What was I studying? Homo sapiens, whose behaviors began to emerge before I’d entered the building. Few parents could resist posing their kids for a picture next to the hulking torosaurus statue. Few kids could resist hopping along the sidewalk, trying to land their own feet on the etched dinosaur tracks. In a variation, one little boy bounced his gift shop dinosaur from footprint to footprint, roaring on the toy’s behalf.

Up on the third floor, patterns and outliers also emerged. In wave after wave, small children ran to the life-sized dioramas as if pulled by a huge cartoon magnet. They climbed the explanatory ledges, pressed their hands and noses to the glass, dreamed of entering the Kaibab Plateau, the Tropical Rainforest, the Shortgrass Plains, the Sonoran Desert. (A small army of attendants was poised with spray bottles and rags to clean up after them.) In the “Living Lab” room, the same kids would thrust their arms into the air—the signal to be picked up by Mom or Dad so they too could see the stealthy frogs, darting lizards and shimmering fish. Their parents, meanwhile, tried to keep pace, savor moments, counsel patience, avert calamity. Older kids in friend groups seemed more interested in squeezing social currency from the experience, while those who browsed alone or with their immediate families tended to focus on the treasures before them.

In a large room highlighting contemporary biodiversity, a little girl started clapping her hands in wide sweeps, mimicking the long, sawtoothed jaws of a giant South Asian crocodile—a gharial—on the other side of the glass. Two rooms over, a tween girl gazed with unusual thoughtfulness into a 360-degree butterfly terrarium, while a similarly aged boy tried to impress the girls he knew by scaring a few of the insects off their perch. Another girl delightedly showed her mom a low hidden alcove showcasing a coelacanth—“an extraordinary fish,” a placard teases. A different girl demanded, with an aggrieved “Mah-uuuuhm,” that her mother stop pointing out the smaller creatures hiding in the life-sized dioramas; she wanted to spot them for herself. A young boy wondered what it would be like to ride one of the impressive brown bears in the Alaska Tundra diorama; Dad pointed out that the bear might object. In the mineral section, a teenager at the meteorite display imparted some of his own knowledge to his family, while another compared a humongous stibnite specimen, its mirror-shine shafts exploding outward, to the Iron Throne. At the same specimen, an older woman pushing a stroller, needing no fantasy references to appreciate the rare quality and quantity of the thing, was simply awestruck.

In whatever form it took, that last response—awe—was not an outlier. If you’re hoping to experience it yourself but have been deterred by the advance ticketing system, which shows all time slots booked through late July, don’t despair. Walk-up tickets are plentiful, I’m told, and, just like the advance version, free. Whatever your ticket status, bear in mind that the parking situation may be thornier than the bramble of the Cold Bog diorama. When I arrived by car at 11 a.m. Friday morning, the visitors’ lot had clearly been full for some time; after 15 or 20 minutes of high-traffic prowling south of the museum, I finally wised up and ventured eastward, snagging a non-zoned two-hour spot on Humphrey Street near Orange.

As for your own hunt, like a brown bear on the Alaskan Tundra or a gharial in a South Asian river, I can only wish you luck.

Yale Peabody Museum
170 Whitney Ave, New Haven (map)
Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm
(203) 432-8987
www.peabody.yale.edu

Written and photographed by Dan Mims.

The post Field Notes appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

Monday, April 22 – Earth Day
It’s also the start of Passover this year, with Orchard Street Shul hosting a community seder featuring four courses, four glasses of wine and handmade matzah at 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 23
The next installment of Open Mic Surgery, a poetry reading series at Never Ending Books, starts at 7 p.m. and welcomes New Haven’s first poet laureate, Sharmont (Influence) Little.

Wednesday, April 24
Sadako Ohki, curator of the Yale University Art Gallery exhibit Year of the Dragon, leads “a close examination” of “two works… made centuries apart” starting at 12:30 p.m. at the Yale University Art Gallery. The talk, in part, “explores how artists engage with the dragon’s celebrated role”—in the East—“as the god of water as well as how this theme takes on a sorrowful quality with regard to today’s environmental crisis.”

