Culture & Community | East Rock | Music | Arts & Culture
Kudzu Queen (Terron the Light, Jess Jones and Andrew Agraves). Lucy Gellman Photos.
Jess Jones was just one verse into “Cricket Night” when she reached out to touch Terron The Light, and burst into a half-sob, half-giggle on the harmony. He paused for a moment, panic on his face, and then relaxed just as quickly. In the space, his gentle falsetto was still a recent memory. Jones tried to continue, and paused to laugh-cry again.
“That was just beautiful,” she said and something caught in her throat. More cheers came from the crowd. “I’m overwhelmed by the beauty.”
Kudzu Queen brought that sound—and a gratitude that became infectious—to Lawrence Street Thursday night, during the second iteration of “Thursdays at the Plaza.” Held on Lawrence Street between State and Mechanic Streets, the plaza is a one-month pilot aimed at activating the space and calming traffic in the area.
It runs through September 30, with live music and pizza each Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m.
“I feel a little blown away by it,” said East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, who lives on Lawrence Street with her partner, Meghan Baker. “My favorite part looking out here is how many individuals here touched it in some way and made it possible. That was my favorite part—working with a group of people who live nearby, to say, ‘Okay, what do we want to see in our neighborhood?’”
The plaza grew out of months of neighborhood input and community collaboration. After her election to the city’s Board of Alders last November, Smith began hearing from neighbors who were concerned about the speed of cars on Lawrence Street, which is densely populated and includes a church, both single- and multi-family homes, part of a restaurant, and several families with young kids.
In particular, neighbors worried about the speed of cars, which ripped onto Lawrence from State Street and rarely slowed down. Parents spoke about their kids, who sometimes walked to school or were waiting for the bus as cars zoomed past. Some nodded to camera footage that showed vehicles flying past their homes well above the speed limit. Others worried about the safety of cyclists, like one who was hit on Lawrence and Orange Streets in 2022.
“You know, we have a lot of tools in our toolbox—things like speed bumps, stop signs—but something that we really have is the ability to activate and pedestrianize our streets and open them up to people,” Smith said.
Those concerns were right on time, if not overdue. In the past decade, almost 3,000 Connecticut residents have died in motor vehicle related accidents, and over 14,000 pedestrians and 4,430 cyclists have been involved in crashes across the state, according to the state’s crash repository. In just the past two years, Lawrence Street has been the site of crashes between cars and pedestrians, and a shootout between two speeding cars that left area schools in lockdown.
What followed was a partnership between close to 20 neighbors, nearby business owners, and city officials. Celia Porier, who lives in the neighborhood and works at the nearby design firm Atelier Cho Thompson, designed a logo. Representatives of the Corsair Apartments, which sit next door on State Street, sponsored picnic tables. Goatville resident Brandon Doyle brought in plants and Lawrence Street neighbor Tara Giangrande offered to water them.
During a community build on Labor Day weekend, 15 to 20 neighbors assisted with installation of the plaza. Meanwhile, Smith found artists, likeJones, who lives around the corner on Mechanic Street (Lars Boyle, a fellow neighbor, performed during the first Thursdays at the Plaza last week). The plaza opened formally on September 1, with dancing in the streets and pizza, thanks to Next Door owner Doug Coffin.
“I just generally get excited about us as a city trying more things out,” Smith said. “Like, getting a lot of residents involved, identifying a challenge, working on it together, and trying and seeing if it works. I am excited to continue to have a culture of that in the city.”
Thursday, it seemed to be working. Friends gathered beside each other on the ground and at picnic tables, their faces lit by flickering candlelight and the last dregs of the bright afternoon. Babies played with pastel-colored pieces of sidewalk chalk thicker than their pudgy fingertips. Just beyond a pizza tent, a huge, blue chalked flower burst into bloom. Coffin, who runs the Jocelyn Square pizza restaurant Next Door, chatted with every patron who came up for a slice.
Aaron Hilary D'Souza, who noted the calming effect of the plaza. D'Souza is a grad student in cybersecurity at UNH.
Musician Lovelind Richards, who lives nearby in Fair Haven, lauded the pilot as a space that cultivates community. As a transplant to New Haven—Richards grew up in Florida—she loves the walkability of the city and the sense of closeness that New Haven often has. She’s also a big believer in new and non-traditional performance spaces (the final performance in Love N’ Co., of which she was the frontperson and the namesake, was in a bike shop). So the plaza was her jam.
“It creates more intimacy, more connectivity and more community,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
She wasn’t the only one to think so. Schandra Madha, who lives in Westville and works at Common Ground High School’s urban farm. said the patio had helped her relax during an otherwise stressful work week. As she soaked in the sound of Kudzu Queen, she likened the plaza to Westville’s Central Patio, a blocked-off section of Central Avenue that started as a pilot in spring 2021.
“I love seeing this here!” she said. Around her, neighbors hoped aloud that the plaza might survive beyond the pilot phase, just as the patio on Central Avenue did three years ago. That space now hosts art markets, free summer salsa and merengue lessons, a September beer garden and activities during Westville’s annual Artwalk.
Jude Fremd, Lars Boyle, who performed the first week, and Scandra Madha.
As she played back-to-back sets with original music, Jones also tapped into that sense of something communal and emergent, improvising verses on her ballad “Beauty Rest” as friends grooved, clapped and cheered along.
Sometimes, it was a cry for justice, a nod to the Black Lives Matter protests that shook New Haven almost exactly four years ago. Sometimes, it was a witty nod to the most recent Presidential debate. On either side of her, musicians Terron the Light and Andrew Agraves pressed forward, smiles etched on their faces.
“There was a guy on the television saying there were people eating cats and dogs,” she said to a few giggles from the audience. “And he’s gonna cancel everybody! … Obviously, that guy needs beauty rest.”
A graduate of the Yale School of the Environment, Jones is now the urban forestry project manager at the Urban Resources Initiative (URI). She’s also lived on Mechanic Street for roughly six months, during which time she’s gotten to know the area.
For her, the plaza is an unequivocally good thing. She was excited to perform Thursday night, in a set inspired by her own love of the world around her.
“I think this is really important,” she said. “This space otherwise is dead.”
It’s a measure that residents also believe is working. Eylul Wintermeyer, who lives on Lawrence between Foster and Orange Streets, was one of the first neighbors who pushed for a traffic calming measure in those first meetings with Smith. As a parent, she worries for the safety of her young kids when they’re playing outside or going to school.
Prior to September, she remembered hearing from a contractor that the street was surprisingly, and singularly, bad. “He said it was the craziest street that he’s ever seen,” she said. “He was fearing for his life.” Her husband, Adam Wintermeyer, often sees cars fly past their house on the family’s Ring camera footage.
Then the plaza went in. “It’s been calmer, definitely,” Wintermeyer said as her kids picked up sidewalk chalk and began to draw. “And it’s so cute! This is such a great opportunity! I’m all for revolutionizing and animating the streetscape, so this is a beautiful idea.”