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A DIFFERENT VIEW OF HOUSES OF WORSHIP PA GE 16

DOES YALE STILL MATTER? A LOOK AT WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ’S NEW BOOK PA GE 46

$3.95 |DECEMBER | 2014

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THE ELM CITY E M I T e 24

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INTEL also suggests adding more bicycle parking, more bike lanes on main roads, more off-street bike routes, a bicycle way-finding system and increased police reporting and awareness of laws.

WE NEED WHEEL CHANGE Looks like New Haven could do better when it comes to being bicycle friendly.

The League of American Bicyclists gave the Elm City a bronze designation for its Bicycle Friendly Community initiative for fall 2014. The program awards cities from bronze (lowest) to platinum (highest).

LETTER S

According to New Haven’s scorecard, the city was a little lagging compared to the average silver-recipients: only 5 percent of arterial streets have bike lanes (compared to 45 percent in silver cities) and 15 percent of schools offering bicycling education (compared to 43 percent). The city even scored below 5 out of 10 in terms of having a strong bicycle network, driver education, culture, safety and rights enforcement and evaluation and planning.

New Haven was the only city in the area to make the cut this year, but it wasn’t the only Connecticut city on the list either: Simsbury got a silver award, and Farmington, New Britain, South Windsor and West Hartford each got bronze awards.

WORDS o f MOUTH FÊTES

DON’T MESS WITH B-PORT

BRIDGEPORT — The Sports Authority may have wanted to open a retail location in Bridgeport, but that doesn’t mean they wanted anyone to know about it.

The company took some heat from the community when the newly opened Main Street store was listed on the company’s official website as “Sports Authority Trumbull” – an apparent ploy to lure suburban shoppers. The town line is less than a mile up the road.

Ahh, the annual Yale-Harvard football game. Does anything

The fairly wooden video attempts to get under Harvard’s skin by boasting Yale graduates are more attractive than Harvard graduates, that Yale has more wins (65-57, but Harvard has won the last seven), and that Yale actually has a mascot (bulldog Handsome Dan).

MADISON — Say no more, Madison. The food trucks get the hint.

BODY & SOUL ON SCREEN

The town in September voted to allow food trucks to operate on the town’s School Street, which is Continued on page 6 AT DOES YALE STILL MATTER? A LOOK 46 PA GE WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ NEW BOOK

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF HOUSES OF WORSHIP PA GE 16

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$3.95 |DECEMB ER | 2014

| Vol. 7, No.8| Dcember 2014

Graphics Manager Mathew Ford

Publisher’s Representatives Gina Gazvoda Robin Ungaro New Haven is published 8 times annually by Second Wind Media Ltd., which also publishes Business New Haven, with offices at 20 Grand Avenue, New Haven, CT 06513. 203-781-3480 (voice), 203-781-3482 (fax). Subscriptions $24.95/year, $39.95/two years. Send name,

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4 D ECEMBER 2014

IVIES AT IT AGAIN

Oh – and Harvard won this year’s game, 31-24. Better luck next year, Yale!

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New Haven

Last year a group of Harvard students led tourists in New Haven on a fake tour of the Yale campus, mocking their rivals at every opportunity. This year Yale made its attempt at payback: a YouTube video challenging Harvard’s Undergraduate Council President to a boxing match a day before the November 22 game.

It was a challenge that went unaccepted.

Yale College Council president Michael Herbert (wearing a boxing robe) even says there’s “nothing to do in Harvard,” and that it’s a “graveyard of dreams,” with no discernable sense of irony.

(DON’T) KEEP ON OUTDOORS TRUCKIN’

After some complaints the store location was changed to “Sports Authority Bridgeport/Trumbull,” but now the “Trumbull” has been dropped altogether. Take that!

OF NO TES

For New Haven to reach a silver designation, the League recommends establishing a bicycle advisory committee and increasing education in schools. It

better demonstrate classic New England Ivy League competition?

Only the inevitable pranks that inevitably ensue each year.

IN STYL E

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However New Haven does have above-average ridership (3.8 percent daily riders, versus the 3.5 percent average), and a belowaverage rate of crashes 131.6 per 10,000 daily riders versus a 180 average) and fatalities (0.4 per 10,000 daily riders versus a 1.4 average).

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just off the Boston Post Road. But residents aren’t too happy about that, arguing that they don’t want the trucks in Madison’s historic part of town. One resident has even taken to parking his own car in the spots the trucks would occupy.

The trucks were moved to School Street from the less-visible Academy Street in the summer after 2,200 residents voted overwhelmingly on the town website to allow the trucks to stay in town and park on School Street.

Meanwhile, some of the vendors themselves are fed up; Greg Sharon has blown town with his Taco Pacifico truck to set up at the Clinton Crossing outlets one town over.

TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW Website: StevenJacobs.JHilburn.com | Facebook: JHilburnCT eMail: Steven.Jacobs@JHilburnPartner.com | Phone: 203.376.0200

SOUTHINGTON — What’s the Spanish word for “shame”?

Probably the main reason school officials at Southington High School are eager to cover up a particularly embarrassing incident in which a Spanish teacher showed up to school extremely drunk.

The teacher allegedly taught during the first two periods of the day, before urinating and soiling himself and assaulting a student. He was apparently then handcuffed and

taken out of the classroom by school staff.

The incident was apparently not reported to police, and the finer details not given to parents. The teacher has thus far not been identified.

ALL ABOARD FOR SLOTS? Politicians and city leaders gathered for photos ops at Union Station on December 9 to talk up upgrades for Amtrak train service on the NewHaven-Hartford-Springfield line. Top on the upgrade agenda?

More than $365 million of work that would bump up the number of trains from New Haven to Springfield to 16 trains a day, up from the current 6. Improvements to tracks, bridges and culverts should be done by late 2016. That’s just months before MGM Resorts International is slated to open its $800 million Springfield casino.

Coincidence?

We wouldn’t bet on it.

NEWBIE WANTS TO KNOW….

How Long Has the FBI Been in Town?

T

he Federal Bureau of Investigation opened its field office in New Haven in 1940, in the Union and New Haven Trust Building at the corner of Church and Elm streets (now a Wells Fargo office).

Previous FBI investigations were handled out of Hartford or New York. The New Haven division worked federal crimes and national security, investigating bank robberies and fugitive searches (including several Top Ten fugitives), as well as investigations of organized crime in the 1980s and 90s, which included takedowns of Connecticut operations of the Genovese and Gambino crime families. The division also investigates cyber attacks, mortgage fraud, white collar crime, civil rights issues and corruption, including the case of former governor John Rowland in 2003. The division’s current location is at the corner of State and Grove streets downtown, on the site where once stood the New Haven Arena.

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Court Cases

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othing grabs the attention of the public quite like a compelling court case, with the O.J. Simpson murder trial being the gold standard for the modern age. Despite not exactly being the center of the universe, New Haven has been home to a few notable trials, from the infamous Black Panther trials in 1970 to those that followed the 2007 Cheshire home invasion. Here are a few of our other high profile cases.

Elizabeth Godman No list of trials would be complete without an honest-to-goodness witch trial. Elizabeth Godman was tried twice for being a witch, in 1653 and 1655. Known as a something of a troublemaker in town, she was accused of causing illnesses and deaths of people and livestock, casting spells, speaking with the Devil, and even souring freshly brewed beer. There ultimately was not enough evidence to convict her, so she was let go, albeit with suspicion, and was warned not to cause trouble again. She was fined 50 pounds.

Griswold v. Connecticut In 1962, it was still illegal to use any form of birth control or for doctors to even give information about it, thanks to a law that dated back to the late 1800s. Estelle Griswold, executive director of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and Yale obstetrics chairman Charles Lee Buxton opened a birth control clinic in New Haven that was promptly raided.

While the two were found guilty and fined $100, they won their appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing a right to privacy in what was ultimately a precursor to the Roe v.

Wade ruling a decade later.

Edward Grant Twenty-one-year-old New Haven woman Concetta “Penny” Serra was stabbed to death in the Temple Street Parking Garage in 1973, a long-unsolved murder that partly helped cement New Haven’s reputation for crime. Several were accused, but none arrested. It wasn’t until DNA testing became available years later that made all signs point to Waterbury auto mechanic Edward Grant. By the time he was arrested in 1997, the 59-year-old had already raised two families. He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

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New Haven’s been growing, doing better. Is there a really a need for a slogan or a “re-branding”?

By Mitchell Young With the new year comes a new opportunity to promote New Haven and bring more attention to our dynamic city. Why not put the word out that we’re the “Greatest Small City in America”? New Haven Magazine and Business New Haven Publisher Mitchell Young makes the case for a new brand in this Q & A, a version of which previously appeared in Business New Haven.

First off explain how you latched onto the phrase ‘New Haven: Greatest Small City in America.”

I started to notice on social media that this “#GSCIA” was appearing along with New Haven news and events. The acronym is translated as “Greatest Small City in America.” There’s an “I Love New Haven” tag too, and since ten year’s ago our sitster publication Business New Haven did an “I Love New Haven” cover feature (with two people holding pennants: one reading “I Love New Haven” and the other “I Hate It”), I started paying attention to social media to see if things maybe had changed.

So who was pushing these ideas?

I’m not a social media expert, but it looked like a lot of a certain kind of person.

Then I bumped into Bruce Ditman, the marketing director for Marcum, a national accounting firm at the Connecticut Technology Council’s Tech Top 40 event last fall, which Marcum sponsors. We talked about New Haven’s lack of self-promotion, his support of the “Greatest Small City in America” idea and promotion of the phrase in social media.

Bruce is not your ordinary marketing guy. Marcum jumped in to sponsor the Tech Top 40 as soon as 8 D ECEMBER 2014

Deloitte withdrew its support of the Fast Fifty that the technology council was running.

And then there was his and Marcum’s decision a few years ago to start an LGBT practice in their firm.

A national accounting firm seeing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community as an opportunity and having the guts to act on it early, to me says a lot. When you’re in regional business and local media you don’t see much of that type of risk taking.

Starting with this issue, Ditman will be writing a regular column in New Haven Magazine entitled “My New Haven.”

I’ve been involved in promoting New Haven since 1975, when I was the man on the street starting up the New Haven Advocate newspaper. In all that time, New Haven has never put forward a positive image in a meaningful way. When we started our Business New Haven publication 21 years, ago we had businesspeople warning us if we wanted to succeed, “don’t use the name New Haven in your publication masthead.” We in fact had a second choice and prototype CONNTACT, which we use now on the web.

One of the things Bruce Ditman said to me was, “if you don’t define who you are, other people will.” That is what continues to happen to New Haven.

While much more being said today is positive, New Haven still didn’t make the top 100 places to live as ranked by the website Livability. Ironically, the site recently named us the No. 1 “foodie” city in the country.

But you did name that frst publication Business New Haven?

Yes we did. As I recall had a very clear view, “This is where we are, this is who we’ll be.”

We decided our job was to help fix the brand.

And in 2007, we again chose New Haven as our brand when we started New Haven magazine.

Everything we’ve done, and what for me was my personal fortune has been tied to this name. And frankly, it ‘s still not an easy sell.

Now seeing the public turn the corner with #GSCIA on its own, organically – is something we should all support.

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

Although I think they may have something going with ”Our Meriden” I favor, “You Can Shine in the Silver City” for Meriden.

Just something, anything, that really speaks to their communities, instead of to nothing.

Hasn’t New Haven been growing and doing great compared to the rest of Connecticut?

Boomers are the folks in charge in Connecticut and they don’t have a clue about the importance of “place identity” that the folks under forty do.

New Haven has a marketing arm, Market New Haven.

Yes, and they’ve done a good job but in a very limited arena: shopping and restaurants, mostly. They are not really promoting the city overall or creating a brand, and for the New Haven region, promotion is non-existent.

I don’t believe people from around the world come to the U.S. to live in Jersey City and start their businesses or lives over there. They want to be in greater New Haven, they just don’t know it. Nor do they know how welcoming the city and the region can be.

What makes a great slogan?

I don’t know, but I can see what is bad and what is good.

In this case the zeitgeist has already come up with it and it addresses decades of misperception and misinformation about New Haven.

Contrast it to slogans in use today in southern New England – with promotion dollars and effort behind them:

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“It’s Happening Here” (Torrington).

“Hartford Has It.” “Make It Happen Here!” (New Haven) “It’s All Here” (Massachusetts).

The town of Meriden used on a billboard “Make It Here, in Our Meriden.” Meriden has at least a core message, “Our Meriden,” These seem to derive from the baby boomer slogan, “Hey Man, This Is Where It’s At.” The greybeard boomers that run things apparently love that expression and see much more in “it” than they should. It must be the latent impact of LSD. For Torrington, which was home to the ball bearing industry, couldn’t it be “City On A Roll?”

For Hartford, with its huge workforce, powerful business community and thousands of hard-working immigrants, couldn’t that be “The City That Works?”

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matters to all of them. They don’t want to tell people they live in New Haven and have friends and family say or think something bad.

They need to be in a place that has respect and is happening and is acknowledged. Their parents don’t need that.

The boomers in charge can hire all the consultants they want and read all the books about “making places”, but they don’t get how much it matters to “Dreamers and Doers” where they want to be and have to be.

Another boomer slogan was “Don’t trust anyone over forty,” now the boomer slogan is “Don’t trust anyone UNDER forty.”

They want to change your schools, your taxis, your work place, your media. So the greybeards (myself included), continue to resist even as we wonder why young people won’t stay. This has been a story in Connecticut, for fifteen years how to get young people to stay. The truth is – we’re kicking them out.

They want kayaking, we make it hard. They want music clubs, we say, what kind?

But ‘place identity’?

The boomers told their kids to play well with others, and unlike the boomers who lived by “Do Your Own Thing”, they are a social generation and place identity

Brooklyn is a golden word in “place identity.”

Where’s the proof?

As we used to say in Brooklyn, “Go figure.”

An hour away. I grew up in Brooklyn and I hate Boston (or a least the Sox), but for the past ten years I believed New York didn’t own the future because it didn’t have the technology chops of Boston, or Bangalore, or San Francisco, or the infrastructure to get it and would be a loser twenty years down the road.

It still doesn’t tell me why #GSCIA,’ and what should happen next?

Now seven thousand tech companies are there.

Brooklyn became the spot people started moving to.

There are still drugs and violence and everything else bad that drove me out of Brooklyn, but thousands of young people are moving there and building businesses because it became the place they want to be.

I’ve never cared much about who was in city hall.

My world view is the culture rules, the politicians follow.

But Matt Nemerson (the city’s head of economic development) has long been a friend to our publications and to us. I want him to succeed and professionally we need a stronger business environment in the region, and today that starts with New Haven and a brand that doesn’t apologize.

I said to Matt “if social media hands you a slogan created by the Dreamers and Doers, it’s a gift.

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some of the best faculty members were heading elsewhere. They couldn’t keep the existing buildings maintained, never mind build new ones, and the city was crumbling around them. Then Rick Levin came in, and today they have money, investments in life sciences, engineering, business, amazing new buildings and schools, an expanding undergraduate student body and an international student base, as well as a financial aid policy that assures anyone chosen can afford to attend.

He was one of those professors that was recruited 20 or so years ago to replace some of those leaving.

Make it your own.”

Quinnipiac, the University of New Haven, Albertus, Southern and Gateway, have likewise been transformed.

But, as Bruce Ditman has said, “We’re not saying this is the Greatest Small Utopia in America.”

And politically speaking, nearly half the people who voted for mayor voted for the other guy, someone with pretty much no experience. Its not like we have a united city.

Day in and day out, these institutions will bring thousands of young people and professionals to New Haven and the city is attracting young people from throughout Connecticut to live as well.

Why isn’t #GSCIA being adopted more?

I recently interviewed Barry Nalebuff, Yale School of Management professor and founder of Honest Tea.

To paraphrase, he said “the people who are attracted to New Haven come because it is a place where they can make a difference.”

In greater New Haven, boomers and young people, citizens from all ethnic groups and demographics take problems into their own hands and try to fix them.