At 7, Best Video in Hamden hosts pianist T.J. Thompson and five musician friends for a show of “jazz, New Orleans R&B, and Thompson’s original tunes.”

At 7:30 at the New Haven Lawn Club, it’s the final performance of the season for the Kallos Chamber Music Series, with an impressive quintet of musicians performing “hidden gem masterpieces” from the turn of the 20th century—“a period of boundless creativity and ingenuity.”

Thursday, April 25
In conjunction with its exhibition LOOK BOOK (“a visual celebration of Women’s History Month exploring how we express ourselves through fashion and adornment”), the Institute Library hosts An Evening of Fashion & Fascism—a 6 p.m. discussion of “the kind of hidden history where we think we know what we’re looking at, but the true story is more weird and complex than we can guess at.” The three panelists are authors Debby Applegate, Becky Conekin and Gioia Diliberto, who “collectively know more about brazen women in the 20th century than most of us can imagine.”

Also at 6, the New Haven Museum hosts “Birdman of the Senate: Senator George P. McLean and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,” a virtual lecture about the “landmark environmental protection legislation” that “ushered in the watchdog role of the federal government over the environment”—and the man who helped usher in the law. The speaker is McLean’s great-great-nephew and biographer, Will McLean Greeley.

Starting at 7:30, SCSU’s Lyman Center hosts A Festival of One-Act Plays produced and performed by members of the college’s theater department and the student-run Crescent Players.

Friday, April 26
A summer-style carnival promising “rides, games, food wagons and more” comes to the rear lot of Milford’s Connecticut Post Mall from 5 to 11 p.m.—and stays, with extended weekend hours, until Sunday, May 5.

Saturday, April 27
This year’s Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride, a bike ride fundraiser for local environmental organizations, offers ride routes from one to 66 miles long—all starting and finishing in East Rock’s College Woods section and some incorporating West Rock—with staggered start times as early as 7 a.m. A Green Fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. near the finish line serves as a kind of post-ride celebration, offering “food trucks, live music… [and] tables with information about ways to get further involved with our 20+ partners…”

Ahead of the annual Daffodil Festival next weekend, Hubbard Park in Meriden hosts “Connecticut’s largest tag sale” from 9 to 2. “Refreshments will be available for purchase. Amusement rides will be open (weather-dependent).”

Meanwhile, from 10 to 3, Hamden holds a belated Earth Day Celebration promising “educational and interactive… themed events, exhibitors and plenty of fun!” in Town Center Park.

Presented by Strange Ways, a Flair Fair from noon to 5 in Pitkin Plaza convenes “independent artists making pins, patches, buttons, stickers, and more unique and affordable items. Come shop and support underground culture in New Haven, and the general Northeast.”

A Hidden Relics Fair picks up at 5 at Armada Brewing. “Discover treasures, indulge in delectable food, savor craft beers [and] immerse yourself in captivating art…”

At 7, “legendary singer, songwriter, and cultural icon” Gloria Estefan comes to the Lyman Center, not to sing but to speak. “Hear firsthand from the seven-time Grammy Award winner about her life, career, and cultural impact. Estefan rose to international fame as the lead vocalist of the Miami Sound Machine, with hits like ‘Conga,’ ‘Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,’ and ‘Anything for You.’ The moderated discussion will offer insights into her remarkable journey from Cuban immigrant to international superstar.”

Sunday, April 28
At 4, a “classic roots rock, Americana, rhythm & blues bar band” with an interesting local history returns to the stage where they started, at Cafe Nine. “The Crown Street Orchestra started taking pickup gigs way back in the days when original owner Mike Reichbart ran Cafe Nine. All the guys played (and drank) there regularly in several different bands and sometimes he’d hastily put together a group of them to go fill late cancellations for other bars and clubs. In those days, the lineup changed almost every night and the band got to play the hell out of whatever the hell they felt like playin’ with all those other great local Blues/Roots/R&B musicians. They’re all set to do it again with an all-star line-up of musicians who’ve been playing together at Cafe Nine and all around the greater New Haven area and parts well beyond for decades.”

Later, at 8, aughts indie rock royalty Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, a.k.a. Alec Ounsworth, comes to Hamden’s Space Ballroom. Opening the show are Similar Kind, an indie pop band based in Norwalk.

Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.

The post This Week in New Haven (April 22 – 28) appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water.

As Earth Day approaches, here are some local sea-, harbor-, river-, lake-, pond- and lagoon-side spots to celebrate.

Written by Dan Mims. These images—featuring New Haven Harbor from East Shore Park (1) and Lighthouse Point (2); the Edgewood Park Duck Pond (3); Lake Wintergreen (4); and Horseshoe Lagoon (5)—photographed by Dan Mims.

The post Water World appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

Three of those can be found in downtown New Haven, starting with Siena’s Burn Baby Burn ($14). Delivered in a sleek coupe glass, the garnet red elixir with a dusky pink froth is made from non-alcoholic mezcal, honey, ginger and pomegranate. Yet for me it served up a full shocking hit of chocolate followed by a startling note of creamy vanilla. A comparison to red velvet cake would be easy if not for a smoky, gingery, peppery zip. The final touch was a small but yummy morsel of candied ginger skewered across the top.

Sherkaan’s Jal-Jeera Collins ($8) took an even simpler tack with its garnish, leaning a lemon wheel into the edge of the highball. But the drink itself was a mosh pit of flavor, as lemon, mint, ginger and a masala spice blend produced potent top notes of sweet citrus and, unexpectedly, anise. It was complex yet clarified and easy to like, with a lingering spicy undercurrent. The drink’s vegetal green color made it look like something you might not want to drink on a fun night out—but should.

At Olives & Oil, the N/A Notorious ($10) packed understandably less punch than the signature vodka/Aperol/prosecco cocktail that inspires it: the Notorious P.I.G. (which, like the N/A version, comes with a floating pink rubber pig garnish). But forgetting the comparison, the non-alcoholic version was worth wolfing down in its own right. Flavors of strawberry and blood orange cut by the bitterness and bite of non-alcoholic liqueur and prosecco produced a cohesive juicy grapefruit effect. Sweet and start and dry to finish, this mocktail wasn’t as complicated or surprising as the others, but, like them, its sum was still greater than its parts.

Together, the Burn Baby Burn, Jal-Jeera Collins and N/A Notorious create one last totality: a trio of totals teetotalers can feel total teeing up.

Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image 1 features the Burn Baby Burn at Siena New Haven. Image 2 features the Jal-Jeera Collins at Sherkaan.

The post T(hr)ee Totals appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

At the hub of the city’s extensive network of trolleys, and just a few blocks from the Yale campus and a bustling area of factories and small businesses, department stores were once the centerpieces of downtown, vital social centers for New Haveners for nearly the entire 20th century.

Two of the biggest downtown development projects of the 21st century, the 360 State Street building and Gateway community college, landed smack dab on the former sites of venerable department stores. Shartenberg’s once-impressive six-story height has been dwarfed by its successor, 360 State. Gateway occupies the area once claimed not just by the formidable Macy’s but by the nearby Malley’s department store.

Shartenberg’s (originally A.C. Wilcox & Co., founded in 1836) closed in 1962. Macy’s (a national chain of stores which began in Massachusetts in the 1840s and established its flagship New York store in 1858) shuttered its New Haven outpost in 1993. Malley’s (full name The Edw. Malley Co.) was founded in 1852 across from the New Haven Green on Chapel Street; a century and a decade later it moved a couple of blocks away to the corner of Church and Crown, where it lasted until 1983. Malley’s had a sad afterlife: Its building didn’t fade into the cityscape like Macy’s or Grant’s or get bulldozed into a parking lot like Shartenberg’s, so the empty edifice became a much-maligned eyesore. There were many schemes to rent the building, including an audacious attempt in the late 1980s to turn it into a mall-like grouping of carts and booths for entrepreneurs, but the idea of using such a large place for the singular purpose of shopping was now old-fashioned.

From 1965 until the early ’90s, following urban trends of the era, a shopping mall sprouted downtown. The Chapel Square Mall attempted to unite the old and the new ways of shopping. According to Elizabeth Mills Brown’s New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design (1976), the mall was a “key piece in the Redevelopment Agency’s strategy to shift retail trade from Chapel to Church Street and link it to the [Oak Street] Connector.” One steady criticism of the mall was that it was disorienting. Once inside its maze of corridors, you lost a sense of where you were in New Haven. That was never true of the grand old department stores, whose energies spilled out onto the sidewalks.

