NEW HAVEN PEOPLES CENTER
37 HOWE STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 06511 
 

MEDIA RELEASE

August 25, 2012

Information: 203- 387-0370

Veterans Support Funding for New Haven Peoples Center

A group of veterans called on Governor Dannell P. Malloy today to restore the request for funding for restoration of 37 Howe Street, site of the New Haven Peoples Center. 

 

The Governor removed the item from the state bonding budget after an opposition group from outside New Haven, citing their veteran status, protested the proposed funding on the grounds that Communists are part of the building. The bonding request would restore brick work on the 1851 Italianate structure which is a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

The announcement was made as the New Haven Peoples Center celebrated its 75th anniversary with a family backyard cookout and cultural event including music and children's crafts. After supporters crowded on the front lawn for a group photograph, messages of solidarity and support were delivered by elected officials, labor leaders and community activists.

Public support for the Peoples Center, an all-volunteer non profit institution, has continued to increase on the basis of the activities it hosts of benefit to the community including youth programming, and providing affordable space for unions and community groups including immigrant rights, peace and grass roots organizing.

The Peoples Center has been dedicated to social, cultural and educational activities for labor and community since it was founded in 1937 during the Great Depression. It is the site of the first inter-racial basketball team and first inter-racial theater group in the City of New Haven. The Peoples Center opened its doors to the nation's first homeless run daytime drop-in center in the 1990s. It is now the location of Unidad Latina en Accion which is organizing immigrant workers.  It is home to youth organizing and the New Elm City Dream.

The letter from the veterans reads in part: "We deplore the manipulation of a few Veterans, for narrow political purposes, who do not understand that the New Haven Peoples Center is an historic building, 1851, the active center since 1937 for organizations campaigning for jobs for youth and against violence, for immigrant’s rights, against racial profiling, decent jobs and medical treatment for Veterans, and for global peace, among others. We reject the spurious and dangerous “red baiting” charges used to deny the Peoples Center their legitimate request."

Signers include veterans from WW II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the war in Afghanistan. The letter to the Governor concludes, "We call for the restoration of the request of the New Haven Peoples Center for funding. "

The letter follows:

NEW HAVEN PEOPLES CENTER
37 HOWE STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 06511

A PETITION FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS
IN SUPPORT OF THE NEW HAVEN PEOPLES CENTER

Governor Dannel P. Malloy
State of Connecticut
State Capitol
Hartford, Connecticut 

 

August 25, 2012

Honorable Governor Malloy:

We are Veterans who have served in various branches of the United States Armed Forces. We were citizen-soldiers deeply committed, then and now, to the protection of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. We support the legitimate request of the New Haven Peoples Center for State funding for essential brick and mortar repairs. 

 

We deplore the manipulation of a few Veterans, for narrow political purposes, who do not understand that the New Haven Peoples Center is an historic building, 1851, the active center since 1937 for organizations campaigning for jobs for youth and against violence, for immigrant’s rights, against racial profiling, decent jobs and medical treatment for Veterans, and for global peace, among others.

 

We reject the spurious and dangerous “red baiting” charges used to deny the Peoples Center their legitimate request. As Veterans, we know how the McCarthy period and the charge of “communism” led to the deaths of so many of our fellow soldiers and trashed the democratic rights of our people. We refuse to allow our comrades to be the instruments of intimidation and neo-fascist tactics. 

 

We call for the restoration of the request of the New Haven Peoples Center for funding.

Alfred L. Marder, Company M. 14th Infantry Regiment, 71st Division, Recipient Bronze Star

Fernando A. Ayala, U.S. Army Retired, January 1972 to March 1985

Calvin Bunnell, USS JFK U.S. Navy, USS FDR U.S. Navy

Anthony Butler (E-4), 438th MAC / 527 TAC, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, Okinawa, Japan

Bill Collins, Norwalk

Thomas Connolly, U.S. Army 2nd 68 Armor Battalion, Germany, 1962-1965

Celestino Cordova, U.S. Army Korean War 1951-52

Luis Acevedo Cortez, U. S. Army Vietnam 1968

Joseph Dimow, World War II Veteran, 29th Armored Div.

Francis E. Douglass Jr. , USMC

Stephen E. D. Fournier, 6916th Security Squadron, U.S. Air Force Security Service

Craig S. Gauthier, 82nd Airborne Div. 1962-1966

Winston Heimer, Maj (Ret) U.S. Army, Signalcorps

James D. Linn, Vietnam Veteran

Raymond Milici, USATC FA, Fourth U.S. Army

Luis A. Muniz-Rivera, U.S. Air Force Vietnam 1969

Paul Neal, U.S. Army, Vietnam 1970

James Pandaru, U.S. Navy 1962-66; Seabees, 1971-91

Rafael A. Reyes, U.S. Army Vietnam 1967

David W. P. Roy, SrA, USAF, Beale AFB, 100th Refueling Wing

Charles Ruemmelez, 1st Marine Corp Div. 1966/67, 5th Marines, Head Quarters Company

Roberto Santos, U.S. Army Afghanistan 2010