What is making New Haven the Greatest Small City in America is not the art, the pizza, the start-ups or the universities. It is the nature of the people here, what they care about and what they are willing to do to make New Haven and the region better. If they start calling themselves the greatest, that’s good enough for me.

It is being adopted and growing.

Peter Salovey, the new president of Yale, is a longtime resident and true lover of New Haven.

He addressed 600 businesspeople at the Chamber of Commerce this spring and ended his speech saying that the 376th anniversary of New Haven was coming on April 24th and we should all “post it, tweet it and tell your friends: ‘New Haven: Greatest Small City in America!’”

Michael Morand, Deputy Communications Director for Yale, has been a big proponent of #GSCIA on social media, on Facebook he’s got a lot of friends.

Morand lobbied Anne Worcester( head of market New Haven) at the chamber event to incorporate it into Market New Haven’s efforts as well.

I suggested to Matt that the city should take up the cause and post a banner on city hall in time for the Arts & Ideas Festival for the thousands of people who would be right in front of it, and that could be the brand game changer for New Haven!

New Haven Mayor Tony Harp herself has tweeted out “Greatest Small City in America.” But in bureaucracy whoever raises fear usually wins the argument, so no banner or offical support – yet.

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But really, is New Haven the Greatest Small City in America?

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Masters of Invention D

id you know that every time you suck on lollipop, hit the brakes or light a match you’re tapping into New Haven’s history? The Elm City has been a magnet for inventors for centuries with its rich history of trade, manufacturing and innovation.

See those innovations up close at a new exhibit at the New Haven Museum: “From Clocks to Lollipops: Made in New Haven.” On display until May 30, the show features more than 100 objects, advertisements, trade cards and photos that offer a glimpse into the city’s history as a center for the production of consumer goods.

Expect to see real pieces of history that detail the making of goods like corsets, firearms, carriages, auto parts, clocks, musical instruments, silver-plated wares and candy.

New Haven, it was invented here!

By Priscilla Searles The Lollipop We can credit Elm City candy maker George Smith of the Bradley Smith Co. with coming up with the idea that eating hard candy on a stick was a lot easier than trying to hold the sticky stuff in your fingers.

In 1892 Smith observed that another New Havener had inserted a stick in chocolate caramel candy.

If that worked, he reasoned, why not try hard candy? By 1903 Smith and his partner, Andrew Bradley, were producing “pegged” hard candy, which sold for a 12 D ECEMBER 2014

penny each. The new product remained nameless until Smith paid a visit to a local fair and watched a horse named “Lolly Pop” win its race.

Bradley Smith adopted the term for its candy on a stick, patenting the name in 1931. But for several years during the Depression the company stopped making candy and was unable to maintain ownership of the trademark.

The name became a generic term for candy on a stick, Elm City candy maker George Smith started putting sticks in his hard candy in 1903, and named the treat after a winning racehorse, “Lolly Pop.”

eventually becoming one word. Bradley Smith remained in business in New Haven until 1984.

Stone Crusher Yale College graduate Eli Whitney Blake began his career in the field of law. But when Uncle Eli Whitney asked for his help in erecting and organizing the gun factory at Whitneyville, Blake turned his attention to “building a better mousetrap,” including making numerous improvements in the machinery.

In 1851 Blake had been placed on a New Haven town commission charged with laying 2 miles of macadam pavement on Whalley Avenue between New Haven and Westville.

Frustrated with the waste of labor in producing NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

crushed stone, Blake turned his attention to finding a labor-saving solution. The result was the stone crusher. After the machine debuted in 1856, Blake formed the Blake Rock Crusher Co. and by 1879 had produced 500 of the devices, saving millions of dollars in road construction.

Blake’s rock crusher remains in use today.

Automatic Fire Sprinkler Henry S. Parmelee, president of the Mathusek Piano Works of New Haven, was distressed over the soaring cost of fire insurance, driven to stratospheric heights following major fires in Chicago and Boston in 1871 and 1872, respectively.

Looking for ways to protect his piano factory while saving on insurance premiums, in 1874 he came up with the first closed sprinkler head, which he installed in his shop.

Although Parmelee had developed the automatic fire sprinkler for his piano factory, some business associates soon asked him to design sprinkler systems for their own factories. From those requests came the birth of the Parmelee Sprinkler Co. Because the systems were expensive to install, Parmelee convinced insurance companies to lower rates for businesses that installed the system.

Prone to clogging and not very sensitive, Parmelee’s sprinklers left much to be desired. In spite of the disadvantages, they did work and Parmelee was successful in promoting them, with some 200,000 installed throughout New England. The early systems did, in fact, pave the way for more effective sprinklers for commercial use.

Vulcanized Rubber Experiments by Naugatuck-based Charles Goodyear to prevent India rubber from melting and decomposing at high temperatures led to the accidental invention of the process of vulcanizing rubber.

Goodyear had some early success, obtaining a patent for a process that destroyed the adhesive properties of rubber by mixing it with nitric acid and copper. By 1833 he was producing shoes, piano covers and tablecloths. In the same year Goodyear met Nathaniel Hayward, who was about to patent his discovery that sulfur spread on rubber eliminated the latter’s stickiness. Hayward assigned his patent, granted in 1839, to Goodyear, who combined Clinic 1234

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the Hayward process with his own patented nitric acid coating. When Goodyear accidentally dropped a mass of rubber treated with Hayward’s sulfur solution onto a hot stove, the rubber did not melt but remained solid.

night to find his son and some friends playing ball in the backyard. The boys were trying to throw curves with a small plastic golf ball.

Mullany’s son, David A., complained that throwing the golf ball for a long time made his arm feel “like jelly.”

Mullany’s goal was to make a ball that kids could throw curveballs with.

Coming up with a ball the same size as a regulation baseball, but made of hollow plastic, he tested the market by placing some on the counter of a local diner. The name came about when his son’s friends would refer to a strikeout as a “whiff.”

In 1844, Goodyear was awarded a patent for his process. Although a simple “accident” breathed new life into the American rubber industry, Goodyear was unable to reap any financial rewards. To pay off his debts he was forced to sell licenses and establish royalties at prices far below their true commercial value.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today Wiffle Ball, proudly made in America, is headquartered in Shelton.

The Truss Bridge New Haven engineer and architect Ithiel Town began his career as a house painter. He came to New Haven in 1810, achieving almost instant acclaim as an architect for his designs of Center Church (1813) and Trinity Church on the Green (1815).

In 1821 Town created what would become a universal design for the wooden covered bridge. Previously construction of wood truss bridges required engineering abilities that most carpenters lacked as well as specially hewn timbers.

Characterized as the bridge that could be built by the mile and cut off by the yard, Town’s truss bridge was simple, practical and possible to construct

American Dictionary of the English Language by those who lacked his engineering ability. Town’s first truss bridge was constructed in New Haven in 1823 for the Hartford & New Haven Turnpike, spanning the millpond at Eli Whitney’s gun factory.

Town received a $1-per-foot royalty for all truss bridges built in the United States, making him a wealthy man.

New England is dotted with covered bridges built with the Town design.

The Wiffle Ball Wiffle ball — it’s not quite baseball and there is little danger of batting the lightweight ball through any glass windows. You can play with it inside or outside. And it came about when a son presented his father with a problem.

The year was 1953 and David N. Mullany, an out of work semi-pro baseball pitcher, arrived home one

A 1776 graduate of Yale College, Noah Webster became a teacher. He soon realized the need for textbooks and set about producing numerous books appropriate for classroom instruction.

One such book was the Elementary Spelling Book, otherwise known as the Blue Back Speller, published in 1783.

With the backing of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, by 1862 the little spelling book had sold 41 million copies in

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With its appeal to a child’s craving to built, the Erector Set was an instant hit when it came out in 1912. Built in Fair Haven until 1960s, the toy is now manufactured in France.

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1355 North Broad Street, Meriden CT 06450 various editions and revisions. It is this book that helped to establish a standardization of spelling and pronunciation. It supported Webster and his family while he worked on his dictionary.

The idea for the dictionary was born while Webster was attending Yale Law School. Webster began to write down every word that he did not understand. There was an English dictionary available at the time but it hadn”t been updated for decades.

Webster worked on his dictionary year after year, re-writing, expanding and perfecting it for 21 years until 1828, when the first two-volume work was published. Not satisfied, he spent the next 23 years producing abridgements of various sizes.

Locally Grown Seed Oysters A successful sea captain who had helmed some of the fastest and largest packets operating between New York and Europe, Charles Hervey Townshend first went to sea at age 15.

Townshend had a strong interest in

the oyster industry, which had been part of New Haven’s economy from the earliest days of the colony. Unable to grow seed oysters locally, by 1850 new Haven oystermen were using 250 schooners to import 200 million bushels of seed oysters yearly to Fair Haven, the epicenter of the region’s oyster industry.

Having observed oystering in France, Townshend was convinced that seed oysters could be grown locally and set out to prove his theory. Using the moat at Fort Nathan Hale, he began to experiment. He met with some success early on but when neighbors found out, they ate the evidence.

Undaunted, he tried again, this time proving the seed oysters cemented to old, used shells. So successful was his discovery that by the turn of the century more than 50 oyster companies lined the Quinnipiac River, producing one-eighth of the nation’s total output of oysters and seed oysters.

continued next pagee

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15

Casters: Blake Brothers, 1838

The Erector Set A lifelong interest in magic helped pay Alfred Carleton Gilbert’s way through Yale and eventually led to the formation of the A.C. Gilbert Co.

We can thank the Blake Brothers for the ability to roll our beds away. The Blake patent described the new product as a “mode of constructing casters and applying them to bedsteads.”

Given a set of magic tricks at age 11, Gilbert developed great skill, appearing at events while in college as a magician. Following graduation in 1906, Gilbert began to manufacture box sets of magic tricks under the name Mysto Manufacturing Co. In 1912 the ambitious Gilbert came out with a new toy in time for Christmas: the Erector Set. The toy was an instant success with children and parents alike.

Rubber Overshoes: L. Candee & Co. 1843 Taking full advantage of Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber, L. Candee & Co. was the first to manufacture rubber overshoes and boots.

Artificial Ice: Alexander Catlin Twining, 1848

Erector Sets contained various metal beams with holes for assembly using nuts and bolts, as well as pulleys, gears, wheels and a small electric motor.

Gilbert continued to expand his product line, adding non-toy items. In 1916 he changed the name of the company to A.C. Gilbert Co. and added chemistry sets to the line. Over the years numerous toys were added including trains.

In 1967, the company closed its doors. But the Erector Set survives, now manufactured by another firm.

The Cotton Gin It’s the rare New Havener who doesn’t know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. But don’t ask how it works and what impact it had on the economy of the United States — and indeed the world.

propellers. It was able to approach ships partially submerged and attach an explosive charge to the target’s hull with an external screw-like device.

The craft itself worked but the armament device was unsuccessful. Bushnell also came up with and operated by a means of a vertical plunger traveling up and down a cylinder, pushing and lowering the car above it. The plunger was moved by liquid under pressure. His inventions made possible the electric street railway, and his Sprague control system is still used in the New York subway.

Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, cultivating cotton simply wasn’t practical as it took a laborer an entire workday to clean a single pound of cotton.

The idea of a machine to separate the cotton seeds wasn’t new, but Whitney was the first one to come up with a design that worked. Granted a patent in 1794, Whitney’s invention used a saw-tooth design that removed the seeds in large quantities without severely damaging the fibers.

Production jumped from one pound per day per worker to 1,000 pounds a day, providing the South with a transformative cash crop that would keep mills busy on both sides of the Atlantic (though at the same time fueling a dramatic increase in the population of indentured servants and slaves needed to cultivate the crop).

Whitney’s first model was stolen. Later, a factory containing 20 cotton gins burned to the ground and legal wrangling over infringement of the patent kept him from reaping the financial rewards from his transformative innovation. In spite of all challenges and failures, the method used by Whitney is still employed today.

Submarine The Turtle invented by David Bushnell in 1776 was a one-man wooden barrel-like craft, the first submersible used for military purposes. Employed during the American Revolution against British warships, the vessel was powered by hand-turned 16 D ECEMBER 2014

If you wanted to keep food cold prior to 1848, you had to hope that you still had ice cut from nearby lakes during the previous winter. Shipping perishable foods to other countries during the warm months was extremely difficult, if not impossible. Twining’s artificial ice-making machine made ice available yearround.

Blotting Paper: Joseph Parker, 1856 Sand was the popular way to dry ink until Parker produced blotting paper at his West Rock Paper Mill.

Small quantities of a similar paper was available from England. The same year he came up with a formula for blotting paper, he also manufactured the first tissue paper made in America. The company is also credited with perfecting tissue paper for making newspaper mats.

Corkscrew: Philos P. Blake, 1860 A pretty simple idea, but Blake’s corkscrew was difficult to use on wooden stoppers. When cork became popular the corkscrew received wide acceptance.

And More....

Sulfur Matches: Thomas Sanford and Edward Beecher, 1835 The tinder box became outdated when New Haven’s Sanford and Beecher devised the first sulfur matches in this country, also developing a match-making machine. Once a luxury, matches became affordable to everyone.

Mortised Locks: Blake Brothers, 1835

Painless Dentistry: Joseph H. Smith, 1863 Trips to the dentist would be a real nightmare if Joseph Smith hadn’t advertised painless dentistry.

The first use of anesthesia at the dentist’s office was so popular that in one month Smith pulled more than 1,000 molars.

Spring Tape Measure: Alvin J. Fellows, 1868 A tape measure enclosed in a circular case with a spring lock holding the tape at any desired point.

Every household owns at least one, but it took New Havener Fellows to perfect the idea.

Pioneers in the manufacture of hardware for homes and factories, the Blake Brothers of Westville made the first mortised locks for doors and chests, replacing the old box lock.

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Telephone Switchboard: George C. Coy, 1878 The manager of a New Haven telegraph office, Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell’s demonstration of the telephone in New Haven to organize his own telephone business. Designing his own machines, he founded the Southern New England Telephone Co. on January 15, 1878, with crude and often inefficient equipment. The wooden switchboard required six separate connections and disconnections to complete a single call.

Steel Spectacles: J.E. Spencer & Co., 1886 The manufacture of steel spectacles gave Americans a cheaper version of a product already available in Europe.

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Mechanical Brain: Fred Carroll, 1905 Figures were added and subtracted by hand until Carroll came up with a computing machine that could add and subtract, printing out the tabulations on a roll of paper – the great- grandaddy of your PC.

Vitamin A: Thomas Osborne, 1913 Osborn discovered vitamin A, which was a chemical produced at the Connecticut Agricultural Station in New Haven.

Artificial Heart: William H Sewell Jr. and William Glen, 1949 A major breakthrough in modern medicine, this bypass equipment allowed physicians to perform delicate operations directly on the heart while blood flow continued normally.

Historical material contributed by Priscilla Searles from her series From The Archives in Business New Haven.

new haven

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Sacred Sights Appreciating the high art in our holy places

The oldest Catholic parish in New Haven and the second oldest in Connecticut, St. Mary’s on Hillhouse Avenue is known for its spectacular gothic architecture.

Photos: STEVE BLAZO

Behind the unassuming facades of some of New Haven’s many houses of worship lie some true masterpieces of architecture and design, easily appreciated by devout and nonbeliever alike. From the splendor of St. Mary’s on Hillhouse Avenue to the reclaimed elegance of the Orchard Street Synagogue, local artisans have done some of their best work in the service of the divine. New Haven magazine wants to shine a spotlight on these spectacular shrines – we’re starting with these four but we’d like to feature other religious gems in and around greater New Haven.

Send suggestions to newhaven@conntact.com.

A 2012 restoration effort has given new life to the Orchard Street Shul, a synagogue built in 1924 in the heart of New Haven’s original Jewish neighborhood.

Varick Memorial AME Zion church on Dixwell Avenue is the oldest African-American church in the city. It was founded in 1818 by James Varick, the first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

A masterpiece of the Gothic revival style, the Episcopalian Christ Church on Broadway also features ornate mahogany carvings by the Bavarian sculptor Johannes Kirchmayer.

