Lucy Gellman Photos.
Maybe it was Jadakiss and Jazmine Sullivan’s “Smoking Gun,” with the lyrics You're the only one I love that hit like a prayer over Harding Street. Or the smoke, thick and fragrant as it billowed up from the grill and rolled toward the sidewalk. Or the balloons, woven into pillars of white and yellow that dotted the street with bursts of color. Maybe it was the photos of Camryn “Mooka” Gayle herself, her smile so full of life it seemed impossible that she was gone.
Shayan Dawson had always known that the tears would come. But when they did, a deep well of grief pouring over her, she still stepped to the side and took a moment for herself.
Gayle, who died in a car accident at Sherman Parkway and Harding Place in November 2021, may not have lived to see the corner bearing her name. But as it was unveiled last Saturday, it seemed she was everywhere: in friends’ rhinestone-studded necklaces and forearm tattoos, in R&B sung and danced at full volume, in the children who are learning to talk about their Aunt Mooka, who lives on in their stories.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said her mother, Elizabeth Robinson, who has pushed for years to rename the corner. “I’ve had my moments throughout the day, but at the end of the day, I’m very happy. I see her in each and every person that’s out here. Each and every one.”
It follows years of advocacy from family, friends, peers and teachers—and is a testament to the full, vibrant life Gayle lived. In 2023, Robinson submitted a petition to rename the corner at Sherman Parkway and Harding Place in her daughter’s honor, signed by dozens of people who loved her. Already, friends and family gathered there each year, to mourn and remember a life gone too soon. There are often yellow toys and flowers at the spot, glowing with the same golden hue that Gayle adored and often wore.
Elizabeth Robinson (center) with Gayle's siblings, Shamar Gayle and Anastasia Evelyn.
It was for Robinson a starting point: she also wants to see traffic calming measures at the site, which for years has felt more like a stretch of highway than a city road through a densely populated neighborhood (according to the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, there have been 10 recorded traffic accidents at that intersection). But the proposal lingered in municipal limbo: it took alders over a year to pass the proposal. When they finally got it over the finish line earlier this year, Robinson felt like Mooka was there in the room with her.
Saturday, that vivid presence was again palpable, as a block party became a celebration of life, friend and family reunion, and quiet, reverent nod to the village of Black women that raised Gayle into the sharp, funny, explosively creative young dancer and cheerleader she was. During her too-short life, Gayle danced from nearly the time she could walk, first at church, and then in the studio and on the basketball court.
That grace was matched only by a quick and expansive sense of humor, which seeped into everything she did. On the sidewalk, cousin Tawanna Rambert remembered her as a sweet and goofy kid, with a love for a good prank from the time she was very young. As Gayle grew, Rambert marvelled at how energetic, outgoing, and silly she became.
“That was my baby,” said Gayle’s grandmother, Vivian Robinson, with whom Gayle lived for a while. She closed her eyes for just a moment, remembering how determined and self-possessed Gayle could be. “She was just a sweet little girl. That was my heart.”
Top: Tawana Rambert and Latoyia Gallimore. Bottom: Some of the friends, including Ny'Asia Davis and Shayan Dawson (at the right), who helped push for Camryn's Corner.
“It means that she’s still here,” Rambert added, gesturing to a sign still wrapped in brown paper, a string dangling down before its big reveal. Despite the day’s rolling, heavy heat, dozens had already gathered in the street around her, laughing as they exchanged stories that inevitably included a nod to Mooka’s legacy.
“She was a joy,” added cousin LaToyia Gallimore, remembering the wide-eyed, completely bald baby girl who she loved to fuss over. When Gayle’s hair did start growing two years in—by then, the family knew and loved her completely as their “Mooka”—it had a mind completely of its own, just like the girl to whom it belonged. “She always was her own self. Even when she was a baby.”
As she grew up, Gayle proved easy to love, Gallimore added: she was a girly girl, a fierce and spirited praise dancer, an adoring little sister and a teenager with aspirations in both performance and small business. At home, she treasured her siblings, running to her older sister Anastasia Evelyn for everything from hair and makeup to life advice. Sometimes, Evelyn remembered, it felt like it was the two of them against the world.
