I Wish We Had...

I Wish We Had...

Lilac Street Engagement on April 6th

What a great time we had this past Saturday in Newhallville! If you were in the area between 10:00am and 4:00pm you should have seen, and heard, some positive activity happening on Lilac Street. With Yale students, some of the NHS staff, local DJ Tootske, Lilac Street residents, a group of volunteers, and neighboring passersby all present, we had the street hopping!

Over the past few weeks, a few of our staff here at NHS have had the opportunity to meet with 1st year Yale architecture students as they prepared a community engagement project. Meeting community members and hearing input from the residents of Newhallville was important for these students, as they are currently designing a house that will fit on a sliver lot (30 feet wide or less). Every year Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven partners with the Yale School of Architecture for one of these design projects. NHS obtains a vacant lot, and then Yale architecture students propose plans for a house to be built on that lot. We select the design we feel will best integrate with the neighborhood, and then the Yale students play a big role in the construction and landscaping of the house. Like all of our houses, the Yale Building Project will end up as the home of a first-time homebuyer. The vacant lot at 32 Lilac Street will be the location of the 2013 Yale Building Project, but we know that there are many vacant lots throughout New Haven that are not destined for houses or for anything at all. The Yale architecture students structured their community engagement project so that it would open discussion within the neighborhoods to brainstorm the possibilities for these vacant lots. The students also wanted to encourage residents to speak up about what assets they would like to have in their neighborhoods.


The collaboration that took place to make this project happen was fantastic to see. Students talked and met with key city officials and a few vocal residents to hear their ideas about having a street event. Engaging chalkboards were made and set-up on Lilac Street with open-ended statements for residents to fill in, such as “I wish there was ___ in Newhallville,” “I wish our block had ___” and “I wish this (vacant lot) was ___.” From what we gathered, people would love Newhallville to get the following: jobs, gun control, a teen center, an arts building, and educational programs. While there were some great ideas made by parents and other adults, the responses, and pictures, that were provided by the children of the neighborhood were amazingly creative. One contribution from the younger generation included a request for a dirt bike park! Everyone truly enjoyed the music that played throughout the day. Best of all, this was a fantastic opportunity to connect with local residents and see what they want most in the neighborhood they call home. It was great to see so many people out and about!

If all this wasn’t enough, we also had volunteers doing projects in the area while the Yale students engaged residents with their chalkboards. Yale Dwight Hall offered their hands and sweat to help NHS in our ongoing efforts to help local residents obtain front yard light posts. These lamp posts add beauty and safety lighting to the yards of these residents. The amazing volunteers from Yale Dwight Hall spent the better part of four hours digging the holes and trenches for these lamp posts.

At the same time, a few other Yale students volunteered to apply a fresh coat of white paint to the front porch of a Lilac Street house. The students chatted up residents and spruced up the porch until it looked striking and appealing. By making porches more attractive, we hope to get people to spend more time on their porches, engaging their neighborhoods and connecting with each other.

Thank you so much to the volunteers who came out on Saturday and made our events such successes! We look forward to more activities like this in the future.

What do you want in your neighborhood?