In the old days, a department store shopping experience was greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts were many. Even in its final years, Malley’s boasted a photography studio, a tire center, a beauty salon, a liquor store and a restaurant besides the expected clothing and furniture departments. Its toy department was decorated with a giant birdcage stocked with live birds.

The last great department stores to grace downtown New Haven were Horowitz Brothers and the Yale Co-op. They were very different from each other, and neither had as many departments as the exhaustive Malley’s or Shartenberg’s used to boast. But they certainly had variety.

Horowitz Brothers, on Chapel near the corner of State Street, was a latecomer to the downtown scene, opening in the late 1930s after graduating from a pushcart enterprise in the 1910s and a Grand Avenue storefront in the 1920s. Essentially a fabric store, it also dealt in clothing, sewing machines, curtains and other furnishings, and honored the classic model of stores with actual departments, with different managers for each of those departments. One of the charms of Horowitz Brothers was that, right up until it closed in 2004, you could still go there, stand in line at a small teller’s booth in the center of the store and pay your phone and light bills or wire money. It was the kind of service department stores readily provided in the old days but a rare experience at the turn of the 21st century.

The Yale Co-Op kept the wonders and mysteries of department stores alive for as long as it could. Serving all conceivable shopping needs of Yale students, it had the largest book selection in the state, a record shop which rivaled Cutler’s down the street and, among other distinctions, a barber shop. When Yale chose to enlist Barnes & Noble as its official student store, the Co-Op moved to Chapel Street in 1997 and shed nearly all of its departments except for books. It lasted just a couple of years before closing for good.

In his New Haven-based examination of urban development, City: Urbanism and Its End (2003), Yale professor Douglas Rae mentions how “most visible in the daily life of the city were the major department stores: Gamble-Desmond, Edward Malley and Shartenberg-Robinson. … Thousands of homemakers relied on department stores for both ordinary purchases and for special occasions—gifts for holidays, wedding and birthdays. … [Trolley] riders often arrived downtown in anticipation of a visit to one of the big department stores, which was an exciting experience.”

Now the downtown New Haven shopping district operates more as a group of local small businesses dotted with national chains like Starbucks and Lululemon. There’s a more villagey feel to the arrangement, with shoppers popping in and out of various shops rather than luxuriating in the grand urban hustle-bustle of a varied, overwhelming department store shopping experience.

Still, don’t forget your receipt.

Written by Christopher Arnott. Photo, looking toward Grant’s, Malley’s and others from Chapel and Orange Streets circa 1955, provided courtesy of Colin M. Caplan and Magrisso Forte. This updated article was originally published on December 19, 2012.

The post Department Stories appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

in the hospital with my new baby when I got a panicked email from a bride saying she needed outfits for eight bridesmaids in three weeks and wanted my help. I just thought, ‘I’m done. This is crazy. I’m not enjoying what I do anymore.’”

But another idea was already taking root: a venture designing children’s clothes, now come to fruition as the West Rock Apparel Co. The online business specializes in organic, sustainable clothing for children from birth to age 3 that’s meant to be durable, comfortable, easy to wash and unisex. Instead of classic baby pinks and blues, the line reflects its local namesake with earth tones like caramel, “solitude” (a dark green), “mushroom” (a dark brown) and indigo. “I wanted everything to be very natural and neutral for boys and girls,” Nast says. “I wanted to ensure that these clothing items would last through multiple children, that they could be passed along. It makes me so happy when people send photos of their second baby wearing a onesie they bought a year ago for their first.”

West Rock’s Westville Onesie ($58) is unusual in that it has a snap-front opening. There’s nothing to pull over a baby’s wobbly head, which can be an arduous task. “If you have a onesie you can just lay out, put the baby on top and work from there, it’s much easier,” Nast explains. Parents can combine this garment with soft, breathable, slim-cut Elm City Joggers pants ($59) or a New Haven Snap Jacket ($64) for extra warmth, or they may opt for the Sweet Baby Bundle ($173), which combines all three.

