“I’ve lived here since I was in the third grade. My mom was in the food business; she had a sushi restaurant in Texas. She also owned a couple nail salons and she wanted to open up a restaurant [the OZ Korean Kitchen]. It’s pretty steady. It used to be better but it’s kind of slowing down I’d say. I used to hang out at the plaza in middle school with all of my friends. I was in seventh or eighth grade just walking around the plaza, walking the trail. There are new businesses opening up everywhere. Everything is changing, definitely.”
“I’ve been with the Hamden fire department 16 years, 8 years in the firehouse and 8 years in the fire marshal office. I was watching a documentary, after 9/11, on firehouses and FDNY and it seemed like a rewarding career. I like the comradery and decided that after I got my master’s I would enroll in EMT school and pursue this career. Any call we go on, we’re responding to a crisis situation and you’re trying to bring the most positive outcome possible. Something bad’s happening and you try to make the situation better than what it was before the call started. There was one (a fire) in my neighborhood, an old friend’s house I had been in plenty of times and I was new. I was told to go to the roof. We cut holes in the roof to vent out the heat for the crews going inside with the hoses. When you’re in the moment we all have a healthy fear and respect of fire. You’re also focused on the task at hand so you don’t think about, well it’s always in the back of your mind, that stuff can go bad.”
Alessandra Sillo, 33 years old, Hamden’s jewelry queen
Owner of William’s Exchange on Whitney Ave.
“It is unimaginable how much stuff people accumulate over the course of time. They just have decades of stuff. So some of it I buy on-site and the other half people just come in with, literally pounds of jewelry. I do knickknacks, I have some toys, but I love jewelry especially Victorian jewelry. I got my degree in English, but I really like the Victorian period in literature. Everything was so lavish and embellished with flowers. It was such a beautiful time. I love that jewelry and unfortunately not everything you can buy is Victorian. So I buy it all. It’s like looking at a piece of history. I like recovering it and learning about it and I’m really lucky to have this opportunity. I’ve always done it as a hobby. I have to admit, it’s hard to sell the jewelry because I want to keep all of it, but I sell most of it. It’s so hard to sell antiques right now. People don’t buy them. I’ve been evolving to see what people like and what they don’t like.”
Gus Eliopoulos is a co-owner of Fat Wedge U, a new restaurant on Whitney Ave. Eliopoulos said he believes the most important aspect of running a food business is making sure that their food is fresh. “We thrive on freshness and good quality,” he said. “We make all our own sauces and grind our own meet for burgers in house. We get product shipments in every morning, and we marinate our own chicken. If we don’t use all the chicken that was marinated for the day it goes in the trash and we start a fresh batch the next morning.”
“I grew up in the ’70s, this may have been the ‘60s. I remember my mother taking us out of school so we could go and protest the Vietnam War (at the time Valerie was about 10 years old). That was kind of like a big ‘oh God mom, you’re breaking the rules.’ So I was aware that there’s something going on and aware that you’re supposed to do something about it and speak up about it, which makes me feel very empowered in a lot of ways. It was comfortable because I was with my mother and I knew she wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. A lot of it was sitting on the ground and listening to speeches, and then someone would come out and play some music and it was exciting to be involved in a mass movement of people like-minded, knowing that you were doing something that was actually meaningful. I think the marches that we have been having in the last couple of years sort of replicate some of that sense of there’s something really wrong going on here and people need to start absolutely doing some grassroots because otherwise, it’s not going to get fixed.”
Lauren McGrath is a junior journalism major at Quinnipiac University. Her minor is creative writing and she is from Long Island, New York.
Upon first glance, McGrath is on the shorter side and has fair skin. She has medium length curly blonde hair, matched with a big smile and bright blue eyes. Just from that description alone, one may have already created their own version of who they think she is. However, McGrath revealed deeper parts of her personality as she spoke.
data-animation-override> “I’m the editor of the Barnacle, which is like the satire newspaper on campus,” she said. “I really love creative writing and I want to go to into like comedy writing. That’s more ‘creative journalism,’ so I wanted to have that background.”
She goes on to explain what she thinks makes her unique.
data-animation-override> “I say a lot of stuff that people don’t expect me to say,” McGrath said. “I’m like a small little blonde girl and then I think people are surprised when I curse or make crude jokes and stuff, which is like one of my favorite things to do.”
When asked about the world and what has surprised her, Lauren responded candidly about her feelings on the President.
data-animation-override> “Surprised about?” she said. “‘Sad about’ is a better (term). Just basically the state of America and the world and I hate Donald Trump with every fiber of my being, and his supporters, which is terrible to say, but like the people that are like die-hard supporters that are like sexist, racist (and) I just can’t understand or agree with.”