A masterpiece of the Gothic revival style, the Episcopalian Christ Church on Broadway also features ornate mahogany carvings by the Bavarian sculptor Johannes Kirchmayer.

Tailor Snips Out a Full Life in New Haven Artisan’s work suits the rich and famous

By Jessica Giannone

A

ndy Ruggiero was not looking for love.

The multitalented Primo Adriano Ruggiero, as his proper Italian name appropriately rings, can’t exactly be labeled with one occupation: tailor, hairdresser, painter, chef, gardener, speaker of three languages; “gramps.”

We could start off by noting his peak achievements of working on attire for the likes of, oh, John F. Kennedy and Anthony Perkins, but we shouldn’t brag upfront.

Nestled in his East Haven apartment, adorned with over a dozen (breathtaking) paintings of his own making, the 76-year-old semiretired New Haven tailor simply shrugged with indifference when questioned about any special, past romances in his life – none particularly profound. I begged to differ.

It is best to start from the beginning.

The War

Ruggiero came over to America, leaving behind the enchanting Italian coastal town of Scauri, in the winter of 1954. He was just 16 during that cold November when he docked in New York with his 2-year-old sister after the 15-day sail. Saturnia was the name of the ship; one that survived a three-day storm which nearly consumed the boat with 20-foot waves, as Ruggiero recalls. But this storm was not the worst phenomenon he’s witnessed.

“When you’re small and something drastic happens,” says Ruggiero, “it stays in your mind and it doesn’t go away.”

(Though nothing ever seems to slow Ruggiero down.

The man hasn’t been sick since 1957.)

Growing up in the Italian resort town with his parents and siblings, Ruggiero experienced one of the worst 26 D ECEMBER 2014

faces of World War II’s impact on Italy. To be 6 years old and directly shot at by a British “mystery” plane while you’re walking along the hillside with your family is not something that disappears from your dreams.

The Ruggieros were residing in Scauri at the time the Germans were forcing civilians to leave, around 1944. Ruggiero remembers his family walking single-file as the bullets were careening down from overhead on each side of them. They had to hide behind bushes before the plane circled back around and finally left.

Rather than having the option to take shelter in their home, that too, was to be threatened.

“We could hear [the Germans] coming with their big boots,” says Ruggiero.

His family was forced to seek shelter elsewhere after all of the houses in town were threatened with destruction. His father had to lead them farther up the mountains where the main town was.

Initially, a guard had promised to spare their dwelling for the sake of his mother and kids, and a number of townspeople had brought over food to store in his basement. Soon after, though, their house was bombed, leaving them on their own to sleep outside come nightfall.

“Everything came down,” says Ruggiero. “Smoke and dust.”

Eventually, his father had “shaved real good, put a kerchief over his head,” put on Andy’s mother’s dress, and disguised himself as an elderly woman to venture down where the ruins of his house remained to see what could be salvaged. What remained of his house was the basement with merely cheese, sugar, flour and wine, which was about all his mother had to feed her infant son, Alex. A few months later, his family would just manage to escape the last bombing, ultimately destroying the property.

When the family found a new location several months later – the ruins of a half of a house with a fireplace still intact – Ruggiero’s father had to hide from “recruiters” looking to make use of any man left in sight. The family’s fate was left to a

conspicuous chicken clucking away near his father’s hiding place under a bed. After 20 intense minutes of questioning, he was let go.

After endless seasons of being trucked by Americans to various temporary housing locations, Ruggiero was content to be able to return back to his hometown in about 1947 when the worst of the war storm had passed. The bullet holes from a past attack in their “new” house remained.

“When I can think about it,” says Ruggiero, “I can see it right there. It’s like it happened yesterday.”

At the camps, Ruggiero recalls having to be sprayed with some sort of disinfectant in attempts to control illnesses at the time. The spray did not prevent Ruggiero and his sister from contracting almost deadly cases of malaria.

The family spent a brief period of living in on mattresses on the ground in warehouses and subsisting on beans mixed with figs, macaroni or grapes. On a better day, his father would sneak out to the farm next door and steal chickens.

“Do I complain when something [is not] good?” he says. “No. If you were hungry, you ate,” says Ruggiero.

By November of 1954, Ruggiero was glad to say he “left all this behind.”

The Boy

His life in Italy was certainly not all rubble and rubbish.

“I was happy all the time,” Ruggiero proclaims.

In the early ’50s, society was still “way behind normal,” but Ruggiero managed to improve his circumstances wherever possible.

He went to school for the first time at age 8; grade one. Ruggiero says not many of the older kids went to school back then. He eventually stopped going when he simply did not have the shoes to walk there anymore. They were as worn as the country.

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

Here is where the irony steps in. When Ruggiero was about 12, his parents’ attempts to get him to help out in his father’s tailor shop were less than successful. He did not learn to tailor from his pop.

“I didn’t want to stay there and be a tailor,” says Ruggiero. “I used to get sucked into the shop and watch all the time.”

When his mother managed to snag him a job at a friend’s hair salon when he was 13, his work ethic finally sprouted.

From 7:30 in the morning to 10 at night, Ruggiero was “like a slave” working for 50 cents a week, sweeping floors and washing windows. He had to stand on boxes to shampoo women’s hair before he grew – physically and professionally.

“Can I go home now?” Ruggiero would ask, come 9 every night.

“Not yet,” his boss would say.

Often it was just the two of them.

After a year Ruggiero was often running the place, cutting his own

clients’ hair and taking over for the shop’s vacationing owner. On the days he wasn’t sneaking out of the salon to go to the beach with friends, he was playing street games, serenading girls or jumping in the freezing winter ocean to impress them.

“If I close my eyes, I know all the streets over there,” he says. “I know just where they were.”

Ruggiero’s “New Haven”

“It was winter,” Ruggiero reflects. “It was strange.”

In Italy, all of the houses were made of stone or brick. When he first arrived in New York, however, he recalls confusedly noticing little houses in the distant woods.

Among Andy Ruggiero’s famous tailoring clients was Dick Curless, a pioneer of trucking tunes known as the “Baron of Country Music.” It took five full days for Ruggiero to sew the country star’s meticulously-tailored, rhinestone-decked suit.

“I said, ‘What? Is there no house over here?’” he says. “What? Does everybody live in the shacks?”

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27

Retired after a career as New Haven’s “Tailor to the Stars,” Andy Ruggiero now expresses his creativity through painting.

He found New Haven even “funnier” because all of the houses were made of wood. His, in particular, was in the Hill section of our beloved Elm City.

He moved into a three-family home with his aunt, who was already residing there with Ruggiero’s mother and uncle. His mother had ventured to America two years prior to Ruggiero, where his father and other siblings would soon follow in 1956.

Ruggiero had to help his mother work and save money so the rest of his family could come to the country. He taught himself English within six months by reading the newspaper every day.

“It was nice,” Ruggiero recalls. “There were no drugs [back then].”

He and his gang of friends would often go to an ice cream place off Kimberly Avenue where teenagers danced endlessly to jukeboxes. They would go to the bowling alleys, the matinees (the Stooges and Chaplin were among the usual), the drive-in movies (cars full of kids), the pizza parlors, and a favorite 28 D ECEMBER 2014

spot on Columbus Avenue to hang out and eat 5-cent chocolate.

“You could walk down Congress Avenue at 11 at night and no one would bother you,” Ruggiero says.

After about a couple of months in America, Ruggiero got a job on Chapel Street working in a third-floor pant shop which used to be across from a Yale art building. The owner spoke Italian, and he paid Ruggiero the near-minimum wage of 75 cents an hour. Ruggiero pocketed $25 a week.

Conveniently, the jacket shop below was more interested in Ruggiero’s quick and efficient work pace. They noticed this when they would “borrow” him from the third floor above from time to time.

Ruggiero managed to sneak away from the pant shop after a year of false promises from his boss, who was supposed to teach him labor of substance, not meaningless tasks.

“I told him, ‘You pay me in the dark,’” says Ruggiero.

Fortunately, Ruggiero had better luck with his future jobs. He realized tailoring (not hairdressing), was where the money was. ”[I] had to work,” says Ruggiero. “I had to make money.”

After some time at the New Haven Coat Company, which used to be near the railroad station, he had to nearly beg to be put on piecework along with the women before realizing the manager would not fulfill that promise either.

It was a man named Joseph Scaramuzza who finally taught Ruggiero everything he knows. Ruggiero would bounce between working for Scaramuzza and a guy named Benny, a subcontractor for J. Press.

Ruggiero was about 18 at that time, in ’55 or ’56, when he worked on the jacket for JFK, back when the not-yet-president was recognized as a war hero.

J. Press made a bunch of clothes for the Kennedys, and Ruggiero would often help Benny when he was summoned to work on external projects.

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

“One day [Benny] said, ‘Hey, you work on [JFK’s] coat,’” Ruggiero says.

the final product is supposed to look like.

busy and share his treats with close friends.

It took him about an hour to put the lining, lapels and pockets on.

“You imagine when you work,” he says.

“It’s not easy.”

Ruggiero went on to work for another custom tailor shop called Chip’s, after some months, before moving on to Rosenthal and Moretz Tailoring in ’57 or ’58, where he remained for eight years. It was here where he made the suit for Anthony Perkins, in addition to apparel for Fred MacMurray, Tony Martin, notable senators and an almost-debuted Broadway play cast.

And his favorite part? He claims it’s the whole thing. He likes having the finished product.

Guests see his culinary feats as remarkable, but he just says, “I cook the way I like.”

His personal proudest achievements are custom-designed and sewed suits for famed country singer Dick Curless, known as the “Baron of Country Music.” At that point Ruggiero had opened his own tailoring shop under his name in 1979, after numerous loyal customers had suggested he do so.

“I said, ‘You know something, I’m going to do it,’” says Ruggiero.

He fondly spreads out his small photo collection of Curless in his meticulously-tailored, blue, rhinestone-decked suit. It took him about five Sundays to complete, and it was worth the $2,500 he made.

An additional suit made for another of Curless’s shows, decadent with even more gems, was Ruggiero’s other prized piece.

“When he got on stage,” says Ruggiero, “he said there were sparkles all over the place.”

All the other performers’ costumes were evidently put to shame.

A self-taught man of all trades, he never finished the fifth grade. He didn’t need to.

After he sold his shop in about 2000, which closed two years later under the new owner, he took up painting; another gift he must have had an innate knack for.

His reasoning: he couldn’t afford to buy his favorite art, so he took it upon himself to recreate what he desired.

“I said, ‘You know something, I’m going to do my own pictures,’” says Ruggiero. “So I painted.”

He has sold quite a few paintings and attended some local exhibitions “just to show them off,” but he won’t give away his favorites. One of his works currently hangs in an East Haven funeral home.

What else, if anyone should ask?

He’s not one for restaurants. He always cooked when he was married.

We’ve learned by now he likes to accomplish things himself.

And what next? If he had the space, he says he’d like to make his own wine.

“I did everything,” he says. And he likes what he did.

For now he enjoys daily walking, Italian operas, reading, following the news, classic cowboy films, weekly visits from his grandkids and friends he’s had since he came here, and keeping up with his French, which he’s been studying since the ’80s.

“You always [have to] do something,” Ruggiero says. “Never sit down and do nothing. Never sit there and mope.

Always feel good.”

The Wisdom

Well, aside from past praises of frequent company over the years, his cooking speaks for itself – really. One bite of his personal version of chicken anything, and you will be hooked for eternity. His homegrown vegetables, fruits, herbs, homemade bread and pasta are the small pieces to the “pie.”

One definition of “primo” is: “of top quality or importance.” It only makes sense for Ruggiero to take that name.

He is constantly baking, happy to keep

He sees his childhood hardships “all

Some more words of advice from the “primo” man?

“Take life the way it comes,” and always consider “it could be worse.”

as an experience” which made him a person that can now withstand anything.

His views on today’s generations reflect an understanding of the difficulty of getting by and making names for ourselves, especially in this harsh economy. But he reminds us we have to always go forward. We can begin anywhere, if even on the streets of New Haven.

“Always reach for something more,” he says. “Never be satisfied [with] what you’ve got. Always reach for something better.”

Robert Browning, whose words Ruggiero made tribute to, once said: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”

And that seems to be Ruggiero’s motto.

When all is said and done, sometimes the most unexpected streets can lead you in the right direction.

Ruggiero did not like tailoring at first. As he experienced the fulfilling feeling of being able to simply finish something that was started, his passion emerged. He says it feels good to make something (whether tangible, or of oneself, I conclude), and he continues to please a small group of clients that still “string” along.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “I like my life.”

I suppose somewhere between the stitches, maybe right out of a back pocket, he found love.

The Talent

Ruggiero attributes his keen skill simply to experience. He was a listener; an observer; a self-reliant master. He would often overhear former coworkers bickering of better ways to do things, so he put all of the dots together.

“You see which way is better and faster,” says Ruggiero. “You [have to] come out fast and good.”

But it’s not solely about the efficiency, of course.

“You [have to] have an imagination first,” Ruggiero says, explaining when a person makes something, he or she has to have it in his or her mind what new haven

29

My New Haven Each of us has our own Elm City story

By Bruce Ditman

belongs to those who care enough to wade in ’til the cold water hits ’em. As the inspirational post on your auntie’s Facebook wall says: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Amirite, New Haven?

I love this city. I love my city. I’ll go one better and tell you that I think it is the greatest small city in America and, if you’ll have me, I’m going to try to explain why I feel that way in this column and those that follow it.

We’re going to meet the people, feature institutions and examine ideas and generally kibitz about those aspects of our dear city that make it just so.

But before we do, I’m compelled to clear the air and set the tone for what’s to follow. Specifically, where am I coming from saying “My New Haven?”

And, consequently: Whose city is this, anyway?

This is a sticky subject, for sure, but I feel strongly that if we don’t do this now everything we talk about in the future (silly or serious) will be shaded by a question of ownership and cred – a standing critique that’ll discount our all our conversations, in some way but always, like an asterisk over a Yankee.

“My New Haven” is definitely meant to mean more than just “my experience in New Haven.” It has to just by virtue of what makes this place so damn great.

New Haven, more than anywhere I’ve ever been, is a participatory city. A city where, historically, great people have made great things that changed the

30 D ECEMBER 2014

world and still, to this day, ordinary people change their worlds around them.

We live in a city where agency can obtained for the very reasonable stakes of reputation. So, I do feel like my claim on (a piece of) New Haven is a real thing. I do feel like a stakeholder here. I feel like one of many. And so should anyone else, who, by aligning the success of their family or their business has tied their fate to that of the city in which they live. We are stakeholders in this city together, not by virtue of home-ownership or elected office but rather by virtue of our activism, our participation and of our access.

Sure, I fight with my city. Yes, I disagree, at times, with my city. I might even occasionally be subversive in my city, but I do all of these things because our success is mutual and

one which won’t and can’t be obtained from the sidelines (or their digitally vertical equivalents). George Burns once said that critics are like eunuchs at an orgy. This is my city because I have real skin the game.

So I’ll answer the question of “whose city is New Haven” by dismissing the concept as a faulty one.

I have two major problems with this question; first is of function and second is of value. As to function, I say that this question is a trap whose real purpose is to exclude and to silence.

This question assigns neither agency nor ownership but rather removes them. To ask it is to imply: “Whose city isn’t this?” A nasty question which I reject with the following answer: This city is for those that will have it, those that love it (despite its obvious flaws), those that act to improve it and the lives of its residents. This city

Second, I‘d assert that this is such a tough question to answer not because we’re not smart enough or because we lack the empirical data/emotional sensitivity (or whatever) but rather because it’s just a dumb question.

A manipulatively divisive tool of a question built around outdated racial and cultural paradigms and a totally outmoded, analog idea of the reach and limits of community and the definition of “citizenship,” and for which there is no correct answer that does more good than bad. They say that when an entire class fails a test, one should blame the questions, not the answers. Let’s stop asking trick questions and get down to work, together.

