Paul Bass Photo
The celebrated United States Navy Band wanted to sleep in New Haven. That wasn’t good enough for Andy Wolf: He wanted them to perform here, too.
A band representative contacted Wolf (pictured), New Haven’s cultural affairs director and unofficial idea-a-minute fountain, to ask for help in parking the touring band’s buses. The band planned to stayed at New Haven’s Omni while performing in other Northeast cities during a March tour.
“Excuse me,” Wolf interjected. “But why aren’t you playing here?”
Wolf made some calls, and soon the band — which had bypassed New Haven because the city hadn’t entered a lottery five years ago to win a spot on the patriotic-themed tour — added a date: It will perform March 12 at Woolsey Hall.
Wolf made more calls, arranging for 10 New Haven high school musicians — five from the city, five from the ‘burbs — to suit up and perform with the band. He noted the 175h anniversary being marked days earlier of New Haven’s famous Amistad civil rights trial; the performance will include a tribute to that great moment of American patriotism. And he set up an online page for people to reserve free tickets (expected to be linked here on Friday).
That’s how Andy Wolf rolls: seizing on opportunities, hatching new ideas, bringing disparate parts of New Haven together in shared cultural celebration, and spending little if any public dough in the process.
Wolf Monday talked about the upcoming Navy Band performance and other new city cultural initiatives during an appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”
Including the culture of relief: Wolf said he’s ready to launch a design competition for three new (and free) loos the city hopes to install downtown so New Haven’s 1.4 million visitors don’t need to duck into restaurants pleading to use the restroom.
“We want to be a good host,” he said.
Wolf first unveiled the bathroom project and argued its merits in this earlier WNHH interview. Since then, city staff have researched the viability of different designs. Portland, Oregon, for instance, chose a “steel, utilitarian, high-tech” look, Wolf said; Paris went for “circular gazebos.” In conjunction with the city’s 378 birthday celebration in April, Wolf hopes to announce the design competition to arrive at New Haven’s preferred look, with a possible $10,000 prize.
Wolf instituted the annual celebration of the city’s birthday after Mayor Toni Harp named him to the culture job. Last year’s celebration featured a tribute to Fred Parris of the Five Satins along with the planting of trees. This year Wolf’s cooking up three performances representing three cultural corners of the city: a homeless men and women’s musical act; a seniors chorus from Tower One/Tower East; and Yale’s jazz ensemble.
Wolf also brought together different groups in town to work out a plan to rescue the John Slade Ely House form a threatened sale by a trustee bank, and creating a new home for the Educational Center for the Arts’ visual arts program while preserving space for local artists. (Read more about that deal here.)
Click on or download the above sound file to hear Wolf discuss all those plans as well as his personal cultural jaunts of late on the full episode of “Dateline New Haven.” Or subscribe to WNHH’s new podcast “Dateline New Haven,” where episodes of the show will be delivered directly to your phone or smart device. (Click here for details on how to subscribe.)
Today’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in part through support from Yale-New Haven Hospital.