If you travel far enough down Whalley Avenue, past the Popeyes, the Stop and Shop, and the Walgreens, you’ll be greeted by “Welcome to Westville” posters advertising the art, restaurants, amenities, and events in the semi-suburban New Haven neighborhood of Westville. If you stray even farther from downtown, you’ll encounter a small but densely packed commercial district, known as the Westville Village.
In Westville Village, local artists and businesses grow together. Two organizations have bought into that symbiosis. The Westville Village Renaissance Alliance (WVRA), founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Westville artists and local businesses. West River Arts (WRA) leases 13 private studios to local artists and has worked with the WVRA to spearhead artistic projects all around Westville.
“What we’re best at…is the cultivation of the arts identity,” says Elizabeth “Lizzie” Donius, the executive director of WVRA. “We work to make opportunities for creative people of all levels and all ages. We have volunteers who are still super engaged in their 70s.”
For the past three years, Donius has provided an opportunity for my high school band to play at the Westville Artwalk, a week-long community event held in early May. The Artwalk is the WVRA’s biggest annual project, where there are shows by local theater groups and bands, a duck race, a puppy parade, and around 50 vendors, including many WRA artists, selling their works. WRA artists also film promotional videos for the Artwalk and design its T-shirts. Artwalk 2024 will be the 26th Artwalk, dating back to the WVRA’s founding.
Misty Hanscom, along with her husband Luke, is the owner-operator of West River Arts. In 2014, Hanscom saw potential in the Village and founded Lotta Studios, the photography studio that eventually expanded into West River Arts. At that time, Westville was still recovering from the 2008 recession, where a lot of its antique shops went out of business, creating a vacancy problem.
“Seven years ago we had 12 empty storefronts,” notes Donius. “Right now we have one…That change was a long time coming, and the result of 20 years of intentional effort by neighbors and artists here in Westville to create a vibrant community in the Village.”
Part of that intentional effort is the WRA’s Anti-Mall, held in tandem with the WVRA’s tree lighting for the past seven years. The Anti-Mall is a showcase of 14 artists, usually from outside Westville, and an opening of the 13 private WRA studios to the public.
“The idea is to eliminate competition and focus on collaboration,” says Hanscom. “We have to think hard about who the vendors are, and how they complement each other instead of compete with each other.”
In the late 80 and early 90s, the heyday of the antique shops, a generation of artists started the beginnings of an arts community in Westville. They bought properties, like the Hanscom’s, to create artist live-work spaces. Hanscom sees herself as part of the “second generation” of these artists.
“When Luke and I came in 2014, we were able to tap into the groupings of people that had already created something from nothing before us. It’s a really good example of the ability to show support and share knowledge between generations in Westville.”
Hanscom is already looking ahead to the third generation. She has used the WRA to give more opportunities to young artists in the greater New Haven area. She has offered photography opportunities and apprenticeships to high schoolers and young adults, and four to eight spring internships to students from Hamden Hall and Amity High School.
“It’s my role as someone who has been here a long time to cultivate the next generation and pass that torch on, so cool stuff can keep happening in Westville,” says Hanscom. “It’s about being able to see somebody’s interest in photography and show them how to operate it as a business…Parents say, ‘Why would you go into the arts, you’re going to be a starving artist,’ and that’s completely not the case. You just have to know who to connect with.”
One of Hanscom’s goals is to see WRA artists take their ventures outside their studios. Syrian artist Mohamad Hafez is one of many who has done just that. In 2020, Hafez worked with the Hanscoms to open Pistachio Cafe, a coffee shop, Middle-Eastern cafe, and neighborhood hub that has recently established another location downtown.
Two other WRA artists, Kate Stephen and Dooley Jackson, have also ventured out, creating the Westville Arts Market in collaboration, a showcase for local artists similar to the Anti-Mall. The Market is sometimes held on the Central Patio, a small section of Central Avenue blocked off by the WVRA as a community space in 2020.