We, the Elm City, are rich and we’re poor, we are secure and we are imperiled, we are cloistered and we sprawl, we are international and we’re provincial. We’re a city, get over it… more importantly, get on it. Let’s hold up what makes us great. Let’s rewards the bold bets and quiet sacrifices of our city’s people. Let’s whisper of our favorite bench in our favorite park and how the light hits the water just right.

Let’s get a pie together, New Haven.

“My New Haven” is just my New Haven. Yours, I’d bet, is just as interesting, challenging and exciting. I may not know your New Haven, but I love that you have one.

Let’s talk about it.

I’ll start.

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Stone and other natural materials are incorporated with the latest in “smart home” technology as part of the Maioranos’ innovative design.

T

he first question you ask yourself as you approach Al and Kim Maiorano’s house is: “How old is this place?” Perched at 640 feet above sea level on top of one of the highest points in Bethany, the stone residence is a masterful mix of rustic and refined French Country architectural design.

Kim’s creative background as an interior designer and Al’s engineering acumen was the perfect combination to create a truly unique custom home.

The Maioranos began building in September 2005 and the home was finished in July of 2006. “We had been looking for a piece of property in a few locations around the state,” Al Maiorano said. “When we saw this property, we immediately saw the possibilities and wanted to build a home here.”

The 5,000-square-foot house was a true collaboration between the couple, although neither had ever built a home before. The off-the-shelf plans were reworked to accommodate many of the changes they felt suited their lifestyles.

Kim wanted to be sure that her interior designs would work before they did anything, so she drew quarter-inch-scale images of all their furnishings on the blueprints. They also wanted to be sure that when they entertained, people could move easily between rooms. “Kim taught me a lot about 34 D ECEMBER 2014

Hand-applied Venetian plaster and a grand light fixture reflect the blend of Old World and new in the interior design.

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203 - 288 - 1900

Years of Experience and Local Expertise

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WOODBRIDGE-Stunning 4 BR, 3.5 bath ranch!

Updated EIK w/granite counters, LR w/FP, DR, FR w/gas FP, glass sunrm. Sep. BR w/bath (poss. in-law). New roof, wins., baths. Generator. $475,000. Susan S. x126

HAMDEN-Light-filled 4 BR, 3 bath contemp. on priv. lot. EIK w/views of woods, MBR suite w/ sitting rm/office area. Two FRs, C/A, deck, fresh paint, new DW. Exc. cond. — move right in! $359,000. Betsy x144

NEW HAVEN-Stately brick 5 BR col. boasts remod. EIK, LR w/French drs. to screen porch, 1st flr. den w/BIs. HW flrs., 2 staircases. OS MBR w/ bath. Two BRs & 2 baths on 3rd flr. — great for live-in/grad student. $409,000. Susan S. x126

NEW HAVEN-Westville! Updated col. w/beautiful architect. feats. Remod. kit., LR w/FP, DR, 1st flr. FR. Three BRs w/BIs. Fin. 3rd flr. Deck overlooking level, fenced yard. Walk to park, restaurants. $329,900. Jill x191

HAMDEN-A Spring Glen 4 BR col.! Kit. w/HW flrs. & new SS appls., garden win. & bkfst. bar.

FR w/FP & gracious LR w/FP. Lg. MBR suite w/ bath & WI clos. BR retreat w/half bath on 3rd flr. $342,500. Betsy x144

HAMDEN-Free-standing condo! LR w/cath. ceil. & 2-sided FP to DR. EIK leads to deck. First flr. MBR w/WI clos., skylit bath w/whirlpool.

Two BRs & loft on 2nd level. Gas heat, C/A, sprinkler sys. $319,900. Ellen x125/Jill x191

NO. HAVEN-A spacious 4 BR, 3 bath split level on a pretty cul de sac street. EIK, LR w/vault. ceil. & skylights, FR. In-law set up w/kit. Two car gar., lovely level .65 acre lot. $369,900.

Loretta x127/Cheryl x190/Tracie x194

NORTH HAVEN-Charming 4 BR stone front cape offers a versatile flr. plan and 2nd flr. w/2 wings. Remod. kit. w/bkfst. rm., 1st flr. lib. & skylit FR. Screen porch, magnificent gardens. $525,000. John x124

NO. HAVEN-Architect designed modern-style 5 BR brick home w/slate roof, courtyard w/ pond, LR w/FP, DR, game rm. & wine cellar, heat. 4-car gar. Terrace, screen porch, pool. $698,000. John x124

MILFORD-First time offered! Direct waterfront 3 BR col. w/priv. sandy beach & unobstructed views of L.I. Sound. Over a half acre of lawn.

The value is in the land. Incredible opportunity! $1,400,000. Susan S. x126

BRANFORD-Direct waterfront! Pine Orchard 8 BR, 3.5 bath col. w/south facing front porch & gently sloping lawn to rocks & water’s edge.

Fantastic views! Three car gar. Elevation of house about 24 feet. $1,050,000. John x124

NO. HAVEN-Expansive cape w/open flr. plan.

Kit. w/isle, LR w/FP & BIs, DR, FR w/FP. Two BRs on 1st flr., lg. MBR suite & 4th BR on 2nd flr.

Slider to wooded yard. Newer roof. $425,000.

Susan C. x143/Dave x196

Commercial • Industrial • Office • Retail Investment, Leasing & Sales

WALLINGFORD-Professional/medical office space in modern office building. Suites from 1,500 to 8,000 s/f. Easy access I-91, Rt. 5 & Parkway. Lease rate $19.75 s/f full gross.

Stephen x123

MERIDEN-Available for lease - 23,270 square foot newer flex/industrial facility offers easy access to I-91. 18’ ceilings, 2 docks, 1 drive-in door. 5,000 s/f office. $4.95/s/f NNN. Stephen x123

NEW HAVENGold Building.

For lease - 2,400 square feet located on the 7th floor with spectacular window line providing views of Yale and downtown. $24/square foot plus office electric. Ted x162

NO. HAVEN-25,270 s/f warehse./flex/manufact. & 38,300 s/f lab/mixed office. Conven. to I-91, Exit 10 & Pkwy. Wet lab. space, heavy power & rail access. $5/s/f NNN warehse.; lab from $8.50/s/f NNN. Joel x131

SEYMOUR-Flex/R&D/Office/Lab space available (8,770 s/f ). Convenient Silvermine Industrial Park. Easy access to Rt. 8 & I-84.

Great space with heavy power. Lease rate $7/s/f NNN. Joel x131

NEW HAVEN-For lease. Handsome office suites in totally renovated 1880s-era building.

1st floor available. 2,500 square feet. $18 gross + utilities. Stephen x123

HAMDEN-Join Liberty Bank in this new bldg.

Two prime retail spaces available: 1,762 & 1,076 s/f. High traffic location between Post Office & Glenwood; 3 miles from Quinnipiac campus. $18/s/f NNN. Stephen x123

NO. HAVEN-For lease. Newer 26,088 s/f free-standing, high bay, 10 drive-in door ind./ whse. facility w/8,880 s/f high quality office space. Built in 2000. Immediate access to I-91.

Stephen x123

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A counter with custom stools gives versatility and casual elegance to the kitchen and dining areas.

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SEABURY-HILL REALTORS Serving the real estate needs of Greater New Haven, Yale & Shoreline since 1926

seaburyhill.com • 203.562.1220 • seaburyhillrentals.com

Happy Holidays!

175 STONY CREEK RD, BRANFORD - Sunny 3 BR, 2 BTH contemporary home w/updated gourmet kit w/SS appls & skylights. Formal LR & DR. HW flrs. Panoramic views of salt marsh and LI Sound. Detached 2 car garage. $439,900.Call Cathy Conlin 203-843-1561.

255 ROYDON RD, NH - Great 3 or 4 BR home in Beaver Hills. HW flrs,formal LR w/ FP. Formal DR, kitchen w/pantry, den w/.5 BTH. Lg MBR w/full tile BTH. Part fin walkup attic w BR/ office. Finished bsmnt w/HW flrs, FP, bar & laundry. Porch & sm yard w/1 attached garage. $249,900. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

31 MOULTON ST, NH- Lovely 4 BR Whitneyville home. Large LR w/HW flrs & FP. Formal DR w/slider to wood deck. Updated kit w/ renovated 1/2 bath. MBR suite on 3RD flr. Large additional BRs. Finished basement. Huge yard w/2 lots combined. 3 car garage. $279,000.

Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

30 PECK LANE, HAMDEN- 4 BR, 4.5 BTH home on 1.01 acres in Hamden. Custom built in 2004. Formal LR & DR, family room w/FP, large master BR suite. Perfect layout for modern day family. Stone patio leads out to huge, private back yard. $599,000. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

266 C COSEY BEACH AVE, EAST HAVENDirect waterfront 1922, 4 BR, 2 BTH Col w/ panoramic views of LI Sound + sandy beach. $450K in recent improvements. Complies w/ current bldg codes for elevation & storm proof windows, making it virtually hurricane proof! $699,000 Call Cathy Conlin 203-843-1561

486 HOWARD AVE, NH - Investors take notice! Legal 2 family home w/3 apts w/long term tenants. 1st and 2nd units each have 3 BRs & 1BTH. 3rd unit has 2 BRs & 1 BTH. The home has three newer gas furnaces and 4 offstreet parking spaces. $169,00. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942.

1785 MIDDLETOWN AVE (AKA SOL’S PATH) NORTH BRANFORD - 3 BR 2.1 BTH on private 1.75 acres. Wonderful updates and additions.

Mature gardens and a large patio. 2 Fpl. Wet bar. Great home office. Close to everything. $425,000. Call Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328

345 SUMMIT STREET , NH - Charming cedar shake farmhouse located in historic Quinnipiac River district. Large formal LR w/stone FP w/ spectacular light. 1st floor master BR w/ full bath. Large lot w/great gardening space. $274,900. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942.

1018 YALE AVENUE, WALLINGFORD Charming 3 BR, 2.5 BTH stone house w/ recent 2’nd flr addition, remodeled bathrooms, newer windows and roof. Beautiful woodwork throughout. Corner lot w/just over half an acre.

Large, new patio for entertaining. $265.000.

Call Sarah Beth Luce-Del Prete 203-8872295.

850 ORANGE STREET#1, NH- Immaculate 2 BR/2 BTH condo in the heart of East Rock. Lots of upgrades, gourmet kitchen, modern baths, gas FP, gar. parking, storage, custom closets, laundry, and so much more! $385,000.

Call Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328.

100 YORK ST, “UNIVERSITY TOWERS”, NH 1 BR Co-ops (#5-J, 5-R 8-J, 9-M, 11-H, 5-M) w/ balconies,24 Hr. Sec., pool, on-site mgmt. Convenient to arts, dining, hospitals, and more! No pets.

No investors. Private financing avail. $45,000$63,900. Call Chery Szczarba 203-996-8328.

271 FAIRMONT AVENUE, NH - Large 4BR home with bonus 3rd floor w/ additional 2 BRs. Nice updates. Large LR w/Den and brick FP .

HW floors. Formal DR. Eat in kit. Large deck.

Just steps from Q River. $179,900. Motivated Seller. Call Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328.

15 PAWSON RD, BRANFORD - Linden Shores. 5 BRS, 2 Bath wood shingle 1920’s Cape w/access to 3 priv. beaches. Charming LR w/stone FP. Screen in porch leads to deck, hot tub & yd. $565,000.

Call Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328

159 MILL ROCK ROAD, HAMDEN - Huge 2882 sq. ft. 5 BR, 4.5 Bth. New kitchen. Large master BR suite with remodeled tile bath. 2nd floor has 2 master BRs with full Bths. Slate patio. Attached garage. On NH/Hamden line. $309,000. Call Jack Hill at 203-675-3942.

6 BROWN STREET, WOOSTER SQ AREA, NH - Large brick 2 family off Wooster St. Sep utilities. 8 Car gar. HW flrs. Newer roof. Great light. 6 BRs / 3 Bths. $450,000.

Call Cheryl Szczarba at 203-996-8328.

New Rentals!

54 COACHLAMP LANE, GUILFORD - Well cared for raised ranch at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac on 1.7 acres in Guilford. 4 BR, 2.5 Bth w/ large formal LR & DR, both w/HW flrs & nice natural light. Kitchen has brand new flooring & cabinetry. Sliders in DR lead out to spacious deck, in-ground pool and landscaped yard. $369,000. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

63 FOUNTAIN ST., BRYETH HILL, NH - Spacious 2 BR Condo in heart of Westville! Great light, beautiful HW floors, living room with cathedral ceiling. Sunny remod. eat-in kitchen, MBR suite, detach. gar., steps to village & mins. to downtown & Yale. $149,900.

Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942.

832 QUINNIPIAC AVE, NH - Direct riverfront, completely renov 2868 sq. ft. Colonial in Historic River District. Sweeping views of Q River.

Gourmet Kit w/new SS appls, custom cabinets & FP. LR w/FP, MBR suite. Det gar. Mins to Yale & downtown. $375,000.

Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

95 AUDUBON ST #300, NH - 2 BR/2.1 BTH townhouse-style condo in the heart of the arts district. Updated kitchen. 24hr security. Laundry. Parking. Close to campus and downtown. $380,000 (avail for rent $2,550/month lightly furnished.) Call Cheryl Szczarba 203-996-8328.

315 WHITNEY AVE, NH- Brand new luxury 1 and 2 BR apts available now! These stunning rental apts feature: new tile and hardwood floors, central air, SS appls, washers & dryers and brand new full tile baths with tubs!

The building comes equipped with full gym, conference room and off street parking. Offered between $1,750 - $2,200. Call Jack Hill 203-675-3942

RESIDENTIAL SALES RESIDENTIAL SALES INVESTMENT PROPERTIES INVESTMENT PROPERTIES BUYER REPRESENTATION BUYER REPRESENTATION RENTALS RENTALS seaburyhill.com · seaburyhillrentals.com seaburyhill.com · seaburyhillrentals.com

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37

traffic flow in a home,” Al said.

The rooms feel warm and welcoming; an effect achieved using a darker color palette for the walls and dark walnut for most of the floors and trim. The rich tones make guests feel as though they have been enfolded in an embrace when they walk through the door.

There’s a lot of stone, but the house feels warm.

Low-voltage heating was installed underneath the floors of the kitchen and main foyer floors, all made of antique French tumbled marble. Adding to the warmth is the use of spray-foam insulation, which creates an R-50 envelope around all of the living areas.

Al’s role as general contractor provided oversight for much of the unique design, including the roof.

He designed his own “smart home” technology, employing whole-house computerized lighting, communications and audio. All of the lighting fixtures and recessed lights in the home are LED. Smart technology and materials mean the home is very energy-efficient for its size: “We use about 750 gallons of heating oil in a 12-month period, including our hot water,” Al said.

Al built his business around food. He and his team create thousands of video recipes for top online magazines, venues and restaurateurs in their state-of-the-art kitchen studios in Norwalk. One of his videos, “How to Carve a Turkey,” is the No. 1 searched-f0r food tutorial on the web.

Rich tones of walnut and a darker color palette for the trim add to the warmth of the home’s interior.

He knows food, and Kim knows design. Together the two created a kitchen that flows effortlessly.

The most unique feature in this chef’s workspace is the beautiful artwork behind the range. The work grew out of a design dilemma: What to do with the expanse of backsplash behind the Wolf cooktop?

It’s a large space and the couple knew that if they tiled the entire thing, they would be looking into a featureless void. They came up with a spectacular solution – they hired an artist and commissioned a work of art.

Susan Reed, a master faux-finish artist, customdesigned the backsplash nook with a realistic trompe l’oeil scene of an old Italian pasta lover laughing over a bowl of spaghetti. The semi-exposed brick and textured plaster finish makes it look as if the image has always been there, painted in fresco as if it was a long-hidden work of European art.

Arching natural stone wraps around a cooktop niche “fit for a chef,” with pots conveniently hanging in an overhead rack. A hinged faucet for filling large pots with water folds flat against the backsplash mural.

The design elements eliminate the need to lug heavy pots of water across the kitchen, even as it leaves the tools of the trade within reach.

