems occurring in our lives, but we all agreed that none of our problems, none of our stress followed us into that building.”

As he got more involved and began attending Hillhouse, Camacho became a regular at the building. He began helping others create signs, do mock trials and debates, and plan events.

Camacho went from being ​“shy” and ​“having stage fright” to discovering a passion for public speaking. He would often be found practicing his speaking on the black wooden stage in front of friends.

“I started with just speaking in front of three people. Then moved up to five to seven. Then I found myself talking in front of all 25 to 30 teens that would be there every day,” he said.