Tag: WRSHIP

News about New Haven’s Peace Garden

by Paula Panzarella, Friends of the West River Peace Garden

On July 23, a contingent from Friends of the West River Peace Garden met with managers from Cofield Estates to talk about mutual programs and community resources. The West River Peace Garden is bounded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Ella Grasso Boulevard, and Legion Avenue. The Cofield Estates is a new housing development that abuts the garden.

For decades, where Cofield Estates now stands, this was an empty parcel of land. Members of the West River Self Help Investment Plan (WRSHIP) worked to bring housing to this area for almost 25 years. Finally, it’s been created.

We talked about how the garden became a designated United Nations Peace Garden and why New Haven is a Peace Messenger City. Previously, Mayor Justin Elicker was in contact with Cofield Estates about the Peace Garden.

We mentioned that the Peace Garden would like to have access to a water spigot, and that we can help involve Cofield Estate residents in neighborhood and environmental organizations. We can set up canoe rides at West River Memorial Park, offer bicycle safety classes and repair workshops, and have residents’ teenagers earn volunteer hours at the Peace Garden.

The representatives of Cofield Estates were enthusiastic about the various ways we could help bring programs to the residents, the first of whom moved into the new 56 apartment complex in April.

Within a week of our July 23 meeting, Friends of the West River Peace Garden were given a key to the water spigot on one of the buildings. We now can run lengths of hose to the garden to keep the plants and trees watered. We also can fill up a rain barrel that will store enough water to keep the garden in good shape for two weeks. We look forward to the residents joining us in the garden and in other collaborative projects.

Please consider volunteering! For more information, contact Aaron Goode at aaron.goode@gmail.com, or 203-507-8985. Our website is https://westriverpeacegarden.org.

Long-Awaited Change in the West River Neighborhood

by Frank Panzarella, former board member of West River Neighborhood Services Corporation

For decades, West River residents of New Haven have worked to reconnect the neighborhood cut in half by the misguided urban development nightmare on N. Frontage Road [since renamed MLK Blvd.] and Legion Avenue that attempted to run a major highway through their backyards.

Members of the West River Self Help Investment Program (WRSHIP) created an opportunity to invest in their own neighborhood. Combined with a non-profit development group, the NHP Foundation, they are finally building 56 apartment units, with a community center, coffee shop, bakery, interior parking, a playground and a community gazebo.

These units also sit next to the New Haven United Nations International Peace Garden, created in 2011. This development will bring sorely needed affordable housing to the West River neighborhood.

“The project represents the first new housing to be constructed on a vast stretch of land in New Haven that has been vacant for over four decades,” according to Anthony Dawson, President of WRSHIP and a native of New Haven. It is also a major step for the inclusion of New Haven’s African American community in major economic endeavors. Jerry and Joyce Poole have also been integral leaders working for years to help make this program a reality along with many West River residents.

Named after a well-known leader in the community who championed New Haven’s homeless population and people with AIDS, the complex will be known as the Rev. Curtis M. Cofield II Estates.

The New Haven Independent covered the recent ground-breaking of the development.

You can read about it here: newhavenindependent.org/article/curtts_cofield_estates