Features

On November 6, New Haven’s forty polling places were abuzz.

Two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, Americans are riled up. In the 2018 midterms on November 6, an estimated 113 million of them flocked to the polls, marking the highest turnout rate in a midterm election since 1966. That energy spread to New Haven, where turnout spiked by nearly 3,000 votes from 2014 to 2018. Some voters showed up out of concern for the state of the nation: people like Ananya Kumar-Banerjee, who led a group of Yale Democrats across the Green to register at. . . Read more

Bringing forth new allegations, Black students and New Haven residents say that Yale’s police presence has threatened their sense of safety and belonging.

Editors’ note: This article has been updated from the print version to reflect a response from GPSCY, the social center that operates the graduate student bar mentioned below. Editors’ note: A previous version of this article stated that Michael Sierra-Arévalo, the Assistant Professor at Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, conducted an ethnography of the New Haven Police Department. That is incorrect; Sierra-Arévalo has worked with the NHPD, but has not conducted an ethnography of the Department. Around two o’clock in the morning, on May 8, Lolade. . . Read more

In New Haven, eviction feeds into a cycle of poverty that’s hard to escape.

One Little Box Grace Luysterborghs lives on the fourth floor of the Robert T. Wolfe Apartments, in a studio apartment with big windows overlooking Union Station. But she likes to keep her curtains closed. It’s “one little box,” she says. There’s a bathroom right by the entrance, a tiny closet, a small kitchen, then her bed and dresser. Luysterborghs was thankful when she secured her apartment in the Wolfe complex at 49 Union Avenue, a New Haven Housing Authority–owned property for the elderly and disabled,. . . Read more

A casino titan says it can help a struggling city. A coalition with $800 in the bank wants to stop it.

I. The East End When he first heard about the casino, Dr. Charlie Stallworth, a Connecticut state representative and the pastor of East End Baptist Tabernacle Church in Bridgeport, was skeptical. He didn’t think the developer, MGM Resorts International, was serious about the project, and he didn’t like the advertising campaign they were running. “Maybe I’m not the brightest guy in the room,” he remembers thinking, “but don’t try and manipulate me.” So, last September, when Stallworth heard about a press conference and groundbreaking ceremony. . . Read more

Cash bail keeps low-income people locked up. In New Haven and New York, two organizations are fighting against it, with different consequences for their communities.

I. The first thing one notices when walking up to the entrance of the Vernon C. Bain Center (VBC) in New York City is the fetid smell coming from the Fulton Fish Market next door. The road leading up to VBC has no sidewalks—just barbed wire fences. Queens shimmers across the East River. Some of the inmates at VBC—known as The Boat, since it’s anchored six feet from shore—are serving short-term sentences, from thirty days to a few months, for low-level misdemeanors. The vast majority. . . Read more

What is the future of education in New Haven? With the city up in arms, three schools may hold the answer.

Photo by Vivek Suri. A. Pointing Fingers “You’re about to get sued,” New Haven Board of Education member Darnell Goldson warned, swiveling his chair to the right and pointing at Ed Joyner, the Board’s President. Joyner stood, microphone in hand, as the crowd of community members packing the auditorium of Beecher School looked on. He turned towards Goldson and leaned forward, his gold tie swinging to and fro, until their faces were a foot apart. “You know what? We can go to Bowen Field,” Joyner bellowed,. . . Read more

New Haven sits on the birth scars of the Atlantic Ocean. The rocks here tell the story of its human history.

Reporting for this piece was made possible by the Ed Bennett III Memorial Fund. Illustration by Julia Hedges. At the summit of East Rock Park in New Haven, Connecticut, marked by the Sailors and Soldiers war monument, the view extends for miles and miles –– across tall green trees, over downtown buildings that look like miniatures from a distance, and all the way to the blue waters of New Haven Harbor. Turn back the clock 200 million years, and this view is completely different. The. . . Read more

Do our sex offender laws actually make communities safer?

If you were a potential employer or landlord, this is what you would learn about John Tejada from a quick internet search: his age (40), his height (6’1”), his weight (260 lbs), his race (black), his eyes (brown), his address (in Hartford, Connecticut) how many scars he has (three: two on the knees, one on the ankle), his tattoos (the Superman logo on his right butt-cheek). You would also learn that he was convicted of sexual assault in the second degree in March 2014. This. . . Read more