The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A street corner for the great Joe Grate
Melissa Singleton has never forgotten the welcoming, sheltering environment that was freely offered to her and many other kids from the Newhallville neighborhood by Joe Grate at his gas station, later expanded into a convenience store and outdoor barbecue pavilion.
“That gas station was home for us while we were growing up,” Singleton told me. “We got our penny candy and played arcades (video games). ‘Mr. Joe’ kept us in line and made sure we stayed on the right track and did what we were supposed to do.”
When Singleton sent me that email several weeks ago, she called Grate “a New Haven legend” and said she had led a successful petition drive to have the corner of Munson and Orchard streets named in his honor.
Yes, it’s happening: on June 24 at 1 p.m., many of the now grown-up “kids” who were mentored by Grate will be joined by their parents and lots of other people in the community, gathering again at that corner to see the sign unveiled and catch up with this “legend,” who is now 84.
Grate’s business, known as Triangle Mobil and the adjacent Joe Grate’s BBQ Pavilion, closed down long ago in 2000. It has remained an empty lot, a sad symbol of then versus now. But the ripple effects of Grate’s care and kindness continue to flow.
When I met Grate and his wife, Peggy, at their Blake Street home last Wednesday afternoon, he said he was “flabbergasted and very honored” by the street corner designation. He noted such an honor is often reserved for members of the clergy.
I had invited Singleton to join us for the interview. The longtime affection and respect between them is obvious; she still calls him “Mr. Joe” and he refers to her as “my adopted daughter.”
Grate now wears sunglasses and is legally blind, the result of glaucoma that has made his sight progressively worse over the past 15 years. As he shook my hand, he smiled and said, “I’m blind but I’m alive and kicking. I still cook and all that stuff.”
Close to the outdoor table where we were talking was his parked food truck, famed for its barbecue fare. This mobile business, combined with the Grates’ catering service for their clientele, has kept the couple going in recent years.
Peggy told me she’s the driver and helps with the cooking and “the everything.” She said that over the past 6-7 years they parked near Yale’s Ingalls Rink to serve regular customers.
Grate and Singleton did plenty of reminiscing about that old business of his.
“I had that corner stabilized for the nearly 25 years I was there,” he said, recalling 19772000. “I’m very proud of that.”
“This little girl was part of the double Dutch team,” he recalled, pointing across the picnic table to Singleton. He was referring to a jumping rope group he sponsored.
“She was there for the little treats, the penny candy and for the video machines,” he said.
Singleton said she was so young when she started going there, only about 7, that she had to reach way up to grab that candy.
“I walked around his shop and talked to ‘Mr. Joe,’” she said. “There was comfort in knowing he was there and welcomed us.”
“He mentored so many youths and they still remember that,” Singleton said. “Now they’re entrepreneurs with their own businesses. He paved the way for youths to know; ‘You can grow up and have your own.’”
But those kids who walked into Grate’s place quickly learned they had to abide by “Joe Grate’s Creed.”
“It was the place for the kids to be and their parents didn’t mind because they knew they were safe there,” Grate said. “I didn’t take any foolishness and they knew that. I had rules. They could not be there after 9 at night in the summertime. During the school year, they had to be out of there by 8 at night. And no coming in during school hours, absolutely none of them. If they played hooky, they couldn’t hang out there!”
Grate also kept watch on what was happening in the street, beyond the stone wall that bordered his business. Peggy recalled the night a CT Transit bus had stopped outside and a group of local boys ran over to indulge in the fad of jumping onto the
back bumper to bounce the bus.
“Joe grabbed a long board and he went over that wall like a decathlon champion!” she said. “Then I heard ‘Pop! Pop! Pop!’ He used that board and spanked all those boys, who went off running and yelling.”
“I said, ‘Joe! What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’d rather do this than have them get killed.’”
She recalled that the morning afterward, a mother of one of those boys came into the station. “She said, ‘Mr. Grate, my son told me you spanked him with a board. I want to thank you. Because so many people won’t take it upon themselves. Somebody has got to do it. Somebody has got to lead.’”
Many years later, Peggy said, she and her husband were at the Elks Club when a man came up to tell them something about that dramatic spanking. “He told us, ‘I was one of those boys. I want to thank you for saving my life. Because so many of us didn’t make it. I always remembered that board. I realized that somebody could be looking over my shoulder, so I stayed clear of all of that kind of stuff.’”
Grate noted it wasn’t just kids who gathered at his place. “It became a spot for the whole community. All the ministers in the city, especially those on Dixwell Avenue, stopped there and talked about what was happening in the neighborhood. Everybody stopped there. All the African-American doctors in the area congregated on that corner, stopped for coffee.”
The city order designating “Joe Grate Corner” noted it’s being done to preserve Grate’s “legacy” in the community and to stand as “a permanent reminder of his integrity, generosity and dignity.”
Unfortunately, relations between Grate and the city weren’t always so sweet. “I had some property tax problems with the city,” he said. “They pushed me out in 2000.”
He had already opened Joe Grate and Peg’s BBQ in Hamden, a couple of miles north on Dixwell Avenue. “But I really didn’t want to leave that corner. It was sacred ground to me. I missed all the kids.”
The Grates continued to do a good business in Hamden until disaster struck on the Saturday afternoon before the 2004 Super Bowl. “This older fella got into his car and instead of putting it in reverse, he put it in drive and stepped on the gas,” he said. “Thank God there was nobody in there but my grandson and me. I heard a loud noise and here was this car in the middle of my dining room!”
The town fire marshal ordered the restaurant closed because it was unsafe. The Grates decided to close rather than pay to rebuild it. That’s when they began operating the food truck. Later, they set up a website: www.joegratesbbq.com.
Matthew Nemerson, the city’s economic development administrator, who has known Grate for many years, called him “a trailblazer and a leader in the small business community on Dixwell and the region. He was very involved with African-American business people.”
But Grate is finally getting this street corner recognition because Singleton realized such a tribute was necessary. When she told him she was going to go out collecting signatures on a petition to name that corner, Singleton said, “It’s my treat to you. I never forgot that gas station and the great times I had there.’”