In the dining room, walls hand-rubbed with expertly applied Venetian plaster exude more of that Old World charm. The grand lighting fixture over the dining table is the perfect scale, transporting Al and Kim’s guests to a bistro in the piazza. An oversized framed poster the couple found on a trip to Italy invites guests to “Mangia! (eat!)” The

38 D ECEMBER 2014

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R E A LTOR S

203.481.0000 | www.ddvhome.com

Wishing you peace, joy, and all the best the holiday has to offer.

E. Tyler Della Valle | 203.507.3010 mobile | EDTV@ddvhome.com new haven

39

Custom artwork above the stove brings interest and Old World flair to the kitchen space, along with the arching natural stone around the cooktop niche.

Performing Art

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40 D ECEMBER 2014

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1064 Main Street Branford, CT 06405 203- 481-4571 coldwellbankermoves.com D I A N E B E RG A N T I N O

WO O D B R I D G E

N O RT H F O R D

Diane Bergantino, Realtor Your Shoreline Specialist!

203-671-6307

P H I L B ROW N

5 Hunting Hill Rd., Woodbridge $329,900 Nice curb appeal, amazing yard with stone walls and a barn are just a few of the reasons why this house is a must have. Fireplaced living room, wood flrs, 2 bedrooms on first flr 2 on second. Conv to highways.

Lots of charm. Lovely street fabulous location, needs some updating but clean, home warranty offered on property. Call Diane Bergantino 203-671-6307.

ST R AT F O R D

58 Youngs Apple Orchard, Northford If you like privacy but like being in a neighborhood this one’s for you. Large cape with custom kitchen with cherry hand crafted cabinets, eat in kitchen, formal living room with fireplace, family room with wood stove, heated sunroom, great deck overlooking water company property. Three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 4 car garage, Wallingford electric! $349,900. Call Diane Bergantino 203-671-6307.

BRANFORD

BRANFORD

272 Nichols Ave., Stratford $279,900

Great opportunity to buy an older home in a very desirable area of Stratford.

4 Bedrooms and 1 and a half baths on a corner lot.

Enclosed porch. One car detached garage. Must be seen to be appreciated.

Between I95 and Rt. 15.

Call Phil Brown 203-298-8017

C A RO L R . R E I L LY

25 Indian Neck Avenue, Branford $419,900 3 family house in great condition. Two apartments have 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths each, plus a 1-bedroom unit. Updated kitchens & baths. Hardwood floors, ceiling fans, decks & gas heat.

Walking distance to train station, Foote Park & Branford Green.

Call Marleen Cenotti, 203-215-1526.

BRANFORD

50 Little Bay Lane, Branford $699,000 Direct Waterfront home in Short Beach. Beautifully renovated in 2005 with gorgeous views of LIS. 3 beds and 2 and a half baths.

MBR has walkin closet, bath and balcony. Formal dining room, living room w/fplc, den and enclosed sleeping porch. Private yard with gardens. Lovely to see. Call Chris Collins (203) 988-0512

S A L LY T U C K E R

E AST H AV E N

Sally Tucker

66 Quarry Dock Road, Branford, $479,900 Spectacular 2nd floor condo located at Sylvan Point on the Branford River. Magnificent water views from every room! SE exposure for great sunrises/sunsets. Beautifully remodeled and offers, wood floors, high end appliances, double gas fireplace w/heat blowers. Great deck to sit and watch the boats go by! Amenities include, pool, clubhouse, tennis, kayak storage & launch. Walk to train, Branford Center and parks/ beach.Carol R. Reilly 203-887-7589.

C AT H Y M A N C I N I

E AST H AV E N

Cathy Mancini, East Haven: Realtor Sea Scape - Beautiful mint, move-in 2 BR, 2.1 bath SERVING ALL townhouse in great YOUR REAL complex by the sea.

ESTATE NEEDS! 2 BR, 2 full and 1 half bath. Spacious living room with fireplace and french door to deck. Dining room. Eat-in kitchen.

First level bedroom (203)996-4025 with full bath. Huge, upper level, master bedroom suite with full bath, cmancini7@comcast.net walk-in closet, dressing area and lovely views. Skylights. Garage. Pool www.CathyMancini.com and clubhouse. Walk to the beach. $248,500. 1 dog allowed. Call Cathy Mancini 203-996-4025

L AU R E N F R E E D M A N

D I C K & JAY N E

Award Winning Top Producing Agent.

Exceeds clients’ expectations time & again.

Exceptional service from the first meeting to after the closing! www.sally-tucker.com Sally Tucker 203-671-6191

140 Allison Way, East Haven $265,000 Pristine 3 Bedroom, 2.5 Bath, w-beautiful Eat-In Kitchen. 1-car garage. Holly Farm 55+ adult community. Single Family home w/Complete 1st floor living!

Huge second floor w/bedroom, full bath & sitting area. Private yard w/ patio.

Mint condition!

S A N DY C I A B U R RO

M O R R I S C OV E

20 Douglass Avenue NEW HAVEN (COVE) $209,900 Charming cape in Cove section offers 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, new roof, newer heating system, windows only 10 years old.

Hardwood floors throughout 2 steps down to a cozy sunken den with French doors. House is located on a dead end street with a fenced in yard and trex deck.

Beautiful molding throughout home. A must see! Call Sandy Ciaburro 203-915-1152

JENNY MANSHIP Jenny Manship, Realtor Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

N O RT H G U I L F O R D D

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PR

1064 Main Street , Branford, CT 06405

23 Hemlock Road , Branford Stunning contemporary split level completely redone with 3 bed 2 full bath and walk out lower level . Kitchen with granite and stainless steel , private yard backs up to woods , a must see !

203-889-8336 Top Producer lauren.freedman@cbmoves.com

Cell: (203) 996-3978 Office: (203) 481-4571 x322 www.jennymanship.com 86 View Terrace, East Haven

NEW LISTING Move in ready 3 BR, 2 BA, New Kitchen, Roof & C/A Hardwood throughout! 1st Fl Laundry. Gar under. HOME WARRANTY. Call, Dick & Jayne, Jayne Nunziante 203-530-5880

jenny.manship@cbmoves.com

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Build the house of your dreams set back off the cul-de-sac on a beautiful flat lot. 4.29 acre wooded lot. Large spacious approved building lot in North Guilford. Soil test preformed. Minimum size home on this lot is 2400 sq. ft. Come walk this beautiful country setting and imagine living in this great secluded space.

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French Country and modern touches blend in the exterior design of the home, sited on one of the highest points in Bethany.

beautiful arching windows in the dining room and throughout the home bring the countryside inside.

Majestic views highlight the magnolia in the front, the barn made of reclaimed lumber in the back and the peaceful woods surrounding the home.

An oversized fireplace in the family/music room anchors the space, complete with a custom-built bar, stereo and home entertainment centers designed by the couple. Kim plays the piano and friends gather in the cozy cathedral-ceilinged room anchored by another travel find, a painting by a little-known artist they fell in love with that depicts sailors in a dingy with a dog in a turbulent sea. It may be the only turbulent thing in sight – a feeling of calm and serenity is infused deeply into this lovely home.

“One of the greatest compliments is when people tell me how comfortable our home is,” Kim said.

She thinks of a home as organic; a work of art in progress. “That even though a house could be considered an inanimate, static space filled with objects, the rooms we live in serve more than just a function – our home is a place of retreat, comfort, celebration and love.”

A seashell-clad chandelier overhead and heated antique marble tiles below combine to give a warm and opulent feel to the master bathroom.

42 D ECEMBER 2014

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OF N OT E S

BODY & S OUL ONS CR E E N

Richard Lytle standing among his works of art holding an oil painting called “Circuits,” a celebration of sunset light, sky and water.

Interacting With Color The Life Forms of Richard Lytle Photos and Story by Lesley Roy Richard Lytle’s life has been a blessed journey of art.

At the age of 5 Lytle exhibited his first picture – “Tulips” – at the Museum of American History; which was selected as the best in the young student’s show. He started lessons and sold his first painting at age 12. He was accepted into the prestigious art program at Cooper Union in New York City and a summer program at Yale led to a teaching assistant position with world-renowned artist and educator Joseph Albers. A showing at New Haven’s first art festival on the Green in 1958 led to a first-prize award from Dorothy Canning Miller, the legendary curator at the Museum of Modern Art. That led to Nelson Rockefeller purchasing a Lytle painting for the New York governor’s mansion.

44 D ECEMBER 2014

“I guess I started at the top and it’s been downhill from there,” the affable and gracious artist jokes during an interview in his enviably large studio in Woodbridge, CT. Mr. Lytle is truly humble, his art and career have been extraordinary.

The milestones include Lytle’s inclusion in Dorothy Canning Miller’s landmark MOMA exhibit, “1959: Sixteen Americans,” which showcased fellow ground-breaking artist like Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Rauschenberg.

“There can be no doubts but these 16 are making it new,” New York Times art critic Stuart Preston wrote at the time. “The forms are no longer capable of containing their ideas... Miss Miller is to be congratulated on selecting so many genuinely independent talents.”

That independence has inspired Lytle to both create important works of art and influence budding artists as a longtime professor at Yale School of Art. Teaching on and off at the university since 1960, Lytle was promoted to professor in 1981 and named the William Leffingwell Professor of Painting in 1999. In retirement he serves as professor emeritus.

Lytle’s creativity continues with the design of his studio: His Woodbridge retreat is informed by his travels through Europe as a young man visiting the masters at work. According to his observations, the perfect artist’s studio is oneand-a-half to two stories tall and three times as deep as the size of an artist’s largest work. He built his own version with these same classical dimensions. The proportions allow a visitor to appreciate both the detailed brushwork and the monumental scale of his artwork. You need every NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

inch of the space to take in color, “the magic that is paint on canvas,” to quote Lytle’s mentor Joseph Albers.

Early in his career, Lytle says he was inspired by mythologies, the timeless nature of stories and the female form, along with his own experiences. His work made a sudden shift due to an experience he had on a walk in the woods in 1975. He was struck by the stunning beauty of wild azaleas and wondered, “Where did they come from?”

This was his ah-ha moment, the epiphany that would come to define his work, the moment he realized he had the opportunity to take flowers, traditionally seen as still-life subjects or used purely for decorative purposes, and explore them, experience them and paint them as “more alive.” Flowers became life forms — “surrogates for human beings.”

Lytle utilizes his field pastel or watercolor landscape studies as the “stage for my actors” – the floral and organic life forms. A pastel study from a granite quarry is the background for “Bloom Over,” from 2013. Goose Pond in New Hampshire is the watercolor background for “Morning Exchange,” a large 1987 oil-on-canvas painting later created in the studio.

The “actors” in his paintings include orchids, touch-me-nots, irises, cyclamen blossoms, trees from the Italian countryside, found driftwood, a single oak leaf floating on water. The dramatic field is set. The skillful treatment of foreground, mid-ground and distance creates a dynamic depth of field – that is the push-and-pull of his paintings which embraces the essence of these “Life Forms.”

Richard Lytle’s work is monumental and important…it has the magic of color deep in it. Profound beauty radiates from his work, demonstrating his skill in resolving the difficulties found in painting, his skill at the level of great masters.

When asked why he paints, Lytle hesitates, then responds: “Because I can; like a person who can play concert piano, I can paint.” He went on to say,

Instead of an artist’s palette, Lytle uses small plastic bowls for mixing his oil paints.

Some bowls, as much as 30 years old, have over time sculpted themselves into vivid works of art.

“When you do something challenging, difficult and you pull it off, it’s satisfying. “It’s hard…but it’s no Everest.” I disagree.

Creating paintings that endure, paintings infused with his deep personal values, created for the pure sake of art; these are Lytle’s peaks. With a humble heart, he climbs those mountains every day.

Richard Lytle is represented by Fred Giampietro Galley, located at 1064 Chapel St. as of January 10. giampietrogallery.com

Lytle points to a pastel field study which served as the background and inspiration for a later oil painting, “Spring Thaw on Goose Pond.”

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B IB L I OF I L E S WOR D S o f M OUT H

Does Yale FÊT E SStill Matter?

Critic takes aim at Ivy IN STmodel YLE education

By Liese Klein

OU T D OOR S

F

rom the vantage point of a desk in New Haven, asking whether Yale still matters sounds ridiculous.

B ODY & S OUL

After all, the Ivy League university and its affiliates like Yale-New Hospital are the city’s largest employers by far. Elis and their minions pump millions into the local economy, and the university’s presence alone keeps New Haven from being Bridgeport, if the old saw is to be believed.

ONSC R E E N

But from the vantage point of education watchers, the continuing status of Yale and the other Ivies is very much in question as the higher education landscape shifts. Yale especially may be in danger of losing its prestige as a worldwide brand as family and societal priorities shift toward technology and more “practical” career preparation.

After all, where is Yale’s Mark Zuckerberg?

Where is Yale’s Bill Gates?

Witness a recent story in the Yale Daily News with this doleful headline: “Yale lags in new U.S. News international ranking.”

The magazine’s first-ever list of top universities worldwide puts Yale at No. 17, well below MIT at No. 2, Stanford at No. 4, Princeton at No. 13 and even Columbia at No. 10.

Adding to the sting was the ranking of perennial rival Harvard – No. 1.

Yale’s response?

“The methodology of the ranking skews its accuracy and calls into question its value as a reflection of a school’s quality,” Associate

46 D ECEMBER 2014

Graduate School Dean Pamela Schirmeister told the Daily News.

Take that, Crimson upstarts.

Yale also underachieved on a 2013 list of colleges with the wealthiest alumni, coming in at No. 8 with an estimated $125 billion in collective wealth compared to Harvard’s $622 billion at No. 1. Grads of UPenn, Stanford and, once again, Columbia beat the Old Blues at the bank.

But one of Yale’s own has taken aim at the very idea of an Ivy League education itself in a new book that has gained national notice. Former Yale instructor William Deresiewicz says it all in the title of his 2014 book, a broadside drawn from a decade spent with Eli undergraduates: “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.”

Deresiewicz details the shortcomings of today’s Ivy League students, molded by the admissions process into achievement-focused automatons.

“The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it,” Deresiewicz writes.

But he’s harder still on university administrators, self-righteously defending an educational profit machine that has done little to improve the nation and produced generations of rudderless and incompetent elites. (President Obama joins Yale’s own Bush dynasty in the author’s Ivy League roll of ineffectual leaders.)

“The contemporary meritocracy, which in all its glory is presiding over an era of unprecedented national decline, is an exact reflection of the educational system that is charged with reproducing it,” Deresiewicz writes.

The critic also takes aim in specific at one of Yale’s most hallowed policies, the preference in admissions it gives to the children of alumni, or “legacies.” Pandering to alumni and wealthy donors keeps the cash flowing at Ivies but stunts

efforts to diversify by economic class and produce a more effective generation of leaders.

Interestingly enough, the strongest pushback to Deresiewicz’s thesis during his book tour this fall came not from New Haven, but from Cambridge.

A panel of Harvard professors this September expressed open hostility to his critiques of the Ivy League at and even launched an ad hominem attack, making sure to stress that Deresiewicz had been denied tenure by Yale.

“The deans and senior professors on the panel were obviously very threatened,” Deresiewicz said, speaking from his home in Oregon in a recent phone interview. “The tone was so defensively hostile… In defending their institution they said all kinds of things that everybody knows aren’t true, like ‘teaching at Harvard really matters for tenure,’ or ‘we’re deemphasizing legacies in the admissions process.’

“These professors and deans don’t want to look at the structural function of elite higher education in perpetuating inequality.”

That’s the crux of the issue, Deresiewicz argues: The Ivy League is once again helping to build and reinforce a hereditary elite in this country.

And because the Ivies depend on donor dollars to keep their expensive campuses running, they are

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

unlikely to make substantive changes anytime soon.

approached him at events across the country echoing his critiques of higher education.

“There’s a limit to what these institutions can do to address inequality… There’s a severe limit to what they can do because their business model depends on serving wealthy clients,” Deresiewicz said.

“There’s a lot of discontent. Whether it will gather itself into an effective movement is not clear,” Deresiewicz said. “The truth is that universities like Yale have no incentive now to change. Business is great for them.”