“I talked the city into closing that street,” says Donius. “We found artists to do the murals on the ground and hang the lights. So for a couple thousand dollars, mostly in artist fees, we had something that, while it doesn’t look fancy, is fun and draws people…When something is proposed, we know how to make it happen. Even if there’s holes in the organization or the event, we can fill in what needs to be done.”
A key example of that determined approach is the WVRA’s facilitation of the Mew Haven Cat Cafe, which opened in 2018 as the first cat cafe in Connecticut. I went to the cafe on Whalley Avenue to talk with the owner Angela Pullo, who founded the cafe with her husband Mike Pullo. The Cat Cafe is across the street from the WRA building and crammed between two small alleyways. Like many storefronts in Westville, it’s on the first floor of a multi-story residential building. Upon my arrival, Pullo, carrying groceries for the cats, handed me a box of milk to bring to the store.
“There’s usually a lull in September and October because of the weather and students settling in,” she explained, “But business really gets going around this time.”
The WVRA played a key role in helping the Cat Cafe get city approval by working together to change the zoning ordinances in New Haven.
“There literally is a cat cafe definition in the zoning laws,” Pullo said excitedly. “[The WVRA] helped us get that, because they were already putting in changes to Westville to make it more walkable, so they let us put in our portion of change.”
Customers looking for the uniqueness of a cat cafe, often from outside the greater New Haven area, frequently end up staying in Westville after their appointment and exploring other shops in the Village. The walkable nature of Westville, which leads to businesses often sharing customers, creates collaboration between businesses that want to see each other succeed.
“If people come into the Cat Cafe, they can stay for the shopping at Westville General, or they can go to the pizza place down the block…[the walkability] helps to rejuvenate this area.”
The WVRA’s efforts have gone beyond growing a customer base—they have also attracted business owners, such as Alex Dakoulas, founder of Strange Ways, an indie clothing and merchandise shop which later became home to the Westville General Store when Strange Ways moved downtown for a larger space. Dakoulas started Strange Ways as an online shop in 2014, and soon wanted to open a storefront for it.
“I had never heard of Westville until a friend mentioned it,” says Dakoulas, “but once I visited, I thought, ‘Oh, this is really cute.’ It has really tiny storefronts and you can walk around in this one little district, you don’t need to keep driving around…The WVRA was definitely another draw, because they actively care about the community, and they’re constantly promoting the area.”
“The rent [in Westville] was more affordable,” he added. “The landlords actually care about whether their business is doing well, because they live there.”
Donius notes that the WVRA is careful to keep rents low: “One of our selling points is that rents are lower here than downtown. We want Westville to be a wonderful place, but not so wonderful that we gentrify everybody out of their communities. We want smaller spaces that the artists, makers, and entrepreneurs of New Haven can use.”
Though Dakoulas wanted to keep Strange Ways in Westville, as Strange Ways grew in popularity, the small space restrictions in Westville became a challenge. Dakoulas managed to keep a hand in Westville business, though. In 2021, with a turnaround of about a month or two, he opened the Westville General Store where Strange Ways had been. He soon found that local products and products espousing local pride sold well.
“We have Westville hats and New Haven hats. I’m not buying that off a catalog, I have to get it made. It’s local pride, but it’s also that you’re only gonna find it here. If you want Yale stuff, you can get that anywhere. Local pride in stuff that’s hyper-local is important. It’s kinda cool that you walk into a store and be like, ‘Oh my god, this has my neighborhood’s name on it?’”
The hyper-local businesses of Westville stand out against the greater New Haven area, where strip malls selling general goods line multi-laned roads. The sales of small businesses everywhere depend on the uniqueness of their products; Westville is no different.
Pullo doesn’t think Westville will fall into strip mall territory: “It’s not gonna work for a big box company. It’s just not that. It’s something different.”
