Pride Charts Its Return To Ninth Square

Top: New Haven Pride Center Communications Coordinator Laura Boccadoro, Development Coordinator Alyssa-Marie Cajigas Rivera Ortiz, Youth Services Coordinator Ta’LannaMonique Lawson-Dickerson, Executive Director Juancarlos Soto, Board Director Hope Chávez and Support Services Coordinator Bennie Saldana. Bottom: Ryder Die at Pride 2023. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Drag performers dancing in the street, ready to get the crowd moving. Poetry on the open mic and swoon-worthy mariachi down the block. Queer YA and free haircuts inside the New Haven Pride Center, where a food pantry and clothing closet are always open. And over 100 vendors, with everything from crocheted jewelry to crash courses in reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ advocacy. 

All of those are coming to Orange and Crown Streets this Saturday, as the New Haven Pride Center launches its now-annual Pride Block Party outside its 50 Orange St. home. One year after popping up in the Ninth Square, the party is back on a much larger scale, with dozens of small business owners, social service organizations, and performing artists who are ready to celebrate. 

It takes place Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., with an afterparty at Blue Orchid. The drag queen Bleach will emcee during the day; former Drag Race contestant Robin Fierce will join as the host of the afterparty in the evening. In addition to hosting, Blue Orchid plans to donate a portion of its proceeds back to the Center.  The restaurant is one of several LGBTQ+ owned businesses in the Ninth Square. 

“This celebration is really about the community coming together and honoring our rich history of New Haven being a city that celebrates diversity,” said NHPC Executive Director Juancarlos Soto at a press conference Thursday afternoon. “We believe in creating spaces where everyone can thrive, feel seen, and be proud of who they are. It’s why we do the work that we do. And you’ll see those values reflected at the block party.”

Last year's block party, which took place in October after a postponement from rain. Lucy Gellman File Photo.

Saturday, those festivities begin at noon, with a slate of performers that includes DJ Hausboi, Connecticut- and New Haven-based queens Azula and Cara Ho, and musicians Sev7en Taylor, Amy Love, Myles Jéh and Hector Zaragoza Valentin among others. Around them, the largest transformation may be the festival’s vendors, of which there are over 100. It is part of how New Haven Pride has taken on its own identity: the city celebrates Pride both in June and again in September. 

This week, that celebration began with the center’s second annual Gender Affirming Back to School Shopping Spree, (GABSSS) last Saturday, continued Wednesday with a drag queen story hour at the Mitchell Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library , and will roll on Friday, with a screening of the documentary Out In The Night at the Center at 6 p.m. Then Saturday, it culminates with the six-hour outdoor bash. 

For the Center, it marks a year of unprecedented and joyful growth. When the block party unfolded in the Ninth Square last year, it followed a bomb threat and months of financial uncertainty for the organization, which faced a leadership transition and loss of its nonprofit status in November 2022. By October of last year, staff were again on firm financial footing, had formed new partnerships, and had welcomed the community back into their offices. 

They had also outgrown their space, a dimly lit office in the basement of 84 Orange St. where the architects from Svigals + Partners occupy the upper floors. In November of last year, the organization made the move down Orange Street, into the former home of Artspace New Haven. In less than a full year, the Center has grown its partnerships, instituted monthly community dinners, and secured a line item in the city budget. It has also continued its weekly support and affinity groups, food pantry, and free clothing and hygiene closets.

Speakers Thursday included members of the Center's Rainbow Elders support group, which seeks to fight social isolation with community building. 

It has done that as LGBTQ+ rights, and particularly the rights of queer and trans youth, are increasingly challenged and endangered in state legislatures, board of education meetings, schools, and libraries across the country, including here in Connecticut. In 2024 alone, the American Civil Liberties Union has tracked over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ pieces of legislation, from bathroom bans to classroom censorship of books addressing sex and gender. 

“Even though we live in New Haven, in Connecticut, in a space that is much safer for those of us in the queer community, it is not without its moments,” said Pride Center Board Chair Hope Chávez. “It is not without folks who want to protest a drag show reading to children. Or folks who don’t want to see the flag raised in some of our sister towns across this state.”

“Being able to be here, and show up in your numbers, and love on each other, and share the abundance of all that we have in this community is really critical,” she added.  

During the press conference Thursday, several Pride Center staff members, arts commissioners, and city officials expressed their excitement for the event. Fair Haven Alder Frank Redente, a single parent, CT Violence Intervention Program staffer and youth development coordinator with the New Haven Public Schools, praised the Center for its tremendous growth over the past year. 

It’s one of the things that allows him to show up in all of his identities, he said—including an openly gay elected official and single dad. 

“Here in New Haven, we have love for everybody,” he said. “It’s that inclusivity that kept me here, pushed me to decide to run for alder, and ultimately it’s one of the reasons that I fight so hard for my community.”

Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith. 

EastRock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, who is also in her first term on the Board of Alders, urged people to both savor the moment and continue the advocacy work that has allowed the Pride Center to exist for nearly three decades. This fall marks the organization's 28th year in existence and 11th year on Orange Street (its previous homes include Long Wharf Drive, Gilbert Street in West Haven, and Fitch Street). 

“I believe that recognizing the progress that we’ve made during Pride, it’s joyful, it’s humbling and it’s solemn,” she said. “I believe that recognizing the progress that we’ve made is also a clarion call, a call that we all need, to believe that change and progress is indeed possible. Our heroes, our allies, so many individuals here got us to this point through consistent care, through struggle, and through these defiant acts of love.”

Kulturally LIT fonder and city arts commissioner IfeMichelle Gardin—who has dedicated the year to celebrating 20th-century author and queer icon James Baldwin—stressed the importance of the Pride Center as a safe space for youth, from its drag queen story hour collaborations with the New Haven Free Public Library to drop-in hours where kids and teens can simply show up and be themselves.   

Pride, Soto added, is also about investing in queer futures: the block party is also a fundraiser for the Center and a chance to support queer artists, many of whom are still cobbling together multiple careers to make a living. He urged people to come not just to have fun, but also to spend money that would go back into New Haven’s LGBTQ+ community. 

Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre, who came in Mayor Justin Elicker’s stead (the mayor is recovering from Covid-19), echoed that call as he pointed to the block party as an example of inclusive growth. 

“Study after study shows that the more inclusive you are as a society, the more your economy thrives,” he said. “I think you’re gonna see that when nearly 100-plus vendors are around the corner here, from LGBTQ-owned businesses as well as nonprofits and their allies. I’m really looking forward [to this] and I encourage  everyone to come out.”

New Haven Pride runs from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 7 outside the New Haven Pride Center at 50 Orange St. For more from Thursday’s press conference, watch the above video or listen to an interview with NHPC Executive Director Juancarlos Soto and Communications Coordinator Laura Boccadoro on WNHH Radio here.