Yale and its brethren can make some changes to improve matters, he suggests, including professionalizing the teaching role independent of research to free up talented instructors from the “publish or perish” yoke. Ivy League students who get more intensive mentorship from professors may be able to break out of their intellectual torpor, he posits.

And while Deresiewicz is encouraged by the idealism and willingness of Ivy students to examine their privilege, he doesn’t have a lot of hope that Yalies and their ilk will lead a revolution to reform American higher education.

“Here we have a meritocracy that may talk about public service but the whole ethos, the whole logic of it is individual advancement. So it’s hard to see where the ethical resources for taking the next step will come from within the meritocracy.”

But to benefit the bulk of American students, Deresiewicz argues, our society has to recommit to the ideal of free, high-quality public higher education. Yes, that means higher taxes, in case you’re wondering.

So what’s ahead for institutions like Yale, locked into their role of bolstering the status quo as the status quo comes under increasing scrutiny at all levels?

“We can’t devote separate parts of our brains to being parents and being taxpayers,” Deresiewicz said. “We need to tax ourselves more. Maybe if parents recognize that in the long run it will be good for them, then something would happen.”

Former Yale professor William Deresiewicz skewers Ivy League universities for producing “Excellent Sheep” in his recent book of that title.

Deresiewicz is heartened by the hundreds of students, parents and professors who have

The Ivy League as a “global brand” will continue to thrive, Deresiewicz said, judging by the hunger he sees in developing nations like Brazil for the “Anglo-American” higher education model. As long as global capitalism thrives, there will be a place for Yale.

Buon Natale Crèches of

DEC 1 to FEB 1

Italy

presents

Fri. Dec. 19 – 7 pm Sat. Dec. 20 – 1 & 5 pm Sun. Dec. 21 – 1 & 5 pm FEAT URING

Savannah Lowery

SOLOIST, NEW YORK CITY BALLET

Adrian Danchig-Waring

PRINCIPAL, NEW YORK CITY BALLET

©Kei Acedera

NEW HAVEN BALLET ORCHESTRA conducted by Richard Gard

nhb is gratefully supported by:

Department of Economic and Community Development

Christmas Tree Festival Opening Celebration Saturday Dec. 6, 1–4pm

1 State Street, New Haven • kofcmuseum.org • Free admission & parking

Office of the Arts

Shubert Box Office (203) 562-5666 www.shubert.com new haven

47

BIBLI OF I L E S

WORDS o f M OUT H FÊTES I N STYLE OUTD OO R S

Festive BO ‘Nutcracker’ DY & SO UL Unites Town and EE Gown ONSCR N

By KARIN A. NOBILE

“T

is the season” …

It’s time for the quintessential holiday show, the Nutcracker, to be presented by the New Haven Ballet (NHB) at the recently-renovated Shubert Theater.

Starting December 19, Clara’s magical dream world 48 D ECEMBER 2014

will be brought to life again as she and the Nutcracker Prince take us through the Land of the Snow and the Fantasy Land of Sweets. There they’ll meet colorful characters like Arabian Coffee, comical mother Ginger, Russian Trepak and many others.

While this year’s production will remain true to Tchaikovsky’s score and the ballet’s traditional storyline, New Haven Ballet Artistic Director Lisa Sanborn promises many surprises. This will be Sanborn’s first full production of the classical ballet since she was named Artistic Director of the NHB earlier this year, having previously served as interim director.

For the past year, Sanborn has been evolving new choreography she created in entirety for the Nutcracker; choreography she characterizes as “challenging.” She has been continually modifying it to play to the strengths of students’ abilities and to the composition of the 2014 NHB Class. This is no small feat considering that this year’s Nutcracker will include 213 NHB dancers – ages 4 to 70 – a total

of 275 performers when counting musicians and singers.

In addition to the all-time high performer count since the New Haven Ballet began presenting the Nutcracker in 1991, this year’s production will incorporate new costumes, set designs, props and special guest artists. The Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier will showcase the artistry of Savannah Lowery and Adrian Danchig-Waring of the New York City Ballet. Also, Brad Roth who directs the New Haven Ballet’s “Shared Ability Dance Program,” inclusive of dancers with disabilities, will play the dual roles of Drosselmeyer and the Big Bad Wolf.

Roth adds another layer of local talent to the mix, having received a master’s degree in dance from Wesleyan University in Middletown.

“Every pipe in the Shubert will sound,” Sanborn promises, as she describes the magnitude and majesty of this year’s Nutcracker.

Once again, through a special partnership with the Yale School of Music, the Nutcracker will feature the NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

New Haven Ballet Orchestra, conducted by Richard Gard. Gard teaches at and earned his degrees in choral conducting from Yale.

The orchestra has been chosen to “fit the pit” of the Shubert Theater, explained Gard. That means 26 musicians will perform, all Yale University School of Music students or graduates. Crediting his orchestra members, Gard said, “Everyone will work hard and get to be a star every minute of the performance.”

Students from Yale and Fairfield College Preparatory School will sing in the Snow Scene of all performances except the children’s matinee on December 19.

With lock-step precision, Sanborn and Gard work as collaborative partners. During dance rehearsals, while Sanborn and faculty members assisted students trying to personify flowers or snowflakes – helping them to perfect a pirouette here, a pas de chat there – Gard served as a one-man audience, swaying to a recording of Tchaikovsky as he conducted invisible musicians only he could see.

Sanborn’s choreography is gorgeous. It is delicately nuanced, a kaleidoscope of beautiful movements and unfolding patterns that accent outstanding dance. In tandem, the musical excellence of the New Haven Ballet Orchestra befits the Yale School of Music’s reputation for selectivity. According to Gard,

the school accepts only 90 students per year from all over the world.

“You are flowers,” Sanborn reminded middle- and high school-aged ballerinas who were practicing to lengthen their lines, press down their hips, extend their rib-cages. “Allonge’” arms,” she gently guided.

Later, in another ballet studio upstairs, Sanborn was coaching 5-year-old girls – likely flowers of the future – as they pretended to prance like tiny reindeer and dart like mice. Sanborn’s own 5-year-old son will play a baby mouse in the battle scene. Also, the 11-yearold daughter of Noble Barker, the late NHB founder and artistic director, will dance pointe for the first time in this year’s Land of the Snow scene.

WTNH News 8 Reporter Jocelyn Maminta will once again play the role of grandmother in the party scene during the December 20 matinee.

Two area public schools students enrolled in the NHB’s “DanceAir” Program, which awards one-year, full-tuition scholarships inclusive of dance leotards, shoes and a travel stipend, will perform too.

“We are a community school that provides classical ballet training of the very highest caliber,” Sanborn said.

change the life of every person in the community through education, performance, physical exercise, artistic aspiration, personal development and social interaction to the fullest of their potential.”

Sanborn confirmed that NHB’s admission rates typically spike right after Nutcracker performances.

“That’s because if you are a registered student at the New Haven Ballet, we work hard to ensure that every student has the opportunity to participate and perform in our Nutcracker,” she said.

In hopes of expanding its audience and community outreach, the New Haven Ballet has added an extra performance of this family-friendly holiday favorite to its 2014 schedule.

Don’t delay ordering your tickets: The season of magic and majesty is here!

“The Nutcracker 2014” presented by the New Haven Ballet and New Haven Ballet Orchestra; six shows Dec. 19 through Dec. 21 at The Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. Artistic Director Lisa Sanborn; Conductor Richard Gard. Box office (203) 562-5666, www.shubert.com. Ticket pricing: $12, Yale student rate with ID; General Public, $16.50 rear balcony; $27.50 front balcony; $44 mezzanine and $55 orchestra.

Production length is two hours, including intermission.

The NHB describes its mission as seeking to “demonstrate and use the power of dance to

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BIBLIOFILES

WORDS of MOUTH FÊTES

Dancing, singing and great music star in Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, playing at the Goodspeed Opera House through December 28.

INSTYLE

Happy O U‘Holiday’ T D O O R S at Goodspeed

B OIrving D Y Berlin’s & SO U Lhits music a high note

O NBySBROOKS CRE EN APPELBAUM

G

oodspeed Musicals’ charming world premiere of “Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn” (based on the 1942 movie musical featuring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby), is aptly titled: the star that shines most brightly is the great Berlin himself.

The production, which played through December 21, overflows with marvelous songs. Some are drawn directly from the film (“Easter Parade,” “You’re Easy to Dance With,” “Be Careful,

50 D ECEMBER 2014

It’s My Heart”; and, most famously, “White Christmas”). Many come from the seemingly endless Berlin songbook: “Blue Skies,” “What’ll I Do,” “Heat Wave,” “Shaking the Blues Away,” and more.

To hear these songs sung with the signature enthusiasm, skill and grace of a Goodspeed cast is a pleasure.

Another pleasure of this production lies in a script (by Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge) that integrates these numbers into a wellconstructed plot. Especially in comparison with other songbook shows that celebrate their songs more or less at the expense of their stories, this script is tight and plausible.

Of course, Greenberg and Hodge are lucky that their source material takes place amongst singers and dancers who love the spotlight and the stage. That love sets up many of the numbers as theater-within-theater: the fourth wall is broken as the performers play specifically to us, their audience. And that love – or the perception of its end – is also what sets the story in motion.

Jim, a singer, has decided that his life in showbiz can no longer compare with life as a husband in a quiet Connecticut farmhouse. He has been

waiting for the right moment to propose to Lila, with whom he and his friend Ted share a songand-dance act. The trio’s opening number, “I’ll Capture Your Heart Singing,” neatly sets up the two men’s competition for Lila’s affections. Jim claims to capture her with song and Ted with dance, but her affections aren’t all that’s at stake.

Though Lila purports to love Jim, she loves fame and money more, and when the big chance comes, she runs off to Las Vegas with Ted as her dancing partner.

Jim, sad but loyal, moves to Connecticut and waits for her in his farmhouse – which is more a farm-mansion – where he makes the acquaintance of a handy-woman, Louise, and a schoolteacher, Linda. We soon see that Linda and Jim are made for each other, though naturally it takes them quite a bit longer to see this for themselves.

We also see that Jim’s joy in performing hasn’t disappeared after all. In a touching twist, when Jim hears that his former dancing chums back in New York have nowhere to go for Christmas, he invites them to his home. And with that, the idea of the Holiday Inn is born: an inn only open to the public during holidays, when show people from New York can run over to Connecticut

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

Tally Sessions as Jim, Noah Racey as Ted, and Patti Murin as Linda fare much better. Sessions delivers a moving and believable Jim, and his singing is glorious – whether in big numbers or in heartbreaking ballads. Racey’s dancing – especially when he gets to show it off in the remarkable solo, “Let’s Say it With Firecrackers” – is superb, and though at times he came across as more the villain than the role is meant to convey, he ultimately won me over.

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As much fun as all this is, the production stops short of being entirely enjoyable due to an unfortunate directorial choice. Gordon Greenberg – the same Greenberg responsible for the well-constructed plot –directs too many of the actors to use stagey speaking voices, and this unnecessarily dates the piece. I’ve no complaints about anyone’s singing, but Hayley Podschun, as Lila, for example, goes over the top with squeaky dialogue, while Susan Mosher, as Louise, mugs so broadly in her comic role that whatever she says becomes predictable before she opens her mouth.

This is a shame, as the role, and Mosher, have the potential to be both clever and endearing. Even the ensemble women squeak rather than speak, and one soon longs for either a song or a natural human sound.

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Trouble starts when Ted shows up in search of a new dance partner, since Lila has deserted their act. He has a history of stealing Jim’s partners – performing and otherwise – so we root for Jim and Linda as we enjoy the parade of seasons, holiday celebrations and knocked-out song and dance numbers. Not only do the singers and dancers in the ensemble do spot-on work in the snappy choreography by Denis Jones, but the costumes, designed by Alejo Vietti (different for every holiday, remember), are spectacular, as are Anna Louizos’ sets.

As for Patti Murin, she shines brilliantly as Linda, bringing to the role layers of hurt pride, disappointment, sharp intelligence, and ultimately, glowing love. This is a tricky part, since Linda changes more radically than any other character, not only emotionally but also in terms of her talents and her dreams. Murin makes all of this look as easy as the pie she brings to Jim for Thanksgiving. By the end of the show, she, along with Sessions and Racey, have nearly overcome whatever directorial missteps mar other aspects of “Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn.” Their company, the ensemble’s energy, and Berlin’s songs, create a festive evening indeed.

Integrated Aesthetics

and throw together an evening’s entertainment, between big city auditions, call-backs and jobs.

CALENDAR BELLES LETTRES With its themes of economic anxiety, social change and romantic betrayal, Stendhal’s classic novel The Red and the Black is as timely now as ever. Discuss this masterwork and its themes at R.J. Julia’s Classics Book Club, which gathers once a month at this Madison treasure trove of a bookstore. 7 p.m.

December 23. R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Rd., Madison.

Free. 203-245-3959, rjjulia.com.

The Mystery Book Club meets the first Wednesday to discuss a pre-selected book. Books are available for check out prior to the meeting. 3-4 p.m. January 7 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-483-6653, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk. htm.

New members are welcomed to the Blackstone Library Second Tuesday Book Club. The group meets on the second Tuesday to discuss a pre-selected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 6:45-8 p.m. January 13 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-488-1441, ext. 318, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute and the Arnold Bernhard Library at Quinnipiac University present The Lady Sligo Letters: Westport House and Ireland’s Great Hunger. Hester Catherine Browne (1800-78), a/k/a Lady Sligo, was part of the AngloIrish elite that had governed Ireland for centuries. Despite her wealth and social position, she repeatedly demonstrated her concern for the poor who lived on her estate in County Mayo.

Lady Sligo lived from 1800-78. Her collection includes more than 200 letters covering the period of the Great Hunger and adds an important new dimension to scholarly understanding of the tragedy. Through April 30, 2015 at Arnold Bernhard Library, Quinnipiac University, 275 Mt. Carmel Ave., Hamden. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, noon-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-582-8633, quinnipiac. edu.

Release your inner poet. Time Out for Poetry meets third Thursdays and welcomes those who wish to share an original short poem, recite a stanza or simply to listen. Ogden Nash, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and even the Burma Shave signs live again. 12:30-2 p.m. December 19 at Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Free. 203-2457365.

The Poetry Institute of New Haven hosts Poetry Open Mics each third Thursday. Come hear an eclectic mix of poetic voices.

7 p.m. December 19 at Young Men’s Institute Library, 847 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. thepoetryinstitute.com.

CULINARY City Farmers Markets New Haven. Cold weather doesn’t mean all is fallow at local farmers markets: The Wooster Square and Edgewood Park markets are open outdoors until the weekend of December 21 and the indoor winter market opens January 10 at the Metropolitan Business Academy. Enjoy seasonal fruits, vegetables, and herbs from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, handcrafted bread and gifts. WOOSTER SQUARE 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays through December 20 at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct. EDGEWOOD PARK 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays through December 21 at Whalley and West Rock Aves. INDOOR WINTER MARKET 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Saturdays at Metropolitan Business Academy, 115 Water Street.

203-773-3736, cityseed.org.

Consiglio’s Cooking Class Club. Chef Maureen Nuzzo explains and demonstrates how to prepare mouth-watering southern Italian dishes that have been passed down from generation to generation. January’s menus include classics like Italian sausage, potato and kale soup and “Nonna’s Eggplant Parmesan.” 6:30 p.m. January 15 and 29 at Consiglio’s Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven. $65. Reservations. 203-865-4489, consiglios.com.

FAMILY EVENTS Calling all girls: Southern Connecticut State University is hosting a special day of female-oriented sporting events on Saturday, January 24. “Girls and Women in Sport Day” gives girls a chance to try a variety of sports at clinic stations and enjoy a complimentary lunch, followed by an opportunity to meet and greet Southern student-athletes. Wear sneakers and athletic clothing and bring a water bottle; registration is limited to the first 200 female participants in grades 1-8 who have signed a release. 9:15 a.m., January 24. Free. www. southernctowls.com.

