Oral histories documenting New Haven, Connecticut

Scope and Contents: Paula Walker moved from New York to New Haven in the late 1990s, and now lives with her family in the Chatham Square neighborhood in Fair Haven. Walker describes a divide in her neighborhood between residents who own their own homes, and those who rent homes from absentee landlords. The latter class, Walker suggests, tends to be less invested in the upkeep of their residences, and less engaged with the health of the community. Walker organizes weekly events for children in a Fair Haven park in...

Scope and Contents: Interviewer: Haves, Arielle

Length (min): 57

Scope and Contents: After serving in Europe in World War II, Malcolm Webber moved to New Haven in 1968 to work for the Anti-Defamation League, which he describes as the "community relations agency" for the Jewish community of Connecticut. When the movement to erect a Holocaust memorial in New Haven got underway, Webber and his wife involved themselves immediately. On a trip to Europe, Webber visited Auschwitz. He collected some dirt which, he says, contained the ashes of Holocaust victims. Webber brought...

Scope and Contents: Paul Wessel talks about empowering and organizing communities and small business owners in and near New Haven. He discusses his experiences developing, organizing, and improving merchant organizations. He mentions the Livable City Initiative, an anti-blight urban housing program, and GAVA, the Grand Avenue Village Association, an organization of local merchants along Grand Avenue. He talks about common platform issues in both organizations, such as health care and health insurance, municipal...

Scope and Contents: From the 1950s through the early 2000s, Manson Witlock operated a typewriter repair shop on Broadway Street and later York Street. He discusses his life as a small business owner in New Haven and the changes that he has seen living in the area for over seventy years. Whitlock's father owned a turkey farm in Bethany and his family also owned bookstores in Bethany. Whitlock begins by talking about the 1950s and the election of Mayor Richard C. Lee, one of his classmates at Hillhouse High School....

Scope and Contents: Ed Winnick grew up in Woodbridge and New Haven. He attended Dartmouth College, served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, and went to Yale Law School. He talks about what drew him to law school, identifying his law-practicing family members as influences. He discusses working for his first law firm, Winnick & Winnick, and focusing on negligence practice. He mentions several specific cases undertaken by his firm over the years. He talks about the congeniality he's encountered between lawyers...

Scope and Contents: Karen Wolffe, who came to New Haven in 1969, helped found High School in the Community. HSC focused on teaching by experience instead of memorization. She recalls how her experiences as a civil rights worker in SNCC influenced her vision of schools and teachers exposing young people to tolerance. She talks about the reaction of outside school officials to HSC's no-textbook curriculum, open-ended teaching methods and philosophy, and its lack of administrators. She describes the challenges and...

Scope and Contents: David Zakur, born in Boston, grew up in Branford. He recalls visiting New Haven often for recreation with his mother, describing the local New Haven businesses popular during his youth. He talks about his frequent moves around the New Haven area and the country, settling in Fair Haven since 1993. He describes his current Fair Haven neighborhood, specifically the community's efforts to make it safer, more functional, and more aesthetic. He discusses the personal connections among neighbors that...

Scope and Contents: Interviewer: Brown, Michael

Scope and Contents: Richard Abbatiello recalls how urban renewal affected his life as a child growing up in New Haven. He was born on Chestnut Street in the East Street neighborhood, living above his father's machine shop, which his father started after leaving the A.C. Gilbert factory. Urban renewal forced the business to move to North Haven, and the family to move to Fair Haven Heights. Abbatiello discusses how the move affected him and the differences between the two neighborhoods, and reflects on his friend...

Scope and Contents: Shafiq Abdussabur grew up in the Dixwell neighborhood in New Haven in the 1970s. Abdussabur recalls that Dixwell was not unified neighborhood. Although the street was almost entirely African-American, lines of geography and class were readily apparent to most residents. He suggests that there were effectively five distinct neighborhoods on Dixwell, and that class and geographical snobbery ran rampant among Dixwell residents, particularly the children with whom Abdussabur grew up. There was a...