She Wore A Fuchsia Boa

The Queen of Wooster Square is gone.

Beverly Carbonella passed away May 18, at 8:15 PM, surrounded by her children and close friends.

President of the Historic Wooster Square Association, co-founded, with Luisa DeLauro, the Annual Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival, now in its 42nd consecutive year, Beverly was an ardent, personable, elegant, supremely civilized, charming, vital force of nature. She lived a block away, in a town-home filled with paintings, books, photographs of her children and her friends, a six-foot bust of George Washington and the sparkle of her exuberance, generously shared with anyone invited to enter her home and enjoy a glass of chilled white wine, quite dry, her favorite.

We neighbors saw her exit her impeccable home, impeccably dressed, impeccably coiffed, with just the right hat set at a jaunty angle to go shopping, visiting, and just showing how to live life: simply, generously, truthfully.

Beverly was the first person I met when I discovered Court Street in the summer of 1970. I told her that I was looking to rent on the street, and she gave me good advice. I was so impressed by her friendliness and warmth that I knew I wanted to live in this neighborhood if people like Beverly lived there. End of story.
—Neighbor Joe Dzeda

There are the classic anecdotes like her tying or wiring fake blossoms to the new cherry trees for the first ​“festival” and the one about her mother-in-law crying to her son that they’d worked all of their lives to get out of this slum, i.e., Wooster Square. She was really unique and special.
—Neighbor Charlie Murphy

Life is fleeting.

I last saw Beverly in blushing looks, in vibrant good health, hat at its jaunty angle, on April 26. Twenty-two days later, she stepped into history.

Beverly was at ​“her” festival, along with Luisa DeLauro, who was honored with the Friend of Wooster Square Award, given in recognition to people who have loved, protected and developed the grand old neighborhood, so rich in New Haven history.

Beverly herself had received the coveted Friend of Wooster Square Award on the historic 40th iteration of the festival (pictured at the top of the story), which she inaugurated by riding around Wooster Square in New Haven Fire Department Pumper 4, the fabled 4, and was escorted to open festivities by a burly squad of broadly grinning New Haven’s Bravest.

She loved it.

She wore a fuchsia boa.

She loved it. So did we.

The two titans of New Haven history were present at Festival 42, together again, and now one is gone into memory, but a memory that will play out to anyone who walks in this gem of a park, the Jewel in the Crown of all New Haven Parks.

Beverly will always return, with the cherry blossoms in the spring, with the brilliant colors in the fall, with the silence of winter, with the lushness of a Connecticut Summer, captured in a six-acre park, beloved by her, and all her neighbors.

There are many urban legends that accrue to Ms. Carbonella, like the time she wired the bare Yoshino Cherries with artificial bloom at the very first Cherry Blossomless Festival 42 years ago.

This legend is true.

The legend that white wine drunk in company with Beverly Carbonella turned into champagne is not true.

It just felt that way.


Beverly Carbonella’s funeral is scheduled for this Saturday, May 30, at St. Michael’s Church On Wooster Street. Click here to read more about her life in an obituary, including how she served in the 1960s as fashion director at Malley’s.