Each Tuesday the Yale Astronomy Department hosts a Planetarium Show. Weather permitting there is also public viewing of planets, nebulae, star clusters and whatever happens to be interesting in the sky. Viewable celestial objects change seasonally. 7 & 8 p.m. Tuesdays at Leitner Family Observatory, 355 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. cobb@astro.yale. edu, astro.yale.edu.

Creating Readers Saturdays at 2 Program. A fun, interactive program that engages young readers by bringing books to life using theater, dance and music. Each family that attends receives a copy of that week’s book to take home. 2 p.m.

Saturdays at Connecticut Children’s Museum, 22 Wall St., New Haven. $5. 203-562-5437, childrensbuilding.org.

In her screen debut, Katharine Hepburn plays a character dealing with mental illness and divorce in the family in A Bill of Divorcement (1932, 80 min., USA). With John Barrymore and Billie Burke. 2, 4 & 7 p.m. January 6 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $8. 877-5031286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

COMEDY

MIND, BODY & SOUL

Every Wednesday evening Joker’s Wild opens its stage to anyone who wants to try standup comedy — from brand-new comics to amateurs to seasoned pros. As Forrest Gump might say, each Open-Mic Night is kind of like a box of chocolates. 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Joker’s Wild, 232 Wooster St., New Haven. $5.

203-773-0733, jokerswildclub.com.

The Ives library hosts weekly Library Yoga classes suitable for all levels. Walk-ins welcome. Bring a yoga mat. 1-2 p.m.

Wednesdays at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. $5. 203-946-8835.

52 D ECEMBER 2014

NATURAL HISTORY Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants. Ants.

The word is small — and so are they — but their world is enormous. With complex and wildly diverse lifestyles, ants are everywhere, living lives mostly hidden from plain sight.

Featuring the photography of ant expert Mark Moffett, this exhibition highlights the fascinating lives of ants — communicating, dealing with disease and agriculture — and chronicles the work of entomologists in the field today.

Organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Through January 4 at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, noon-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $5 children). 203-4325050, peabody.yale.edu.

LECTURES How do you translate 16th century Irish melodies for modern musicians? Artist and expert George Sprengelmeyer will discuss techniques for arranging the melodies of the legendary Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan at an event at Quinnipiac University. The harper has become an iconic figure in the history of Ireland and his melodies are now seen as the most important ancient Irish compositions. This lecture will include a performance of a number of arrangements made

by Dr. Sprengelmeyer for the guitar entitled “A Celtic Suite.”

5:30 to 7 p.m. January 29. Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, 3011 Whitney Avenue, Hamden. Free. 203-582-8633, quinnipiac.edu.

CINEMA

Two upcoming films at the Whitney Humanities Center are partnered with an exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery of striking political posters and prints from Mexico’s Taller de Gráfica Popular workshop.

Led by Nelie Doak, Yoga promotes a deep sense of physical, mental and emotional well-being. Classes are designed to help cultivate breath and body awareness, improve flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, detoxify the body and soothe the spirit. All levels welcome. Bring a yoga mat. 5-6:30 p.m. Fridays at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $10. 203-488-1441, ext. 313, yogidoakie@earthlink.net or events@blackstone. lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org.

senior advertising sales executive position Dynamic, experienced salesperson sought to take over advertising space sales for the Yale Alumni Magazine. We seek a highly motivated, proven sales expert to manage and expand our large client base, which extends throughout the New Haven metro area and New England generally—and beyond.

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SPORTS/RECREATION Spectator Sports New Haven is one of only six stops in the nation for the Russian Red Stars, an all-star squad of European hockey veterans. The Yale Men’s Hockey Team will face off against the Reds, who range in age from 19 to 21, and hope to hone their skills again America’s best. 7 p.m., December 27 at Ingalls Rink, New Haven. $26. 203-432-1400, 73 Sachem St, New Haven. yalebulldogs.com.

WWII tour of duty. War is a wildly provocative, bracingly funny, and all-too-human portrait of a family navigating the landmines of the past as they try to broker peach with each other-and themselves-in the present. Written by Branden JacombsJenkins. Lileana Blain-Cruz directs. Through December 13 at Yale Repertory Theatre, University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. $84. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

ONSTAGE

Cycling

Opening

Elm City Cycling organizes Lulu’s Ride, weekly two- to fourhour rides for all levels (17-19 mph average). Cyclists leave at 10 a.m. from Lulu’s European Café as a single group; no one is dropped. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org.

A Christmas Carol the musical favorite that tells the timeless story of the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge. 8 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. December 5-21 at Center Stage Theatre, 54 Grove St., Shelton. $25. 203-225-6079, centerstageshelton.com.

The Little Lulu (LL) is an alternative to the long-standing Sunday morning training ride. The route is usually 20-30 miles in length and the ride is no-drop, meaning that the group waits at hilltops and turns so that no rider is left behind. The LL is an opportunity for cyclists to get accustomed to riding in groups.

Riders should come prepared with materials (tubes, tools, pumps and/or CO2 inflators) to repair flats. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-7739288, paulproulx@sbcglobal.net, elmcitycycling.org.

Tuesday Night Canal Rides. Medium-paced rides up the Farmington Canal into New Haven. May split into two groups based on riders’ speed but no one will be left behind to ride alone. Lights are a must. 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays at Café Romeo, 534 Orange St., New Haven. Free. william.v.kurtz@gmail.com.

Elm City Cycling monthly meeting occurs on the second Monday. ECC is a non-profit organization of cycling advocates who meet to discuss biking issues in New Haven. Dedicated to making New Haven friendlier and more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians. 7 p.m. January 12 at City Hall Meeting Rm. 2, 165 Church St., New Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Road Races/Triathlons

Circus on the High Seas. Dic Wheeler directs. Fri. 7 p.m., Sat. noon & 4 p.m. December 19 & 20 at Oddfellows Playhouse, 128 Washington St., Middletown. $12. 860-347-6143, oddfellows.org.

Featuring original This American Life radio interviews restaged as dance pieces as well as personal stories from each of its three performers—Ira Glass, Monica Bill Barnes, and Anna Bass—Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host is a funny, lively, and heartfelt evening that has brought down the house wherever it’s been performed. 2 & 8 p.m. December 20 at Yale Repertory Theatre, University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. $50. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

Irving Berlins classic musical White Christmas. December 30-January 4 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $115-$12. 203-562-5666, shubert.com.

Ongoing

Every Christmas Story Ever Told. Instead of performing Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday classic for the umpteenth time, three actors decide to perform every Christmas story ever told – plus Christmas traditions from around the world, seasonal icons from ancient times to tropical pop-culture, and every carol ever sung. 8 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 2 p.m. Through December 14 at Phoenix Stage Company, 686 Rubber Ave., Naugatuck. $22 ($18 seniors). 203-632-8546, phoenixstagecompany.com.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a comedy by Steve Martin.

What happens when Picasso and Einstein walk into a bar?

Intellectual fireworks, verbal gymnastics, amorous intentions, and the arrival of a mysterious man in blue suede shoes. On an October evening in 1904, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso end up at the same small bar in Paris—the Lapin Agile. The two young geniuses, joined by an eccentric cast of characters, spar over art and science, their respective libidos, where inspiration comes from, and the promise and dreams of the 20th century. Through December 21 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $79.50-$29.50. 203-787-4282, longwharf. org.

Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. The world-premiere musical about a Connecticut farmhouse transformed into a jubilant nightspot — but only on holidays. From Valentine’s Day to the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving to Christmas, featuring hit songs by Irving Berlin such as “Happy Holiday,” “Easter Parade,” and “Be Careful, It’s My Heart.” Through December 28 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $79-$60. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

Tensions escalate between Tate and Joanne at the hospital bedside of their comatose mother. As they attack each other’s smallest words and biggest choices, they are ambushed by two strangers who make a shocking claim about their grandfather’s

Mark the debut of 2015 with New Year’s Day 5K in Orange to benefit the Amity Teen Center. The Chilly Chili Run welcomes walkers and wheelchairs, too. 10:30 a.m. January 1 at High Plains Community Center, 525 Orange Center Rd., Orange. $22 advance, $27 race day. hitekracing.com

ENJOY

If you’ve resolved to be more mellow in the new year, Milford’s “un-race” Tradition Run is the trot for you. Times are not recorded, there’s no first prize and the results are listed alphabetically. 10:30 a.m., January 26 at Hubbard Park, 199 Notch Rd., Meriden. Free.

THIS HOLIDAY

SEASON AT CHAMARD

203-630-4259. runningpast.com/trun.htm.

Brace yourself to splash down in the frigid sound to benefit animal rescue efforts at Mystic Aquarium. Registration is now open for the Aquarium’s 2nd annual Seal Splash, in which the hale and hardy plunge into the waters of Misquamicut Beach.

Proceeds benefit Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue Team to continue its meaningful work. Noon, January 24. Paddy’s Restaurant, 159 Atlantic Avenue, Westerly, RI. $20 for basic registration, plus pledges. mysticaquarium.org Please send CALENDAR information to CALENDAR@conntact. com no later than six weeks preceding calendar month of event.

Please include date, time, location, event description, cost and contact information. Photographs must be at least 300 dpi resolution and are published at discretion of NEW HAVEN magazine.

WINE TASTINGS LUNCH & DINNER

Open 7 Days a Week BOOKING HOLIDAY OFFICE PARTIES NOW

visit www.chamard.com or call (860) 664-0299 new haven

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MUSIC

now he brings his quartet to the cool, intimate confines of Firehouse 12.

8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. December 12 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $30 (early show), $20 (late show) 203785-0468. firehouse12.com.

The Chip Davis-fronted Mannheim Steamroller is known for its blend of classical music and rock, and especially its contemporary take on holiday classics. The group brings its Christmas show on the road for its 30th year, with a stop in the Brass City along the way. 8 p.m. December 12 at the Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $68-$48. 203-346-2000, palacetheatrect.com.

The members of Manchester, U.K.-based alternative rock band The 1975 have been playing music since they were teenagers, delivering grand pop music with an electronic pulse. 7:30 p.m.

December 11 at the Dome at Oakdale Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $42. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

The New York Funk Exchange is a nine-piece behemoth from Brooklyn and has shared stages with the likes of Eddie Money and Damian Marley while maintaining a residency in Manhattan’s Club Groove. The group mixes old-school funk, jazz, soul and R&B into a groovy extravaganza. 8 p.m.

December 11 at the Ballroom at Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $12. 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

Long-running dreamy ambient trio Landing are New Haven natives but have made a name for themselves in the underground space-rock circles far and wide. They’re joined by fellow local dream-rockers the Mountain Movers for what will likely be a swirly kind of night. 9 p.m. December 12 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Composer and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz is seen as one of the prominent players in the “cool jazz” movement, and

The comical thrash-metal band GWAR is infamous for its trashy outrageousness and grotesque costumes and absurd live shows which will likely leave you covered in fake blood and other mock bodily fluids. The band’s founding singer Dave Brockie passed away earlier this year, so the band’s “Eternal Tour” drafts different singers to celebrate the band’s legacy in good fashion, with Get down to the gypsy freak-folk of the Grand Slambovians at the Kate on openers Corrosion of Conformity. 8 December 14 and bring your dancing shoes. p.m. December at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($21 advancw). 203-6248623, toadsplace.com.

yale institute of sacred music presents

The multi-instrumentalist “funk army” that is Turkuaz crafts a sound that is at once evocative of Motown and R&B as it is zany Talking Heads. 8 p.m. December 13 at the Ballroom at Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $12. 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents channel the girl group and soul sounds of the 60s, and they must be good enough to have once been the backing band for La La Brooks, former lead singer of legendary girl group the Crystals, not to mention opening for the likes of the Breeders, J. Geils Band and Aerosmith. They’re joined by New Haven mainstay the Shellye Valauskas Experience and Bridgeport hockey-rock legends the Zambonis. 9 p.m. December 13 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Yale Camerata

Yale Schola Cantorum

saturday, december 6 7:30 pm

friday, december 12 5 pm

Dona nobis pacem

Splendor and Introspection

Marguerite L. Brooks, conductor

Music of J.S. Bach, Vaughan Williams, Kyr, and Marshall Battell Chapel 400 College St., New Haven

Simon Carrington, guest conductor

The mythological music of Grand Slambovians can best be described as a sort of gypsy freak-folk, while at other times they’ve been called “hillbilly-Floyd.” Wear your foot-tappin’ shoes when they make a return visit to the Kate. 7:30 p.m. December 14 at Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $27. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

Canadian indie rock band the Box Tiger craft mature melodies with a pop sensibility. They stop in town for a free show at Bar, joined by the long-running spacey New Haven outfit Atrina and Storrs-based Dangerous Animals. 9p.m. December 17 at BAR, 254 Crown St., New Haven. Free. 203-495-8924. barnightclub.com.

Music of Charpentier

Christ Church Episcopal 84 Broadway at Elm, New Haven Composer and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz brings his “cool jazz” quartet to Firehouse 12 on December 12.

54 D ECEMBER 2014

NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

Singer Samantha Stephenson and guitarist Scott Helland as the duo Frenchy and the Punk will be rocking Café Nine with their flapper-folk-punk-cabaret on December 18.

Frenchy and the Punk is the duo of French singer Samantha Stephenson and guitarist Scott Helland that creates a Paris via CBGB’s flapper-folk-punk-cabaret that might sound like Siouxsie Sioux and Johnny Ramone jamming at a Tim Burton house party. Got it?

8:30 p.m. December 18 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $10. 203-789-8281, cafenine. com.

Rudy Boy George is an ensemble of New York City musicians playing ska and reggae versions of new wave and post-punk songs from the 1980s. Expect covers from the likes of Soft Cell, Human League, Billy Idol, The Smiths, Culture Club and pretty much any distinctly new wave hit you can imagine. 9 p.m.

December 20 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Experimental indie space rockers Jose Oyola & the Astronauts have quickly become one of New Haven’s most prominent and buzzed about bands; their record release show in 2013 was played before a sold-out crowd. They headline at the Outer Space Ballroom along with other local favorites Head with Wings, Elison Jackson and Kindred Queer. 7:30 p.m.

December 18 at the Ballroom at Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $10. 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

Anthony Raneri has spent the last 20 years making music, but for 11 of those years he’s been the singer and songwriter for Bayside.

He’s embarking on a solo career as an outlet to write and perform the songs that don’t fit with his band’s style. 7:30 p.m. December 21 at The Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $17 ($14 advance). 203-288-6400, thespacect.com.

Prepare for a much skanking! Of course by “skanking” we mean the excitable dance one practices while listening to ska music. And it will ensue as two ska-punk heavyweights, The Slackers and Mephiskapheles, take on the Ballroom for a high-energy evening. 9 p.m.

December 19 at the Ballroom at Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $15 ($20 advance).

203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

Kung Fu has been described as a blend of Herbie Hancock and the Mahavishnu Orchestra; a fusion of funk and electro dance madness, featuring members of the Breakfast and Deep Banana Blackout. The group returns to the Toad to play its fourth annual Holiday Spectacular over two nights. 9 p.m. December 19 and 20 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($20 advance). 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

Singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg occupies a stylistic space near Jackson Browne and John Prine, and has played more than 1,500 concerts over the last 10 years, including as an opener for the likes of Josh Ritter. 9 p.m.

December 26 at the Ballroom at Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. $25 ($20 advance).

203-288-6400, theouterspace.net.

The bad-girl rock and roll of the Detroit Cobras is an all-out party that blurs the lines between rock ‘n roll and R&B, just the right thing for a New Year’s Day gig at the Nine. 9 p.m. January 1 at Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $15. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Tijuana Panthers are a southern Californiabased band that delivers garage-y punk and surf rock with a decidedly weird, David Lynchian underbelly. 9 p.m. January 7 at BAR, 254 Crown St., New Haven. Free. 203-495-8924. barnightclub.com.

Ring in the Holid day Season with the NHSO! Home For The Holidays

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ART Opening Holiday Greene! Work by gallery artists. December 1-January 4 at Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield St., Guilford. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat.; noon-4 p.m. Sun. & Mon. Free. 203-453-4162, greenartgallery.com.

