Paul Bass Photo
Mom Vega and daughter Kaira swing into action.
Litter-weary Grand Avenue neighbors took to the street — with rakes and brooms.
For months they complained about the incessant trash lining the busy blocks of Grand Avenue closest to downtown on the eastern edge of Wooster Square. Officials responded by enlisting them in a growing citywide campaign to make New Haven streets cleaner, block by block.
“I complained to [Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg] about what a filthy place New Haven is. I’ve never seen a more littered place than this,” Kate Culpepper, a retiree from Mississippi who moved to Wooster Square with her husband, said as she joined two dozen or so neighbors grabbing rakes and donning fluorescent green vests Wednesday afternoon at the corner of Jefferson and Grand at the start of the clean-up . “It would be hypocritical of me not to” participate.
“Anybody need gloves?” called out city economic development staffer Matt Smith. “I’ve got some more here.”
Meanwhile, Honda Smith (pictured with Greenberg) of the public works department distributed rakes, brooms, and “goodie bags” with water bottles and other swag. Smith last year put together a neighborhood beautification plan, enlisting citizens and their alders to organize clean-ups, which Smith’s crew would help organize and support.
Wednesday’s Grand Avenue clean-up was the eighth to take place over the past three months. In some neighborhoods, Smith has sent along bulk trash crews in conjunction with the citizen-sweepers to help remove piles of illegally dumped debris; eight tons of trash ended up being collected at the June 20 Lloyd Street pick-up, 2.6 tons at the May 2 Farren Avenue sweep, 16.7 tons in two separate drives organized by Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn. (Read about those events here and here.) At some clean-ups Smith has also sent blowers to help collect fallen leaves and tree branches.
The heavy equipment wasn’t necessary Wednesday on Grand Avenue, where neighbors have complained to Greenberg more about a steady stream of litter. After arranging for the pick-up with Smith, Greenberg sent an email blast. It drew condo owners, public-housing tenants, and volunteers from local agencies like the Project MORE alternatives-to-incarceration agency in the middle of a weekday afternoon, all ready to pick up the sidewalk wrappers and sweep the filthy curbs along Grand between Olive and Hamilton streets.
Jeanette Vega lives at the Farnam Courts public-housing development, where she runs a computer lab. She kept her 13-year-old daughter Kaira (they’re pictured at the top of the story) home for the day from the PAL summer camp so she can join her at the clean-up. “[Greenberg] put up a sign, ‘We’re going to clean the street.’ I said, ‘Yes! I’m going to volunteer!’”
“We are all the time talking about how to improve our neighborhood,” said Martha Canas, assistant director of the Catholic Charities child development center at Jefferson and Grand, as she swept the sidewalk outside her storefront entrance. “We have all these families and children coming here. We want them to come to a clean place.”
The storefronts along the two-block stretch of Grand, mixed in with low-income rentals and middle-class condos, reflect New Haven’s diversity and aspirations: Lucibello’s pastries, Farnam Courts, Ruben Rodriguez’s law office, Unger’s Floor Covering, Hollywood Liquors, Martone Cleaners, Adriana’s restaurant, Haven of Hope Church, Reyes Chiropractic, Project MORE, the Youth Continuum educational training center, the CitySeed farmers market headquarters, around the corner from the LEAP youth recreation and education center.
A number of Wednesday’s sweepers, like retirees Michael Davidson (at left in photo) and Jenny Berkett (at right), own condos at the Urbane complex across form Project MORE. Davidson, a retired Brooklyn boutique owner, and his husband still have a place in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood; they bought the Urbane condo five years ago to spend half their time here taking advantage of New Haven’s cultural offerings. Davidson said he loves New Haven’s vibrancy, the Yale Rep, the Arts & Ideas festival. It’s just the trash that bothers him; he found himself filling a bag of with trash every time he walked downtown.
He said this stretch of Grand, if cleaner, has the potential to attract more investment and become another destination “restaurant row” in New Haven. “I’m a pedestrian; I don’t drive I car. All I see are discarded liquor bottles and trash. It’s disheartening,” he said. It struck him how much cleaner New York sidewalks are; he theorized that part of the reason could be a law allowing the city to fine retailers who fail to keep the sidewalks clean in front of their shops. He recommended New Haven adopt a similar law.
Berkett, a retired Manchester administrative assistant, said she and her husband, too, have been pleased with their decision to move here and take advantage of “so much going on” in New Haven. And she, too, has been disheartened by all the public trash. So she helped clean up Lenzi Park around the corner on Jefferson and maintains flower beds she helped plant there.
Honda Smith urged neighbors elsewhere in town who want to organize similar city-assisted clean-ups to call her at (203) 946‑7700.
When I clean in front of my house, I often say it's like an episode of The Simpsons where they clean their home at 742 Evergreen terrace. The kitchen door swings one way, and it's immaculate. It swings back the other way, and it's a wreck. It's a never ending battle in New Haven. As soon as I clean my front yard or sidewalk, in ten minutes I'll find an empty soda can, or worse in the front.
I see discarded couches, television, tires, and just plain old trash bags on the side of Peck St. in Fair Haven all the time. People have no idea how to dispose of these things, and they just dump it. When I was a kid there used to be a bulk trash pick up twice yearly, now you have to pay $50 for it. Rather than pay, some would rather just throw it on the curb and let someone else deal with it.
I made a "public service announcement" about this a while ago. It's made sarcastically, but I think it gets right to the point. Ideally my public service announcement would be a guy backing up a garbage truck to someone's door and saying "hit it!".
https://youtu.be/2lwrhg7lkc8