DOWNTOWN BRIDGE: 

The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Bridge Game at

847 Chapel Street

If you'd like to be added to the email list of players (because sometimes the schedule has to change), please reach out to

Eva Geertz: Eva@InstituteLibrary.org

The secret population of closet bridge players

and aspiring bridge players in our midst

now meet Second Mondays

(but there is talk of a second night maybe?)



Folks who haven't played in years, folks who are just starting to learn to play, and expert old hands --

all are welcome!

Hoping to see you here - we are organizing now for: 

Monday, June 12 at 7:00 p.m.

(subject to change; please reach out to us for schedule confirmation)

Story Sharing @

the Institute Library

June 8th

7:00-9:00 p.m.

We meet in-person on the second Thursday of every month,

from 7:00-9:00 P.M.

Anyone may join at any time; no experience is required. People share stories at any

stage of development; from maybe-this-is-a-story first tries to polished pieces. The

stories may be about personal experiences, folk tales, or any other genre. Those who

wish it get feedback from the group. People may also come just to listen. 

The meetings are very informal, friendly, and fun.

One of my favorite acquisitions here of recent months is this collection of photographs by Karen Klugman. Some of you may have seen the exhibit at City Gallery last summer, but if you missed it: come sit down with this remarkable book.

Those of us who hang out at 847 Chapel Street have spent a lot of time lately watching the space across the street, which was Kresge's when I was a kid. It's going to be snazzy new apartments. The new building will make that side of the street close to unrecognizable to old-timers. In a kind of reverse play, Karen Klugman's photos of Upper State Street, taken in 1978, will be a shock to people who were not around then and have no memory of what the area was like in the bad old days. What's now chic bars and cafes and gallery space used to be junk shops and kind of grungy bodegas and more junk shops. Plus a Greek restaurant (Basel's), which I remember going to. I still go there now, twice a year, with my daughter: it's a pediatric dentistry office. No stuffed grape leaves to be found, just trial size tubes of toothpaste and lots of stickers shaped like teeth.

The transformation of city blocks in New Haven is always going to be upsetting to people who've been around a long time, but it's also often an improvement over the status quo. The burnt-out Kresge building became a surface parking lot, which I know a lot of people appreciated, but it wasn't the best possible use of that lot (even though I loved our view of the old Water Company building from our second floor windows here!). Surface parking lots in downtown? on Chapel Street? We can and will do better. And State Street isn't just a long stretch of broken-down looking cars and long spans empty storefronts anymore. Yes, businesses come and go, but overall, the neighborhood is thriving. Still: it's important to remember what it was. These photographs are beautiful and the detail captured in them stupendous. Satan's Pool Hall: come back! I'll shoot pool if you'll come back.



Our copy of Upper State Street at the Height of Its Decline is on display near the circulation desk, right near a copy Elizabeth Mills Brown's New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design, which is a great book to have in hand as you go on walks around the city this summer. Not forcing it on you or anything. Just saying.

Eva Geertz

Operations Mgr.