The Knights of Columbus Museum’s 10th annual Christmas crèche exhibition, Buon Natale: Crèches of Italy, features two dozen Italian-inspired Nativity scenes on display. The highlight of the show is a 120-square-foot Neapolitan diorama. December 1- February 1 at Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State St., New Haven. Open daily 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. 203-865-0400, kofcmuseum. org.

Give Art: An annual holiday exhibition with all works of art by gallery artist-members, who will be offering work of various sizes and two prices: $75 and $150. December 4-21 at City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven. Open noon-4 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. Free. 203-782-2489, city-gallery.org.

First Annual Holiday Exhibit: Fine and Folk Art of China - scrolls, Chinese traditional puppets, paper cuts, porcelain pieces large and small, handmade silk embroideries, tea and tea sets. December 8-February 28 at Silk Road Art Gallery, 83 Audubon St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Free.

203-772-8928, silkroadartnewhaven.com.

Annual Holiday Show. December 10-January 31 at Susan Powell Fine Art, 679 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Wed.-Fri., noon-6 p.m. Sat., noon-3 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-318-0616, susanpowellfineart.com.

Kindness of Strangers Holiday Show. Works by local and regional figurative painters, photographers, sculptors and crafters illustrating the “kindness of strangers” among people and between people and animal friends. January 1-11 at Spectrum Gallery and Store, 61 Main St., Centerbrook. Open 11-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-663-5593, spectrumartgallery.org.

Passiones - new work by Jennifer Davies. January 2-February 1 at City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven. Open noon-4 p.m. Thurs.Sun. Free. 203-782-2489, city-gallery.org.

Whistler in Paris, London and Venice. This exhibition – the first at the Gallery dedicated to James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) – examines the biography and artistic development of one of the most celebrated artists of the 19th century through the lens of three of his earliest and arguably most innovative sets of etchings, the so-called French, Thames and Venice Sets. January 30-July 19 at at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Ongoing World of Dreams: New Landscape Paintings by Tula Telfair.

Includes new large-scale landscape paintings. Through December 5 at Ezra & Cecile Zilkha Gallery, 283 Washington Ave., Middletown. Open noon-5 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860-6853355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

This detail from a Neapolitan crèche at the Knights of Columbus Museum depicts street merchants and activity outside a tavern. There are more than 100 human figures in the setting.

Figures of Empire: Slavery & Portraiture in 18th-Century Atlantic Britain. This exhibition explores the complex relationship between slavery and portraiture in 18th-century British art, as represented in the collections of the Center and neighboring Yale institutions. Through December 14 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 877-274-8278, britishart. yale.edu.

Marked by Line. Installation and new work by local sculptor Shelby Head. Through December 19 at Paul Mellon Arts Center, 332 Christian St., Wallingford. Open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Fri. Free.

203-697-2398, choate.edu/boxoffice.

Elizabeth Gilfilen Laid Ledge and Jeremy Chandler. Through December 20 at Fred Giampietro Gallery, 315 Peck St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-7777760, giampietrogallery.com.

The annual Deck the Walls show. Work by newly elected artists.

Through January 3 at Lyme Art Association, 90 Lyme St., Lyme.

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Fri., 1-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 860-434-7802, lymeartassociation.org.

Roman in the Provinces: Art on the Periphery of Empire examines the interaction between local traditions and Roman imperial culture through artifacts of daily life, politics, technology and religion. The juxtaposition of mosaics, ceramics, sculpture, glass, textiles, coins and jewelry presents a rich image of life in the Roman provinces. The exhibition features objects from across the empire, including works from Yale University’s excavations at Gerasa and Dura-Europos,

Works by Bimschwel Cunningham. Through December 20 at the Funky Monkey Café & Gallery, 130 Elm St., Watch Factory Shoppes, Cheshire. Open. Free. 203-439-9161, thefunkymonkeycafe.com.

Inside the Box. A unique collaboration of the Gallery’s painters, photographers, sculptors, and installation artists diverse interpretations of what one might find inside the box. Through December 21 at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thurs.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Free. 203-389-9555, kehlerliddell.com.

Holiday Exhibition and Sale: works by Gallery Artists. Through December 23 at Fred Giampietro Gallery, 315 Peck St., New Haven.

Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-777-7760, giampietrogallery.com.

Picture Talking: James Northcote and the Fables presents a set of fables written and illustrated by James Northcote (17461831). Through December 14 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 877-274-8278, britishart.yale.edu.

46th Annual Celebration of American Crafts. Over 300 artists from across America are featured, work includes glass, ceramics, jewelry, wearable and decorative fiber.

Through December 24 at Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon St., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. 203-562-4927, creativeartworkshop.org.

59th Annual Exhibit and Sale. Through December 14 at Wesleyan Potters, 350 S. Main St., Middletown. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed., Thurs. & Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. Free 860-3475925, wesleyanpotters.com.

More than a Face: Features artwork by Corina Alvarezdelugo, Janice Bielawa, Jessica Cuni, Anne Doris-Eisner, Oi Fortin, Barbara Hocker, Fethi Meghelli, Irene K. Miller and Thuan Vu. Through January 2 at Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery, 70

56 D ECEMBER 2014

Audubon St., 2 Fl., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Free.

203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

SUNDAY

FEBRUARY 22 5PM

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many of which have rarely or never before been on view.

Through January 4 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m.

Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Vida y Drama de Mexico: Prints from the Monroe E. Price and Aimee Brown Price Collection presents a selection of approximately 50 Mexican prints and posters. Most of the works in the exhibition were made at the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Graphic Workshop), a collective printmaking workshop in Mexico City founded in 1937 by Leopoldo Méndez, Luis Arenal and Pablo O’Higgins. The collective’s aim was to create art to improve the lives of peasants and laborers and to support social justice – goals not fully realized by the Mexican Revolution (1910–20). To reach the broadest possible audience, the Taller artists created works that could be widely distributed and that employed a clear, representational style and inexpensive techniques, like lithography and linocut. The subjects of these powerful prints and posters include anti-war messages; support for workers and their unions; protests of government-sanctioned violence against demonstrators; political heroes and villains; U.S.-Mexican relations, and indigenous Indians. Through February 1 at the Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-4320600, artgallery.yale.edu.

East of the Wallace Line: Monumental Art from Indonesia and New Guinea explores the cultural characteristics of eastern Indonesia and coastal western New Guinea. Taking as its jumping-off point the “Wallace Line,” an ecological demarcation first recognized by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace that runs through Indonesia between Bali and Lombok and west of Sulawesi, the exhibition presents intricately decorated, large-scale sculptures and textiles, as well as more intimate personal and domestic objects. Through February 1 at the Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.) 1-6 p.m.

Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

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B I BL IOF I L E S W O R D S o f M OU T H FÊTES NEW EATS: INSTYLE

Tarry Lodge O U T D O OR S

By Liese Klein

I

was a busy night at the new Tarry Lodge Btrestaurant OD Yon Park & Street, S OU L and drama was

brewing. A plate got sent back to the kitchen by an unhappy diner, and with the determination of a CSI team, the server and manager vowed to get to the bottom of the issue.

ONSCREEN

Thanks to the unwieldy design of this new Mario Batali eatery, we got to hear a full report on a recent night as the staff discussed the incident

only inches from our table. That same staff seemed miles away when our glasses were empty or we were ready to order another course, thanks again to the odd flow of the dining room. Next time, I’ll ask to sit near the windows.

gem of Georgian architecture that has housed generations of the Bush family. Lit up at night and so close your GPS will locate you there, the dorm offers some of the best dining eye candy in town.

The Tarry Lodge space alone is likely to spark memories for a certain generation of New Haveners as the longtime home of Park Street Subs, purveyor of late-night carbs to generations of Yalies. Batali’s team has taken the bowlingalley shaped storefront and duplicated the décor and fixtures of sister Tarry Lodges in Fairfield County and Port Chester, N.Y.

Savor your view with one of Tarry Lodge’s grown-up cocktails, like a tart Bellini ($12) that mixes Champagne with a puree of pears steeped in eau de vie. Also refreshing was a concoction of gin with sweet vermouth and lemon juice ($12).

Both were not too sweet and easy to sip with a range of food. Oddly, New England Brewing’s brash Sea Hag ale ($6) was served a thin-walled glass so sharp it could cut your lip.

“It’s exactly like the one in Westport, even the silverware and the chandeliers are same!” enthused a diner at an adjacent table. But even Westport can’t offer a panorama to match that outside the New Haven location’s expansive front window: Yale’s Davenport College, a

Thirsts sated, we were drawn to the small plates under the heading of antipasti, starting with a micro portion of octopus($14) with squid ink and shishito peppers. So brief, so beautiful was each bite, a harmonious fusion of tender meat,

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Tarry Lodge Managing partner Nancy Selzer with a pie from the new eatery’s wood-fired pizza oven.

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crunchy vegetable and musky sauce.

Chased with a nibble of lemon slice and a sip of Bellini, it was a promising starter.

Salt was the missing element in a salad of Tarry Greens ($9) with white bean vinaigrette, although the creamy beans added a nice textural contrast to the peppery greens.

Pizza, a mainstay at the other locations, is dialed back a bit on the New Haven menu. But a pie of artichoke and rosy Italian olives ($15) beguiled, although the namesake veggie appeared only in a tangle of insubstantial shreds. The restaurant’s wood-fired pizza oven gave the crust a Wooster Squarequality char and the pie balanced its flavors and textures well.

Yale’s Handsome Dan keeps an eye on the entrance area at the New Tarry Lodge, part of celebrity chef Mario Batali’s empire.

Who could resist a pasta dish with the name of Fusilli Alla Crazy Bastard ($17)? The nicely al dente

corkscrews were bathed in a cheesy, creamy cherry-tomato sauce with bright flavor for a satisfying entree.

Also hearty was the half chicken entrée ($23), spiced with rosemary and roasted to crisp perfection. Hen of the Woods mushrooms brought out the piney tang of the herbs for a complex interplay of protein and sides, accented by flavorful pearl couscous.

Tarry Lodge can’t compete with our home-grown restaurants for inventive cuisine and service at the highest level, but for a parents’ weekend dinner or business lunch, its casual elegance is hard to beat.

Choose your table well, enjoy the charming view and tarry awhile.

Tarry Lodge, 278 Park St., New Haven (203-672-0765), tarrylodge. com.

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Join us for a tour, or just relax and enjoy a beer in our bar.

Open to the public Thursday & Friday 4-8pm and Saturday & Sunday 1-5pm 250 Bradley Street, East Haven • (203) 909-6204 www.overshores.com NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM

EDITOR’S PICK:

MARK FORMANEK PHOTOS

August

By Liese Klein

I

magine that there’s this really nice young couple you know who are whizzes in the kitchen, generous with their booze and delighted to have you drop by unexpectedly.

That’s part of the charm of August, a tiny wine bar and bistro in East Rock that has built an avid local following and deserves some more regulars.

Owners Andrew Hotis and Michelle ChadwickHotis, both restaurant-industry veterans, bring the best of home entertaining and stylish bar fare to their eatery, open since the summer just off State Street on Edwards. Luckily for visitors, parking can be found without too much trouble in this part of the neighborhood – just venture down Edwards a bit.

The first thing that sets August apart is its size, not much bigger than the kitchen of your typical East Rock home. Polished wood and brick aglow in candlelight set off a broad expanse of bar lined with stools, with a few tables at the front. That’s it. You’ll be sitting close to your neighbors and only inches from the Hotises, so be ready to share conversation and elbow room.

Lubricating that conversation will be selections from the carefully curated wine list that ranges across the world at various price points. Andrew Hotis offers pairing advice that manages to bring the wines to life without drowning you in tasting jargon. I took his advice and enjoyed a light and smooth glass of cinsault ($12), a red that pairs well with meat. My dining companion chose a brown Belgian ale from the short but high-quality beer list.

Even at a single, scanty page, August’s menu manages to appeal to broad range of cravings.

We started with a dish of marcona almonds ($5), enlivened with honey and rosemary. The generous portion and appealing presentation set the stage for the meal to come.

Next was a plate of Beausoleil oysters from Nova Scotia ($18), shucked just over the bar as we watched. Ice-cold and creamy, each morsel blended the tang of the sea with a hint of acid from the mild mignonette sauce.

If you’ve got room for more, try the pâté ($12), rustic slabs of a mellow meat blend that marries well with whole-grain mustard and slices of toasted bread. Sides of pickled cauliflower, olives and arugula salad offset the richness of the meat to a T.

Husband and wife restaurateurs Andrew Hotis and Michelle Chadwick-Hotis named their Edwards Street bar after their young son.

MARK FORMANEK PHOTOS

A panini of Spanish sardines with an herbflecked gremolata was another winner, with the rich fish complimented by the chunky green sauce. Impeccably fresh and crisp bread took the sandwich to the next level.

We couldn’t resist ordering both of the evening’s offered desserts: vanilla panna cota ($6) and a selection of artisanal chocolate truffles ($8). More like a pudding than the traditional gelled dessert, the panna cotta won me over with a velvety richness brightened by fresh raspberry. The Belge chocolates, imported from the Napa Valley, excelled with their combination of smooth, intensely flavored shells and creamy, salt-spiked fillings.

August is the kind of place that makes you feel like a regular on your first visit with its intimate pleasures and high-quality cooking. You’ll find yourself wanting to drop by this charming eatery again almost as soon as you’ve left.

August, 3 Edwards St., New Haven (203-745-4531).

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BIBLIO F I L E S WOR DS o f M O U T H FÊ T E S IN ST YLE OUT DO O RS BODY OUL Kind&ofS Quirky, Kind of Quaint

By Susan Cornell

ON SC RE E N

If you’re wealthy, own a chunk of land on the Housatonic, enjoy collecting and constructing stuff and also happen to be a tad eccentric, what do you do? You build an odd memorial for yourself, a curious shrine the public can love in perpetuity, of course! At least that’s what brothers David Beach Boothe and Stephen Nichols Boothe did with their 32 acres of property in the Putney section of Stratford that their family had occupied for generations.

Circa 1914, the brothers created the Boothe Memorial Museum, now the Boothe Memorial Park & Museum, which was willed to the town of Stratford in 1949. “We have deemed it only fitting that residents of the town of Stratford shall have an appropriate place for recreation and rest … where the beauty and serenity of life may be enjoyed to its richest and fullest apportionment,” reads the joint wills of David and Stephen.

A collection of buildings including a carriage house, a basilica, clock tower museum, trolley station, chapel, blacksmith shop, Americana 62 D ECEMBER 2014

Museum, miniature models of presidential houses and a miniature lighthouse and windmill are maintained by the museum. The original Sikorsky Bridge tollbooth from the Merritt Parkway can be found here; this addition once sat a short distance from the park.

You’ll also find an observatory for the local astronomical society, the home of the Boothe Memorial Railway Society, a first-rate playground, picnic areas, farm animals and award-winning flower gardens.

The site is also claimed “the oldest homestead in America” as the main house has been continuously occupied and is on the foundation of a house constructed in 1663. Fun fact: The brothers wrote to President Roosevelt to verify this claim. Since FDR did not reply, they voted Republican.

The Boothe Homestead is listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of Interior (1985).

And when there’s old there’s often haunted, and with the Boothe Cemetery next to the property … While I didn’t experience any eerie activity,

visitors inside the homestead claim to have seen forms and heard unexplained ringing, rapping and knocking. (The Paranormal Research Society of New England has spent several evenings in the homestead and can confirm.)

I found the park to be meticulously maintained and busy with retiree-type volunteers. (A school group was there on the day I visited, and it was also time to put the garden to rest.) There were plenty of little kids at the playground and happily leashed dogs enjoying the rolling hills.

The grounds are open to the public free of charge, year round. Tours of the historic buildings are available June 1 to October 1, and guided tours for school groups can be arranged. There are many sites that are available for renting including picnic areas, a patio area, amphitheater, dining hall and a Wedding & Rose Garden. The Railway Society will host an Open House on December 20 (1-4pm), and visitors are welcome to the observatory on the first and third Fridays of the month.

The Boothe Memorial Park & Museum is located at 5800 Main St. in Stratford.

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