Meanwhile, Gayle was also coming into her own as an artist. As a student at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, she was a fiery and headstrong dancer, not afraid to talk back if there was something that didn’t sit right with her. Lindsey Bauer, was her teacher when she died, found herself overcome with emotion as she looked around, and saw her former students growing up without one of their own.
“It’s hard. Harder than I thought,” Bauer said. “Mooka taught me about being unapologetic and being yourself. That’s a lesson I love to learn through students over and over again.”
Top: Lindsey Bauer and Ny'Asia Davis. Bottom: Gayle’s godmother, Brenda Vaughn, and her grandmother, Vivian Robinson. “She was a sweetheart,” Vaughn said. “It does my heart good just to show up.”
Gayle loved those close to her with that same warmth and fervor, and they loved her back. Standing on the Harding Place sidewalk, friends Ny’Asia Davis and Shyan Dawson recognized how hard-fought and bittersweet the afternoon felt, particularly after years of advocacy and roadblocks from the city. It wasn’t that they weren’t grateful for the day, Davis said—it was that it didn’t feel right without Gayle there.
“She should be here,” Davis said. She reflected on the milestones she thought they’d have together: high school graduation, nursing school, the birth of Davis’ tiny, perfect daughter, Kenyce, last July. When Kenyce graduated from the NICU last year, it felt like Gayle should have been there to celebrate. “She’s gonna grow up knowing who Mooka was,” Davis said.
“We shouldn’t be doing this without her,” she added. “People wanted this, but they don’t always feel the pain we feel.”
“It feels like a new chapter,” added Dawson, who survived the accident, and has spent the past four years fighting for Gayle’s memory alongside Robinson. “It takes a lot of strength, a lot of time, and a lot of energy.”
Nearby, Sacred Heart University student Kuulika Collins called Gayle a kind of “little sister.” After meeting at James Hillhouse High School, where Collins played basketball and Gayle was a cheerleader, the two became fast friends. Some days, they carpooled home from school together, and ended up laughing the entire car ride home.
“She is honestly the most caring person, so easy to love,” Collins said. “Within two minutes, she knew how to make someone feel like family.”
“This is a new home for us,” Collins added, gesturing to the sign. “Rainy days, snow days, this is where we’ll come. We made a promise to her to make her name stay alive, and we did it.”
And they did. To the sound of “Smoking Gun,” Gayle’s friends gathered around the corner, holding up their iPhones as the lyrics wrapped the crowd in a booming, vocal embrace and friends tugged at the string to bring it down. When at last the paper fell, fluttering onto the sidewalk, the street filled with cheers. Dawson walked toward a small yellow altar to Gayle, and took a moment to herself before rejoining the group.
Before she finished Saturday, Robinson reminded attendees that “it’s still not over:” she doesn’t want any New Havener to suffer the same fate at that corner ever again. Now that the street sign is up, she plans to end the annual events that friends and family have held on the street, usually before Gayle’s August 11 birthday. But before she has total closure around her daughter’s death, she wants to see stop signs, speed bumps, and increased lighting at the intersection.
“Then it’ll be over,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gayle’s friends are finding new ways to honor her. This month, they plan to hold a basketball tournament at Mill Rock Park, for which hundreds of people turned up last year. In August, several also plan to go to Miami for what would have been Gayle’s 21st birthday. Others are living fuller lives because they know that’s what she would have told them to do.
Jordyn Thomas, whose grief upended her grades and put school on pause in 2021, is one of them. Earlier this month, she walked across the Shubert Theatre’s stage as a member of Co-Op’s Class of 2025. Well before that, she got a tattoo with Gayle’s nickname written in neat, swooping text across her forearm.
Every time she considered giving up on high school, she said, “I heard her voice in the back of my head.” She knew that Gayle would have given her hell for not finishing. Saturday, she savored the scene, from conversations among Gayle’s friends to the unveiling itself.
“It feels amazing,” she said. “Today feels like closure.”