Beaver Hills | Culture & Community | Arts & Culture | Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills
Top: Dexter Singleton and his wife, Erin (at right) with neighbor Hana Ali. Bottom: City Clerk Michael Smart, Perri Albert, Lori Levin, Alder Gary Hogan, Alder Mandy Martinelli, Alder Brian Wingate, and Rick Albert. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Ainissa Ramirez looked over Glen Road, marveling at the dozens of faces that looked back at her. On one end of the street, peals of laughter rose from a bounce house that had materialized close to the closed-off intersection. On the other, giggles flowed between a blanket set out for storytime and rows of orange traffic cones waiting for young cyclists. Musical hugs and hellos seemed to multiply down the block.
“Can you turn to your right, and say, ‘Hi, neighbor?’” Ramirez asked. A chorus of voices filled the street, tentative at first, and then warmer with each word. “Okay, turn to you left, and say, ‘Hi, neighbor!’” More voices rose over the pavement, floating over freshly-mowed laws and rows of blue and violet hydrangea bushes. Ramirez smiled. “This is all that we’re trying to do.”
Sunday afternoon, that sense of community was at the heart of the fifth annual Beaver Hills Block Party, a sun-soaked and music-filled celebration of one of New Haven’s most racially and socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods. Organized by Ramirez and Alder Brian Wingate along the upper end of Glen Road, the party grew out of a desire to get neighbors talking to each other after the Covid-19 pandemic, when social isolation felt like it was at an all-time high.
Read about previous years here, here, here, and here.
Top: Chelsea Brown, who grew up in the neighborhood and returned with her 4-year-old daughter for Sunday's party. "We had all different kinds of friends," she remembered of her childhood in the neighborhood. It gave her a sense of the diversity she wanted to be surrounded with from a young age, a fundamental value that she now hopes to pass on to her daughter. Bottom: Children's librarian Sarah Quigley, who has become a celebrity at the Mitchell Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library, reads to kids during the party.
“This block party was born so people could get to know each other,” said Ramirez, a self-described "science evangelist" and children’s book author who moved to Ella T. Grasso Boulevard in 2005, but struggled to meet her neighbors for over a decade. “I’m introverted, and I don’t have kids, so I was like, ‘How do we meet people?’ We throw a party.’”
“It’s going great,” added Wingate, taking time to marvel at how quickly his 8-year-old grandson, Tre’mir Woods, got a hang of riding his bike up and down the block with the help of the New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation (NCAT). “We’ve got all of our constituents out, and that’s what it’s all about. I don’t care what ethnicity you are, we want to bring people together.”
Part of that desire springs from the diversity of Beaver Hills itself, a kind of suburban-urban neighborhood that has been changing since the first half of the twentieth century. While it comprises a relatively small constellation of blocks—the neighborhood is sandwiched by Whalley Avenue and Crescent Street on two sides, and Sherman Avenue and Fitch Street on the others—Beaver Hills can feel like multiple universes all moving around, and only sometimes in sync with, each other.
For decades, it has been home to generations-deep Black and Caribbean American families, retired peaceniks (and very active ones; we see you Millie Grenough and Paul Bloom), old hippies and eco-conscious aunties whose gardens are enough to make a person swoon (thank you Peter Blasini and Nan Bartow), a growing Chabad-Lubavitcher community, and young families from all backgrounds, including those fleeing cities like New York for more space.
Top: Robert and Sandra Gibson, who live nearby on Colony Road and have become champions of NXTHVN in the community since the Henry Street arts incubator opened its first studio wing in 2019. Robert is a retired educator who taught for years at James Hillhouse High School; Sandra is currently the director of community engagement at NXTHVN. "After all these years that NXTHVN has been in existence, people still don't know what it is or where it is," Robert said. The two, at the block party for the second year in a row, hoped to change that. Bottom: Tre'mir Woods.
It is—at least to this reporter, who lives in and adores the neighborhood—a weird and beautiful and totally unique and sometimes surprisingly tense part of the city. To me, it feels like Crown Heights, if Crown Heights had room to breathe, but still harbored some of the same heaviness and long-held misconceptions that bubble up in Fires In The Mirror. Other times, it’s the kind of place where you want your neighbors to live forever, because they are such fundamentally good people.
Surely, there is no other place within New Haven’s 18.7 square miles where you can, in under a week, find a hickory-scented Knicks watch party, dance along enthusiastically to a high school marching band, vanquish mugwort with three generations of neighbors, and get that last-minute Shehecheyanu you didn’t even know you needed.
Sunday, that diversity was on full display, laughter mingling with the smell of fried fish from a station where Ms. Betty Alford was hard at work. Beneath a tent, Alford—who has fed thousands of students through her work as a lead cook at the Truman School, including during the Covid-19 pandemic—was rarely still, her hands doing a delicate, well-practiced ballet as she buzzed between large aluminum containers, turning out golden, crisped fish. Two tents over, Tanisha Hill was back for the second year in a row, serving up scoops of gem-colored Italian ice from Libby’s.
Tanisha Hill: Really good to be back.
“It feels really good” to be back, Hill said as she half-danced to The Marvelettes’ “Mr. Postman,” adding that business has been booming. A year ago, Hill launched her Italian ice cart at the block party, after taking an entrepreneurial leap of faith; she has since added Okra Water vending to her work. As a neighbor—she leaves a few blocks away on Ellsworth Avenue—she couldn’t imagine being there without her sweet treats.
