New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
STEPS TO THE PAST
Cleanup uncovers stone staircases
NEW HAVEN — Fair Haven Heights is blessed to have a group of neighbors willing to do their own hard work to improve their surroundings.
But they never dreamed while clearing thick, invasive, non-native vines and weeds that have been choking off vegetation in expansive Fairmont Park that they would unearth — and end up restoring — genuine brownstone relics of the neighborhood’s past.
They found two sets of what were at one time nearly totally obscured stone staircases to nowhere — among the last physical reminders from when what now is the park was the
Ives estate, known as “Iveston,” onetime home of Charles Ives (not the composer), who served as speaker of the state House of Representatives in the 1860s.
“We didn’t know they were there,” said Fair Haven Heights neighbor Sylvia Dorsey, speaking about two sets of brownstone stairs that residents associated with Friends of Fairmont Park found while clearing brush in the park — at least one of which was locally quarried in an old sandstone quarry off Summit Street, a few blocks away.
“But then, after we found them, people started vaguely remembering that there had been steps there,” said Dorsey, who has lived since 1992 in Fair Haven Heights — the neighborhood just across the Grand Avenue bridge and the Quinnipiac River from Fair Haven, between the river and the East Haven line south of Route 80.
Neighbors and city work
“We didn’t know they were there . ... But then, after we found them, people started vaguely remembering that there had been steps there.” Fair Haven Heights neighbor Sylvia Dorsey
ers found the first set of stairs while working on a long-term project to improve the woodsy upper tier of the park off Clifton Street above Lexington Avenue by getting rid of some invasive plants that have been “choking the trees,” Dorsey said.
“They were all covered with dirt and leaves,” she said. “Our group was removing invasives, including huge bittersweet vines that were choking the trees, and burning bush and many other invasives,” she said.
“We have a narrow strip of woods — and those
woods are a real mess,” said Dorsey, who also has been battling “Tree of Heaven,” or ailanthus — she calls it “Tree of Hell” — that she says is “sprouting up everywhere,” as well as Norway maple and English ivy.
“We’ve been working the park for years but we weren’t spending very much time on it,” she said. “In November of 2020, I started working every week with two other people. Over the winter, a lot of other people joined us.”
A total of about 8-10 people come out to do the work at various times, usually working three or four people at a time, Dorsey said.
Once they get the invasives under control, they also plan to make more trails — and perhaps to link the trails in Fairmont
Park to the nearby Quinnipiac Meadows nature preserve down by the Quinnipiac River and other natural areas in the neighborhood
This all came about because “during one of the storms, trees fell down and they were across the path but these huge vines were holding them up,” Dorsey said.
One of the neighbors working with Dorsey, Chris Ozyck, associate director of the Urban Resources Institute at the Yale School of the Environment, called the Department of Parks and Public Works “and they came out and removed the trees,” Dorsey said.
Neighbors and parks workers initially found one set of stairs near the very top end of the park, off 1st Avenue, totally by mistake, Dorsey said. It actually was city parks workers who found the first set of steps while removing old bottles, she said.
“I didn’t want to uncover the steps. We were trying to remove invasives — and we stumbled onto it,” Dorsey said. “Then we got all excited about it.”
Then, while continuing their work, “We found the second ones while removing garlic mustard down in the woods,” Dorsey said.
Marty Lendroth, one of the neighbors, was the one who came across the second set of stairs.
“I was ripping this garlic mustard and burning bush out and I said, ‘What did I hit?’” he said
When they first found them, “the steps were all akilter,” said Dorsey.
So how did neighbors get so deeply involved in the work? “It was about time and money and whether parks would do it,” said Ozyck.
As it turns out, Ozyck, in his role with URI, does a lot of work with REI, the outdoor adventure equipment cooperative. REI ended up funding both that work and other trails work that the neighbors have done, he said.
URI also works with EMERGE Connecticut Inc., a state program for formerly incarcerated people that puts ex-offenders to work on various community projects, and a number of people from that program were brought in to help out, Ozyck said.
Before beginning the work, Ozyck got permission and approval from Katherine Jacobs, the Parks and Public Works Department’s chief landscape architect.
“Chris Ozyck let me know that the work needed to be done and he had people ready to do it, and I said, ‘Go for it!’” said Jacobs. “Chris Ozyck is a professional landscape designer so he knows how these things need to be done as well as I do.”
Jacobs said it’s “fairly common” to have neighbors working to improve their parks. “We have groups all over the city that are really active,” she said. “There’s a lot of great energy in that neighborhood.”
The first set of steps “was not built with any concrete or mortar,” said Ozyck. “So we refurbished them not to look perfect but to look old . ... We just did the work” earlier this month, he said.
At this point, the first, more accessible set of stairs “is done,” he said, although “the approaches to and from it need to be attended to.”
The second set, which is deeper within the woods “is not done,” he said.
While the first set of steps, made from “a very strong but coarse-looking stone” with “a very fine grain,” appears to have been quarried locally in what is known as Quarry Park on Summit Street, the more remote stairs are made of bluestone, which most likely came from a quarry either in New York state or Pennsylvania, Ozyck said.