Co-President - Beverly Bradshaw Carbonella
Beverly Bradshaw Carbonella is a graduate of Pratt Institute and was Fashion Director at the Edw. Malley Co. during the '50s. Bev has made Wooster Square her home for more than 40 years. Her son and daughter grew up at 20 Academy Street, their former Italian Consulate home. Ever active in the community, Bev is a former New Haven Historic District Commissioner and served on the Board of the New Haven Preservation Trust and the New Haven Museum. She chaired the Cherry Blossom Concert and Festival for 20 years and was on the Commission when the Cherry Trees were planted.
Co-President - Elsie Blackshear Chapman
Elsie
Blackshear Chapman lives in the Edward Rowland House (ca.1865) on
Academy Street, having lived for the 20 previous years in Ridgefield,
CT. She retired in 1995 from IBM after working for 30 years in a variety
of management and executive positions. She has since taught high school
and college math and worked as a development officer for Yale and other
non profit institutions. Elsie now serves on the boards of directors of
several public and non profit cultural and historical institutions.
Secretary - Charlie Murphy
Charlie
Murphy and his wife, Charlotte, have lived on the corner of Academy and
Greene Streets since 2003. They moved to New Haven after several years
in Wallingford, CT. Over the years, their daughter Kathleen's
activities as a student at New Haven
Ballet, Neighborhood Music School and The Foote School brought them to New Haven often. Now Kathleen works at
Yale and owns a home in the Fair Haven section of the city. Charlie is a
Vietnam-era veteran (U.S. Navy) and a retired librarian who worked for
16 years each at Fuss & O'Neill consulting engineers in Manchester,
CT, and Penn State University in State College. He currently volunteers
at the Yale Peabody Museum Ornithology Library.
Treasurer - Marianne Mazan
Marianne
Mazan is a long-time resident and active member of the Wooster Square
community. She is retired from her position as administrator at the Yale
School of Medicine. Marianne served as representative for Wooster
Square on the Historic District Commission for 27 years. She currently
serves on the Board of the New Haven Preservation Trust and volunteers at the New
Haven Museum and Historical Society.
Cordalie Benoit
Cordalie Benoit returned to New Haven in 2001, having fallen in love with the city while attending Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 2000-2001. She is president of the CT Community Gardening Assoc. and has, with other community members, planted more than 30 trees in Wooster Square and surrounding streets. Cordalie is also a member of the William Street Community Garden. She resides on Court Street with her husband, David.
Rosemarie Conforti
Rosemarie Conforti is Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Media Studies Department at Southern Connecticut State University. Originally from New York, she has made Wooster Square her home for several years. She has studied cooking in Provence, history in Moscow, media culture in Edinburgh and American Sign Language with the National Theater of the Deaf in Connecticut. Her free time is spent as an animal rescue volunteer, reading, and walking in Wooster Square Park with her husband, Chris Piscitelli, and their dogs Rufus and Bruno.
Erin Gustafson
Erin Gustafson moved to New Haven 1999 from Oregon, where she grew up, and moved to Court Street in Wooster Square in 2005. She became active in New Haven early on, serving over the years on boards of the historic Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven Sister Cities, and the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team. She works for Yale as an immigration adviser and currently leads the Wooster Square Block Watch. She has been an active volunteer for Wooster Square events including the Court Street Halloween party, movie night, and the 2010 Block Party.
Harvey L. Koizim
Harvey Koizim is a 25-year resident of Wooster Square and native of Connecticut; he received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1951. Koizim has practiced law and been a bank president and real estate developer. He serves on several New Haven non-profit boards such as CitySeed, ArtSpace, Edgerton Park Conservancy and HOME, Inc. Harvey resides with his wife, Ruth, and youngest son, Ben, in a restored brownstone overlooking our park.
Keith Lorch
Keith Lorch and his wife, Jackie, are
among the original residents of The Gables at Wooster Square, the former
St. Casimir’s Church on Greene Street. They moved to New Haven from
Fairfield in 2006 after becoming empty nesters and having been
captivated by Yale’s Sprague Hall. They have been active participants
in neighborhood activities, including the community garden on Warren
Street. Keith is also a member of the Wooster Street Grill, a notable
feature of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, and a regular volunteer
at the Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry at St. Paul & St. James.
Renate Recknagel
Renate Recknagel has been a Wooster Square resident for 25 years, first at her brownstone on Chapel Street and subsequently on Olive Street. She is a co-founder (with Beverly Carbonella and erstwhile Ralph Marcarelli) of Historic Wooster Square Association, a member of the board since its inception, and served as its president for several years. Renate is an attorney, a teacher, and a business woman. She has been involved politically in the community as a member of the 8th Ward Committee and continues to be interested in promoting community concerns.
Bonnie Rosenberg
Bonnie Rosenberg is a resident of the Henry Cowell House (ca. 1869) on Greene Street. Her first 15-year profession was that of a chemist working for Loctite Corp. as an international specialist in the area of light-curing medical device adhesives. After a two-year sabbatical of world travel and art study, she embarked upon a new career in the visual arts field. Bonnie founded Art ARC (Art-Resource-Concepts) to promote and market visual artists and their work both at home and abroad. During this time, her involvement with a local television station ultimately led to coordinating and producing live TV shows and documentary film work. Today Bonnie remains an avid freelance film researcher/photo archivist.
Peter Thompson
Peter Thompson has lived on Wooster Square since since 1986 when he bought a unit in the Matthew Elliott house (ca. 1835) at the corner of Chapel Street and Wooster Place, which had just been converted into condominiums. He plants and maintains the beautiful flowers on both sides of Wooster Place at that corner of Wooster Square Park. Peter studied the German language in Boulder, Colorado, Lucerne, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. He is an executive with a German manufacturer in the U.S.
Peter Webster
Peter Webster lives in the Matthew Elliott House (ca. 1835) at the corner of Wooster Place and Chapel Street. He is a theater and opera director who is bringing free, site specific opera to New Haven with the company Opera in the Streets. He is married to Mary Lou Aleskie, Executive Director of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, They, along with their daughter, Rosemarie, and dog, Boomer, all enjoy the ever-changing presence of the great Wooster Square at their doorstep.
