Former rangers take a group photo.
Darrell Adote grew up biking to Edgewood Park, and spent years working in public greenspaces all across the city.
On Thursday, he joined dozens of fellow New Haveners to celebrate the reopening of Edgewood Park’s ranger station — a building that might one day be decorated with Adote’s art.
Fans of the park and former rangers turned out en masse to celebrate the ranger station’s reopening. City and parks officials held a press conference and ribbon-cutting for the ranger station, which closed to the public during Covid and had been shuttered for renovation for about a year.
“This building is here for you to use,” Parks Director Max Webster told the crowd.
The improvements to the ranger station include new interior space, freshly painted walls, new flooring, HVAC, refurbished and outdoor-accessible bathrooms, a kitchenette, and improved technology. It’s expected to support the work of and house organizations like Friends of Edgewood Park, volunteer groups, and Nature Pals — a nature playgroup for preK-aged children.
The ranger station’s renovations amount to $170,000, funded through a combination of one-time federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money and city dollars. It is just the latest parks facility to reopen thanks to those federal funds, after West Rock Nature Center in West Rock Park, Salperto Community Center in East Shore Park, Trowbridge Environmental Center in East Rock Park, and Barnard Nature Center in West River Memorial Park, according to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller.
The next to reopen will be the old Barbell Club in the Hill, slated for later this year. The Goffe Street Park Community Building is also on deck, Speiller said.
Edgewood Park has also seen an updated Coogan Pavillion, an expanded skatepark, and an installed MidBridge water crossing. There are around half a million dollars — a combination of federal grants and city funds — still lined up for improvements. Most of that money is for bioswales and a rain garden to mitigate flooding of the park; improvements include a nature center, an outdoor classroom, and in-progress repairs to the sundial.
Nature Pals instructor Alana Ceppetelli (left) in new kids space.
Plans for a bookshelf to be made by City Bench, from real fallen trees.
Adote, who is 22 years old, first began working with the parks through Youth@Work, back in 2020. “I was always outside when I was a kid,” he said. The job let him make some money — important for a high school senior — cleaning up trails and working with Edgewood Park Ranger Harry Coyle.
“I call him my work dad,” Adote said about Coyle, who attendees affectionately referred to as “Ranger Harry.”
Adote returned to the parks by participating in its Junior Ranger program, and now he works part-time to help put on events. He’s an artist, and he’s working on a mural for the ranger station, something that includes both the park — like its wetlands and the duck pond — and buildings to capture New Haven’s urban elements. “This is how I view Edgewood,” he said.
Coyle, one of three rangers across the city, has maintained the “spirit” of the building, according to Webster. He first began working at Edgewood Park as an intern from Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in 1993; that’s when he built and installed a nearby kiosk that remains. He was hired as a caretaker in 1996 and two years later, he became a ranger.
“I was always an outside kid,” he said.
As the ranger stationed at Edgewood Park, Coyle drives through the park to make sure everything’s in line, supports other rangers, puts on community events, and coordinates with organizations that use or volunteer with the parks. He has been part of the process to bring the ranger station back online — and his wife even donated her art to the space.
What’s Coyle’s favorite part of the job? “Working with the kids,” he said.
The station is open for nonprofit groups who request to use the space. Doreen Abubakar, who runs CPEN (Community Placemaking Engagement Network), said, “I’m excited that it’s open.” Her organization, which runs programming for families, often but not exclusively in nature, aims to “help Newhallvillle thrive.”
“I’m hoping we can get into opening after hours and on the weekends,” she said, when their events usually take place. Webster said that hours will be finalized when the Parks Department completes its staffing of seasonal workers for the summer.
Alana Ceppetelli, an instructor for Nature Pals, said, “It’s a privilege to be with youth while a relationship with nature evolves.”
Ceppetelli concluded Thursday’s press conference with lines from Mary Oliver’s poem “Upstream”:
Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale helatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones – inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones – rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Coyle (center) cuts the ribbon, joined by Elicker and Webster.
Westville Alder Adam Marchand, pumped for the new ranger station, with Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton, Elicker, and Webster.
State Rep. Pat Dillon, who said the park has been part of her family’s life since her son was born.
Discover more from InnerCity News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