The joggers and jacket are available up to size 2/3T, but toddlers also have their own specially designed attire, which includes the White Oak Long Sleeve Tee ($59), the one-piece Crandall Romper ($119), the Robin Crewneck Sweatshirt ($68) and River Trousers ($62). The trousers come with oversized pockets designed to allow children to store “all the little treasures they find while playing outside,” Nash says. “My kids are always filling their pockets with rocks and mulch.” Customers also have the choice of purchasing a Tiny Tot Bundle of tee, sweatshirt and trousers ($175). All these items are sized from 12 months to 2/3T. There’s also a special pair of summer selections available only in sizes 2, 4 and 6—the Old School Summer Tee ($30) and Summer Shorties ($18).

Though Nast started thinking about her children’s clothing project in 2018, it would take another three years—with the birth of her fifth child in February 2021—to really start making her dream a reality. She suffered debilitating postpartum anxiety and depression, partly because the country was in peak pandemic mode. “Everyone was wearing masks and there was illness all around,” she says. Focusing on her new ambition—as well as undergoing therapy and following a strict exercise regimen—was her way to heal. “I decided not to take any medications, not because I’m against that route, but I was nursing a child at the time.”

Getting West Rock Apparel fully underway had its frustrations. Armed with a B.A. in studio arts from Bard College and a second degree in fashion design, Nast had developed her wedding fashion business by doing all the creative work herself: designing, making patterns and sewing. This time around, she designed and then delegated, searching out external patternmakers and manufacturers to bring her plans to life. Finding the right companies turned out to be easier said than done. “It was a real trial-and-error experience,” she says, “and kind of a mess to try to get these other people on the same page. There was a lot of back-and-forth.” She insisted her collaborators be close—West Rock’s clothes are produced in New York City—but locating a reliable manufacturer was particularly difficult. “The first place I worked with just stopped communicating with me until I pressured them, and the second place started sending me sweatshirt samples with the wrong side of the fabric facing out. I started thinking I was the crazy one.”

The third choice was the charm, and West Rock was launched on Thanksgiving 2022. The clothes are made of organic Texas-grown, pesticide- and chemical-free cotton, which is colored with low-impact fiber-reactive dyes free of heavy metals and other chemical mordants. Nast is particularly proud of the fact all her pieces, regardless of size, are made to be roomy, noting that “the cuffs on our shirts are meant to be rolled up at first, then you can just unroll them as your child grows.” The company’s stylish aesthetic is based on “how I always preferred to dress my kids.”

She’s also garnered ideas from other parents of young children, including two sisters-in-law, friends and even social media followers. “I knew I wasn’t going to please everybody, but I’ve found plenty of people who like our style. I’ve done public markets where I’ve even gotten a lot of dads coming up to me and complimenting my designs.” She also bounces ideas off her children—Augustus (age 12), Mercer (10), Beatrix (8), Lucian (6) and Paloma (3)—who are among her biggest cheerleaders. Lucian and Paloma have modeled outfits for West Rock’s website, in photos shot by their father Jon.

“When I told two of my older kids that I was going to do an interview about my business with Daily Nutmeg and they would need to entertain themselves for a while, Mercer said, ‘Good for you, Mom!’” she says, laughing. “Just being able to show my kids that you can work hard and create something of your own that you love is really important for me.” She’s currently developing ideas for children’s clothes up to sizes 10 and 12 and even some pieces for adult women. “I want to build this brand in a way that works for me, and to remember that I don’t need to play by anybody else’s rules.”

Written by Patricia Grandjean. Photos courtesy of West Rock Apparel Co.

The post Family Line appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

Monday, April 15 – Tax Day
File away, if you haven’t already.

Tuesday, April 16
The 2024 Yale Review Festival, offering “special writing workshops, talks, and panels with some of today’s most exciting poets, novelists, and critics” today through Friday, begins at 1 p.m. with a lunch-and-talk featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Hernan Dias. (Note: The festival’s “talks and panels are free and open to the public,” while “workshops are open to members of the Yale community, with preference given to Yale students.”)

