Class News
Special 55th Reunion URI tour of New Haven urban forestry
by Tony Lavely '64, 1964 Class Secretary
May 30, 2019
Colleen Murphy-Dunning
Chris Getman
The morning before our 55th Class Reunion officially began, on May 30, 2019, Chris Getman '64 organized a special tour of the great work being done by Urban Resources Initiative (URI) in New Haven. The tour was led by Colleen Murphy-Dunning, the Director for both URI and the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
As most classmates know, we have been supporting the work of URI for five years by sponsoring a summer intern in their program. As an expression of their gratitude, this summer URI dedicated a special bench to the Class of 1964 in one of the bucolic settings they have transformed.
Class of 1964 Bench ... The plaque says
"In gratitude to the Yale Class of 1964 for their ongoing support of Community Greenspace"
We congregated in the parking lot of The Lawn Club and boarded one of URI’s special vans. Before departing, we met this year’s 1964 summer intern, Amy Xu, who spoke quite emotionally about how much the experience means to her. Amy is now in Germany doing a graduate degree program.
Amy Xu
Amy at work
Chris Ozyck
Our van was driven by Chris Ozyck, Associate Director of URI, who also had great in-depth knowledge of the areas we toured and the work being done. We owe Colleen and Chris a debt of gratitude for taking us on this tour.
To bring the harsh reality of urban New Haven home to each of us, as we drove away from the “Botanical Garden of Healing,” dedicated to the New Haven victims of gun violence, we encountered a row of police cars with sirens wailing and the street blockaded. Another young New Haven man had just been shot and killed.
Sites visited on the tour
Shepard and Huntingdon
Motivated to clear this corner of trash, neighborhood women spearheaded the restoration of this lot. Year after year, the group of women at Shepard and Huntington continue to demonstrate their commitment to greening and bettering their neighborhood. The group installed a path, filled it with stone dust, built raised beds, and planted bee- and bird-attracting flowers around the garden.
Watson and Bassett Community Greenspace
Started in 1996, neighbors including leader Mr. Scott began to transform this vacant lot along the Farmington Canal (prior to the creation of the bike trail). Nearly 25 years later, the community remains committed to stewardship of the space.
Cherry Ann Street Park
The Cherry Ann Greenspace group began in 2014. Over the past 5 years they have been dedicated to clearing trash and invasive plants that were crowding out the understory and vining their way up the trees in the park. Neighbors from Cherry Ann and other nearby streets worked together to convert the site into a safer, healthier place. At the end of the season, with the help of the incoming class of graduate students at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, neighbors planted a diverse mix of trees and shrubs as an urban oasis for birds.
Blake Street
This vacant lot was previously restored in the late 1990’s, but when key community leaders moved the site fell fallow from lack of stewardship. Last summer, new local volunteers engaged in redeveloping the lot with new paths, plantings, and a mural.
YOW Street Plant Brigade
As you enter the YOW! neighborhood (Young/Osborn/Whalley) along Osborn Avenue, it is hard not to notice the recently planted cherry trees that border the cemetery. Their vibrant display of flowers can be enjoyed in early summer, while their impressive canopies are celebrated from leaf-on to leaf-off. On the opposite end of the street, mature shade trees cast peaceful shadows over the otherwise warm sidewalk. After making your turn onto Young Street, your eyes catch the perennials surrounding recently planted crabapples and dogwoods. Black-eyed Susans and Russian sage filter into view and before too long, you take a left onto Whalley. Here, you find a newly restored front yard with young spirea, liriope, and vibernum. A new cherry tree greets you further down the road with catmint and Shasta daisies directly below. The whites, greens, purples, and pinks represent the connection between the diverse and passionate community members that call YOW! their home. YOW! is an active Greenspace group consisting of neighbors from Young Street, Osborn Avenue, and Whalley Avenue. Through the years, these streets have grown closer to one another as a result of tackling restoration and stewardship goals. Today, the community is well-connected, and residents share a common vision for their neighborhood.
New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing Dedicated to Victims of Gun Violence
Read a story on this website about this "Garden of Healing."
Friends of Edgewood Park
Austin Bryniarski
The Friends of Edgewood Park is a high capacity group co-led by a large number of constant, committed, and well-organized volunteers that work throughout the year to maintain the park’s plantings, tame the weeds, open new trails, and encourage creative ideas such as recruiting goats to eat the invasive plants. The group mainly consists of active retirees, who not only regularly work in the park but also fundraise and coordinate many programmatic activities throughout the year.
Edgewood Park is the site of the Yale Class of 1964 Bench. Our group was joined there by Austin Bryniarski (YC ’16, M.E.Sc. ’19) who has also done excellent work for the Yale Sustainable Food Program.
55th Reunion URI Tour group