“Today is all about unity in the community,” she said as she doled out a generous scoop of cherry Italian ice for Melek Ben Yehudah, then added a second cup of lemon for his mom, “Breaking Bread” founder, storyteller and culinary artist Shayla Streeter. Streeter, who grew up on Diamond Street, heard about the Block Party from Bellevue Road neighbor Nancy Yedlin, whose husband Peter is responsible for one of those aforementioned swoon-worthy gardens. Ben Yehudah, who was in town just for the weekend, didn’t want to miss it either.
“It was beautiful!” Streeter reminisced of growing up in the neighborhood. “It’s like a return.”
Watching his eldest son, Xavier, zip smoothly through a set of orange traffic cones at a station from NCAT, Roydon Road resident Dexter Singleton said that he’s grateful for a space where neighbors can both reconnect and get to know each other for the first time. As the founder of Collective Consciousness Theatre, a longtime resident and a parent in the neighborhood, he and his wife Erin often see neighbors out and about all the time—but they are rarely afforded the time and space to stop and say hello.
“It’s the one time of year that gives an opportunity for all of the neighborhood to come together,” he said. Within seconds, the words were coming to life, as neighbor Hana Ali waved from down the block, and he drifted over to say hello.
Nearby, Beaver Hills newcomer and artist Chana crouched down to play with her young daughter, soaking it all in. After moving to Connecticut in 2012, she bounced around, from Goffe Street to Stamford to Hamden and back to New Haven just a few weeks ago. Since her family moved into their Beaver Hills home, she said, neighbors have been extremely welcoming, many coming by just to say hello and introduce themselves. The block party felt like an extension of that.
As both an artist—she has exhibited at Beth El-Keser Israel and the Florence Griswold Museum, and has a studio at Erector Square—and a mom, she also lauded the number of resources available to her and her children. In addition to NCAT, which is a volunteer-led organization, Sunday’s block party included stations from MakeHaven, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. the anti-blight Livable City Initiative, 104.3 WYBC, NXTHVN, the New Haven Peace Commission and the New Haven Free Public Library among others.
“It’s really nice to have an interface between multiple communities who live here,” she said.
Top: A family reunion in full force. Bottom: Lauren Anderson with Sheri Richards.
Down the street, Janet Jones and Sheinea Doram made their way to a covered picnic table where a family reunion was well underway, with nearly a dozen Jones, Doram, and DeWitt family members who have called the neighborhood home for decades. Jones, who is Doram’s aunt, recalled living in Beaver Hills for two decades, after she made the move from Minnesota.
At the time, she was moving to the area for family and for work. But like many residents, she fell in love with the neighborhood, and never left. She still lives on Winthrop Avenue, just half a mile or so from where the block party was unfolding.
“I really think it’s the neighbors,” Doram said when asked what makes the neighborhood special to her. “Everyone is so thoughtful and caring.”
Her mother, Roydon Road resident Patricia DeWitt, agreed. In 1986, DeWitt made the move from Davenport Avenue, because she wanted her daughter to grow up in a safe home surrounded by family. Forty years later, she’s still so happy she did.
“I love the neighborhood,” she said. “I think it’s the camaraderie of the neighbors. We look out for each other—sometimes without even knowing each other.”
Top: Ms. Betty Alford with her now-legendary fish. Bottom: Shayla Streeter and her son, Melek Ben Yehudah (at the right) with Rick Albert, Hana Ali and Jane Bonner. Bonner praised the party for its focus on diverse, intergenerational community.
She remembered a recent interaction with neighbors who are new to the neighborhood, and part of Beaver Hills’ growing Chabad community. One weekend, she noticed that their garage door was wide open, and called them to make sure everything was okay.
Because it was Shabbat—for Jewish people, that period is sundown Friday through sundown Saturday—her neighbors didn’t get the message until the following day. But they were so grateful that they brought over a fresh loaf of challah. They still check in with each other all the time, whether it’s just to say a quick hello or trade notes on a recent skunk problem on the block.
“It’s almost like it’s a family affair,” she said of the block party.
And it was. As midday bloomed into early afternoon, librarian Sarah Quigley embarked on three hours of storytime, inviting kids of all ages to sit as she read. Across Glen, Possible Futures Founder Lauren Anderson greeted families with a table stacked with free books. At the other end of the street, Dee Brito transformed neighborhood kids into tigers, unicorn, and all manner of cats through the magic of face paint.
Top: Manny James Sorrells with Joy and Jackson. Bottom: Jonaily Colon, Patricio Sosa, and Zohair Syed repping the Yale Peabody Museum.
Beneath a tent that kept the sun off of him, DJ Tootskee (a.k.a. Beaver Hills neighbor James Chapman, whose wife Tammy runs Little Sisters Farm and works as the program coordinator for the College of Health and Human Services at Southern Connecticut State University) turned to Prince Royce’s cover of “Stand By Me,” and it was hard not to want to grab a pair of claves and dance some bachata mid-conversation.
Musician Manny James Sorrells, who later graced attendees with a live performance, echoed that sense of belonging. Four years ago, he and his wife moved to the neighborhood from Meriden, and fell in love with it. They currently live on Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, where he runs before work almost every day.
While it’s a different part of town, it reminds Sorrells of his roots growing up in Church Street South, where neighbors were always there if you needed something.
“What I loved most about it was that it was really truly a community that looked out for each other,” lifting up his children Jackson and Joy for a photo. “If we were still all like that, the world would be a better place.”