Yale Consort, “a newly formed professional vocal ensemble” that “provides high-quality choral music for a series of evening services in local parishes and chapels,” heads to St. Mary’s Church for an hourlong “service of Choral Vespers” starting at 5:15. The program includes “a range of music from Gregorian chant to 8-voice polyphony.”

At 7, Best Video in Hamden screens The Straight Story (1999), a movie “based on the true story of Alvin Straight’s 1994 journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower. Alvin is an elderly World War II veteran who lives with his kind intellectually disabled daughter. When he hears that his estranged brother has suffered a stroke, Alvin makes up his mind to visit him and hopefully make amends before he dies. Because Alvin’s legs and eyes are too impaired for him to receive a driver’s license, he hitches a trailer to his recently purchased thirty-year-old John Deere 110 Lawn Tractor” and, with a top speed of five miles per hour, begins the 240-mile drive.

Wednesday, April 17
Starting at 6:30, East Rock Brewing hosts a night of “general” trivia to benefit the Greater New Haven Cat Project, which is “dedicated to improving the lives of stray, abandoned, and feral cats.”

Thursday, April 18
At 6 p.m., Yale history professor David Blight heads to Madison’s RJ Julia to discuss Yale and Slavery: A History, a book he authored with critical research assistance from the Yale and Slavery Research Project. “This narrative history offers a comprehensive look at how slavery and resistance to it have shaped this renowned American institution of higher learning. … Drawing on wide-ranging archival materials, Yale and Slavery extends from the century before the college’s founding in 1701 to the dedication of its Civil War memorial in 1915, while engaging with the legacies and remembrance of this complex story.”

Ruby the Hatchet, purveyors of “doomy, evil hard rock with occult-flavored psychedelia for a witchy brew of dazzl[ing] and ominous cosmic rock sounds,” headline an 8 o’clock bill at Hamden’s Space Ballroom. Suitably dark openers include Acid Witch and Connecticut’s own When the Deadbolt Breaks.

Friday, April 19
From noon to 4, New Haven Makes, a fair for “creatives of all kinds, whether you want to make music, enjoy painting, explore woodworking, or so much more,” convenes seven local organizations eager to explain “how they can help people with whatever they want to make” at an eighth: Ives Main Library.

Three days, three venues, three lineups, three letters. NHV Fest, a local music festival, starts at 6 p.m. with four bands at Volume 2 (a.k.a. Never Ending Books); continues tomorrow at 7 p.m. with five bands at Crunch House; and finishes Sunday from 2 to 10 p.m. with eight bands at The Beeracks in East Haven.

Also starting today at 6, the East Haven Rotary Club’s annual Anginette Wars fundraiser, located at East Haven High School, promises “a day filled with sugar, laughter, and friendly competition” as “bakers from all around compete to create the most delicious and creative anginette cookies.”

Saturday, April 20
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Quinnipiac Car Club’s sixth annual Spring Car Show promises “food, music, friends, vendors, and of course plenty of cars” at Quinnipiac University’s York Hill Campus in Hamden.

From noon to 9 today and 2 to 6 tomorrow, East Rock Brewing’s second annual Spring Fest promises a new beer release, a cookout and a concert today and a vendor fair and additional show tomorrow.

From 5 to 7:30 at NXTHVN, a registration-required New Haven Composers Spotlight performance is the culmination of the program’s inaugural “commissioning of three works by diverse and emerging local composers”: Alyssa Chetrick, Tyler Goldchain and Benjamin Webster. “While centering the Dixwell community in our vision, the debut will highlight the interactions between a large performance ensemble that bridges musical backgrounds, institutions, and communities in New Haven, and the visions of these three unique composers.”

At 7 in Yale’s Alice Cinema, the finale of a “Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen” series offers a double feature plus a panel discussion featuring one of the film’s directors. Billed first among the movies is Kamome Diner (2006): “On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.” Billed second is Make Way! Jaguars! (1968): “A plot by an evil mastermind to eliminate the lead singer of the Japanese ‘Group Sounds’ rock band, The Jaguars, leads the group through a series of psychedelic, comedic escapades.”

At 8:30 at Jazzy’s Cabaret, Simone Moné & The Score conjure the music—and “the magic”—of Whitney Houston.