Though Westville was starting to develop before 2020, it wasn’t until after the pandemic when business took off. People had an intense desire to get back into the community once pandemic restrictions were lifted. The Cat Cafe halved capacity in 2020, but was greeted with renewed enthusiasm in 2021 when it fully reopened. Dakoulas noted that customers were more inclined to buy things rather than browse, because they wanted to support small businesses that had struggled during the pandemic. Lotta Studios, a photography studio run by the Hanscoms, experienced high demand for promotional videos and flyers on social media, which in turn helped bring business to Westville.
This is not to say Westville didn’t encounter significant challenges during the pandemic. Three new restaurants opened in 2020: Pistachio Cafe, run by West River Arts artist Mohamed Hafez, Camacho Garage, an upscale Mexican restaurant, and Delaneys, a restaurant and bar that reopened after a 2014 fire. Despite the seemingly impossible task of opening a restaurant in the middle of a pandemic, these restaurants managed to stay open and are now popular local spots. The WVRA supported these establishments during uncertain times, offering grants of $1500 and $750 to every business with a storefront in the Village. These grants were funded in part by the government and in part by personal donations. Businesses were also helped by anonymous donations from members of the community.
“[The money] was genuinely helpful,” says Donius, “but it had more of a psychological effect in terms of feeling a part of a community.”
Although community organizations such as the WVRA and WRA allow Westville businesses to thrive, there’s more to be done. There’s one vacancy still left in Westville, in the heart of the Village where the original Delaney’s used to be (Delaney’s has since moved nearby to a smaller location). There’s a debate over what should be done with it. I reached out via email to Adam Marchand, the alder of Ward 25, for an explanation:
“The original plan was for a mixed use development with a restaurant on the first floor and housing on the upper floors. (Which was what was there before the building burnt down.) Some folks have said that it should remain an open commons. We will have to discuss this further with the community and the actual property owners.”
Another possible option is a parking lot, though that’s an unpopular option with the WVRA.
“No one’s going to try to do something in Westville that WVRA’s not behind,” Donius says. “They know WVRA is demonstrated community support. It’s not just about me and Misty, or whoever, because the community is really engaged with what we do. If we come out against something, it’s meaningful at a city meeting and it’s meaningful in the paper…We’re a noisy neighborhood.”
I grew up in Westville, which technically means I grew up in New Haven, but it’s hard to ignore the socioeconomic disparities between Westville and New Haven that make them feel separate. The way in which Westville has found success, through small business, is not as possible in other New Haven neighborhoods due to the price and non-essential nature of small business goods. Locally-sourced products are expensive and can be hard to consistently obtain. Westville Village is not a place to go get groceries or other essentials. The survivability of Westville small business is in part due to its neighborhood’s purchasing power: Westville is the wealthiest neighborhood in New Haven. The median household income in Westville is more than double that of New Haven as a whole: $97,000 compared to $48,000 as of 2021. Westville is also 34% Black and Hispanic, while New Haven is nearly double that at 64%. Westville has a reputation as a safe place, while New Haven, especially among Yalies, has a reputation as a crime-infested city. When I’m asked where I’m from, I feel obligated to add “Westville” in addition to “New Haven.” The “Welcome to Westville” posters along Whalley represent a push to establish a welcoming community, but if read negatively, they also carry an underlying message of separation from New Haven’s reputation of crime and poverty.
It’s easy to be tempted, as I was while writing this piece, to claim that Westville can serve as a model for other New Haven neighborhoods. For all the reasons I listed above, Westville is not that. There are specific elements that can be replicated, such as the strong community organization and the drive to keep rent prices affordable, but Westville is a unique place with a unique set of circumstances and conditions that has allowed it to thrive.
Westville is not necessarily a model, but it is a haven of creativity, and, as much as the word is overused, community, that can be hard to find in an increasingly corporate world. The “Welcome to Westville” posters do symbolize a separation from New Haven that’s wrought with socioeconomic tensions, but they also legitimately symbolize a tight-knit community. More importantly, a tight-knit community that includes everyone it can.
