This Week in New Haven (March 2 – 8)

W omen’s History Month gets a proper kickoff, and a local bridge gets a proper sendoff. 

Monday, March 2
Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame executive director Sarah Smith Lubarsky delivers a free “Votes for Women” lecture at the New Haven Museum (114 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-562-4183) starting at 5:30 p.m. Lubarsky “will highlight CT women who fought on a local, state, and national level for the right to vote.” Free.

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Summer Study at Yale Divinity School

Tuesday, March 3
Maria Ressa, one of “The Guardians” who shared Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year award, is the featured guest during a discussion about “Journalism and Human Rights: Fighting Back Against Disinformation” at 4:30 p.m. in Yale’s Horchow Hall (55 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven). Ressa, whose “reporting on the authoritarian administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has spurred repeated intimidation tactics by the Filipino government,” should have plenty of insight to share. Free.

Wednesday, March 4
At 6 p.m., following a 5:30 pizza reception, architectural preservationists Elizabeth Holt and Mike Stallmeyer hold court at BAR (254 Crown St, New Haven) to discuss “Why Modern Architecture Doesn’t Matter.” The title is a provocation, not a declaration; lamenting the recent demolition of the midcentury Art Moderne bank building at 80 Elm Street, which “seemed an ideal candidate for adaptive reuse,” Holt and Stallmeyer ask: “How can we better explain and protect these buildings? How can we ensure historical preservation embraces the Modern era?” $10 in advance, or $15 at the door.

Or make it a movie night. At 6 p.m., after a happy hour of sorts at 5, the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-432-2800) screens The Souvenir (2019), an “exquisitely beautiful and semiautobiographical coming-of-age story” that earned the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. At 7 p.m., filmmaker and musician Willie Ruff comes to the Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St, New Haven) to screen and discuss Tony Williams in Africa (1973; short), The Soul of St. Simons, Georgia (1981/2015; short) and the “preservation premiere” of The Beginnings of Bebop (1981; feature-length), a documentary that takes a “tour of significant locations in the history of jazz” guided by jazz great Dizzy Gillespie. Free.

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The Chinese Lady at Long Wharf Theatre

Thursday, March 5
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s latest concert in venerable Woolsey Hall (500 College St, New Haven) features work by Florence Price, “the first African American female composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major national orchestra.” It also features work by famed Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who, like Price, “also employed sweeping melodies and sampled from African American and Native American music traditions.” $15-74 or $10 for college students, with KidTix available.

Friday, March 6
“Slated for renovation beginning in the spring,” today the Grand Avenue Bridge is slated for celebration—a “community celebration” from 5 to 8 p.m. Happening on the bridge itself, attractions include live music, food trucks, a wine-tasting, fire pits for marshmallow-roasting, a climbing wall, history tours and even a tug of war between representatives of the spanned neighborhoods: Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights. Free.

Saturday, March 7
From 10 a.m. to 2, Brooksvale Park (524 Brooksvale Ave, Hamden) hosts its annual Maple Sugaring Open House. Centered around the park’s maple syrup-making operation, which is in turn centered around the “sugar shack,” there will be “various learning stations” teaching “the history and science behind this ancient craft” and, available for sale, “a limited supply of 100% Maple Syrup made at the park and by local sugar makers.” Free to attend.

Legendary rapper Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Christopher George Latore Wallace, was killed on March 9, 1997. As the anniversary of his death approaches, Club Vandome (102 Hamilton St, New Haven) is throwing a “tribute day party” from 3 to 7 p.m., featuring three DJs “spinning all of Biggie’s classic hits,” among others, and special guest Jamal Woodward, who played Biggie in the 2009 film Notorious. $20.

Sunday, March 8
Daylight Saving Time begins today, pouring an hour of morning light into the afternoon instead.

It’s also International Women’s Day, which dovetails nicely with the opening reception, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Palestine Museum (1764 Litchfield Tpke, Woodbridge), of Telling the Palestinian Story, a monumental gathering of “over 200 works of art from about 50 Palestinian women artists who have made significant contributions to the art scene in their immediate communities and around the world,” including “paintings, sculptures, photographs, and embroidery pieces.” Free.

From 4 to 6, a second timely art opening, this one organized by Nasty Women Connecticut, happens at the Urban Collective (85 Willow St, New Haven). Rituals of Resistance “responds to the ritualistic and performative aspects of protest… that is fueled by the marginalization of bodies and voices across the globe,” with DJ Shaki providing some audio for all the visual.

Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image depicts detail of the Grand Avenue Bridge. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.

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Dan has worked for a couple of major media companies, but he likes Daily Nutmeg best. As DN’s editor, he writes, photographs, edits and otherwise shepherds ideas into fully realized feature stories.

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