Sunday, April 21
A ticketed pre-Earth Day “forest therapy” walk starts at 10 a.m. in the Lake Wintergreen section of West Rock Park. “This will be a gentle slow-paced walk where you will be invited to connect with nature using your senses through a series of invitations. … At the end I will prepare a tea and snack for us to share,” writes organizer Kristine Weidner.

The next New Haven Comic & Collectible Spectacular, held from 10 to 3 at the Annex YMA Club, promises vendors selling “Golden and Silver Age through Modern-era comics, graded books, sets, trades, keys and bargain books as well as vintage toys, modern action figure lines, Funko items, LEGO, and MORE! We’ll have featured artists discussing, doing live sketches [of], taking commissions [for] and selling their original art.”

From 1 to 3, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art hosts an Earth Day Celebration featuring “a drop-in art-making session using eco-friendly materials.”

From 5 to 8, Petonito’s Pastry and Cupcake Shoppe in East Haven celebrates “70 sweet years” with an offering of “delicious complimentary desserts” and a performance by The Valente Brothers.

Written by Dan Mims. Image features Ruby the Hatchet. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.

The post This Week in New Haven (April 15-21) appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

Basil Restaurant reminded me of that yesterday with one beautiful course after another. The first to arrive was the Scallion Pancake ($6), a chewy, flaky delight fried to a crispy outer tan. The bright flavor of the scallion cut through the fat of the fry, and the soy dipping sauce, adding sweetness and salt, was a perfect pairing. I only wish the sauce had come in a deeper vessel, making the large wedges of pancake easier to dip.

Dipping them into the next arrival, a bowl of the Curry Tofu Noodle Soup ($10), was much, much easier—and just as delicious. Basil could bottle and sell the soup’s creamy, savory, lightly spicy broth, and the dish’s spongy fried tofu soaked it right in, becoming nice and juicy. Tender leaves of bok choy added welcome texture and bitterness, while the glass noodles I ordered—one of six options—lent support and comfort.

Noodles were the star of my next dish, the Singapore Mee Hoon ($9.50 with vegetables). Tossed in a spicy, salty, irresistible dry curry rub and studded with broccoli, onion, carrot, mushroom, sprouts, green pepper and tofu, the tangled pile of steaming strands held its temperature well, enhancing the heat of the spices.

Last to arrive was the Broccoli with Garlic Sauce ($9.75), its headline crucifer cooked to an easy bite that still had some crunch. Sweet, spicy and, as promised, garlicky, the sauce had great flavor even if the texture at times was gelatinous and uneven. White rice piled on the plate into a pair of igloos was fluffy and comforting, a perfect base for an American Chinese food staple.

Located along the outskirts of downtown at Howe and Whalley, I suspect Basil doesn’t get many of its customers from foot traffic. But with dishes this good at prices this reasonable, it doesn’t have to.

Basil Restaurant
142 Howe St, New Haven (map)
Mon & Wed-Sat 11:30am-10pm, Sun 11:30am-9:30pm
(203) 865-4000
basil-restaurant.my.canva.site

Written and photographed by Dan Mims.

The post Course Notes appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

As a pedestrian, it’s easy to want to get underpasses over with. They’re meant to facilitate movement, of course, but inhuman scale and features, including hard industrial textures and heavy shadows, often make these passages feel more like barriers or cages.

Some New Haven underpasses do better. Simply painting the undercarriage a nice color, like the dusky blue at the base of State Street or the coal-fired red at the I-91 terminus over Water Street, goes a long way. So does public art. A series of murals lining Humphrey Street redeem in part that stretch’s tendency toward desolation, while a massive LED installation above George Street and Church, broadcasting slow-mo video portraits of happy students and personnel at Gateway community college, couldn’t be more welcoming.

Call it a downtown underpass that goes over and above.

Written and photographed by Dan Mims.

The post Passing Muster appeared first on Daily Nutmeg.

The proposal to build a parkway through Fairfield County was first put forward in 1923 as part of a traffic plan for greater New York. Connecticut officials were also eager to relieve congestion on the crowded Boston Post Road. Despite the objections of many Fairfield residents, the project was approved, funded by a $15 million Fairfield County bond issue and begun in the spring of 1935 during the Great Depression, when construction jobs were sorely needed.

Named for Republican congressman Schuyler Merritt, the Merritt Parkway’s first segment opened in 1938, and the full length was complete in 1940. It’s seen as “an icon of the automobile age and a model of highway planning,” incorporating “excellent engineering, … respect for the natural environment and … inherent beauty,” writes Bruce Radde in The Merritt Parkway (1993).

But when the route reaches its Wilbur Cross stretch, beauty and whimsy begin yielding to utility. This is partly due, Radde says, to the fact that “the rolling landscape that animates the Merritt is largely absent on the other side of the Housatonic River.” But it’s also a function of timing. By the time proposals to extend the Merritt toward Hartford with a new parkway came along, the world was a different place.

Funded by unpopular tolls on the Merritt, construction on the Wilbur Cross began in 1940 and was “practically halted” by World War II, though it did get as far as the Derby Avenue overpass, which opened on Christmas Eve in 1941, 17 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Radde writes that the Wilbur Cross Parkway bridges built in Milford and Orange before the war “do show the same spirit that informs the earlier designs” on the Merritt, where George L. Dunkelberger created 68 bridges, each with a unique “imaginative treatment” running “the gamut from the dramatic to the whimsical.”

Sure enough, at exit 56 in Orange, the overpass bridge is decorated with six concrete ornaments meant to look like flaming wheels. Originally, “the area behind each wheel was painted red,” reports Larry Larned in Route 15: The Road to Hartford (2002). Between exits 57 and 58, also in Orange, the small painted “coats of arms of Orange and Yale” are centered on the overpass archways, Radde notes.

North of Orange, however, the bridges are “plain to the point of being undistinguished.” Here, overpasses are built of bare-faced concrete and rusted steel. Northbound and southbound lanes are divided not by a landscaped island but rather by a humble strip of grass, a single guardrail, a concrete barrier.

And yet, the Wilbur Cross has a few surprises up its lanes. The view from atop the hill just south of New Haven’s exit 59 is an impressive, ski slope stretch that falls and then rises into Heroes’ Tunnel. Upon closer approach, the literal light at the end of the tunnel comes into view, along with trees and sky behind a wavering veil of exhaust.

Engineers of the Wilbur Cross wanted to “[come] as near to New Haven as possible, and also [avoid] the numerous Basaltic rock formations for which this part of the State is famous,” wrote project engineer Walter C. Maynard. “Several lines were run in an attempt to accomplish this purpose, but the best of these resulted in anything but a pleasing line either on the ground or on paper. Finally, a line was boldly drawn which straightened out the worst portion of the project and there it was—right over the top of West Rock!”

The best way “over” West Rock was through it, leading to the construction of the state’s first vehicular tunnel, according to a New Haven Register article published at the time. The tunnel’s November 1, 1949, opening was celebrated by attendees who drove through in both directions, then enjoyed a buffet luncheon at the nearby State Highway Department service garage.

The parkway was named for Wilbur Lucius Cross, a Yale English professor who later became governor of Connecticut from 1931 to 1939. “’It is fitting that this parkway should be named after the late Governor Cross,’” said then-governor Chester Bowles at the 1949 tunnel opening, according to the Register. “‘It was Governor Cross who took the Connecticut farmers out of the mud and then worked for the superhighways we now have.’”

Today the Wilbur Cross bears more traffic than perhaps even its engineers could have imagined. Tens of thousands of vehicles travel the road every day. The speed limit of 55 miles per hour is treated as a mere suggestion on a road that was constructed for a maximum speed of 45.

Nevertheless, the parkway remains a favored alternative to what Radde calls “the bleakness and aggressiveness of Interstate 95.” Woods and meadows line much of the route, and rare is the straightaway worthy of an interstate highway. The Wilbur Cross is only 29 miles long—long enough only to listen to a handful of tunes and drink a cup of coffee. But it’s the important last link in a chain of parkways—Hutchinson, Merritt, Cross—that winds from the big city to small cities, from New York to home.

Written by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. Image 1 photographed by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. Image 2 photographed by Dan Mims. This updated story was originally published on July 3, 2018.

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