Connecting to some of the major stories affecting the area and the country, McGrath had a lot to say about the hurricanes as well.
data-animation-override> “Oh, it’s so sad,” she said. “And I think another thing that is really sad is that I heard a lot of people, I don’t remember which hurricane it was, it was either Irma or Harvey, it hit Cuba instead of Florida and everyone was like ‘Oh thank god it hit Cuba’ and I was like ‘there are still people in Cuba.’ Like, you should still be sad about that. It’s really terrible and I feel like Mother Nature is kind of coming back and being like ‘f**** you guys’ because we’ve made so many problems in the world.”
The last topic that Lauren touched upon was the paving in Hamden. She voiced her concern about the decision to pave right around when students began moving back to campus.
data-animation-override> “Why would they wait until we came back to school?” she said. “Like, why would they not do it as soon as we left, it just didn’t make any…it’s just f***ing Quinnipiac…like they always do everything in the worst possible way. It’s good they’re paving the roads, but they just have to do it in the worst way possible, because that’s how Quinnipiac works.”
This is a part of who Lauren McGrath is, a short, outspoken girl from Long Island. She is a human of Hamden and Quinnipiac.
Phil Carola is one of the maintenance supervisors at Quinnipiac University. He is 75 years old with a lot of life experience.
He is short to average height with olive skin, with some noticeable wrinkles on his face and his hands. The hair on his head is grey and his smile is more of a straight line. His eyes appear slightly opened. The interview gave a little insight into his life.
When asked what he was looking forward to in life, Carola responded with a bit of humor.
data-animation-override> “What am I looking forward to?” he said. “I’m going to be 75 this summer and I plan on getting out, retiring.”
Carola also made a bit of a joke about the hurricanes, Jose and Maria, that are approaching the United States.
data-animation-override> “As far as the hurricanes, I hope Jose goes out to sea, we don’t want him here,” Carola said. “Then we got Maria right behind him and right now that looks like it may hit us (too). It may not, but I think we are prepared because we do have a preparedness team here.”
He switched gears and began talking more about his personal life and not so much what is happening in the world. Carola went on to talk about his work and his family.
data-animation-override> “I’m into my 23rd year,” Carola said. “(In) my first job I had…back when corporate America was getting bought out by a lot of other companies, I lost my job of 28 years. And then I was lucky enough to get in here to Quinnipiac. Started as a night custodian, worked my way up to a day custodian, worked my way to a supervisor. And that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve got a wife. I’ve got two daughters. I’ve got three granddaughters, which two of them are here right now, freshman and a junior.”
This is a small look into the life of Phil Carola, the 75-year-old supervisor, father and grandfather. He is a human of Hamden and Quinnipiac.
Kathy Ross is a retired nurse from North Haven, Connecticut. She is a mother of six middle-aged children: four sons and two daughters.
She is an older woman and has noticeable wrinkles on her face and hands. Her hair is a shade of white and her skin is fair. Ross wears glasses and has light blue eyes. One may create their own idea of who Ross is just by looking at her. However, the conversation dove deeper into the life of Kathy Ross.
data-animation-override> “I’m still working, part time, at Health Tracks and I exercise 6 days a week,” Ross said. “I love to swim. I grew up in Wilson, Connecticut, a very small town. And I trained in New York City at St. Vincent’s Hospital. And then when I was forty-ish, I decided I wanted to go back to school, so I went to the University of Hartford and got my undergraduate degree in psychology and then went to UConn and got a degree in adult education. Because I love education. I did most of my career in hospital infection control, St. James’ for 20 years and then I retired from the VA in 2003.”
When asked about what she considered to be her unique quality, Ross said her naturally curly hair. She followed up by saying, “I don’t know…I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. So yeah, I like people, I like what I do, and I have a very good life.”
Kathy briefly touched upon issues such as the hurricanes. She recalled the hurricanes during ‘her day’ by saying they were fun.
data-animation-override> “What did I have to do?” she said. “Nothing. I was all taken care of and, you know, it was kind of scary, but I was very secure. Oh, I knew hurricanes when I was a girl, let me tell you. ”
She not only viewed the hurricanes in a positive light, but she also looked at the roads being paved in Hamden as a positive.
data-animation-override> “It’s annoyed me…but in a good way,” she said. “It’s progress, it’s good. We get so used to having our own way and just being able to go where we want to go.”
Ross, the retired nurse, the mother of six and the positive woman. She is a human of Hamden.
In the world today, people are judged upon first glance. Some people create their own version of a person within the first few seconds of seeing them. However, a face cannot explain the full story; it may provide some context, but does not expose the whole truth.
HQ Press decided to find out more about the people that make up the Hamden and Quinnipiac community. The stories shared go beyond the what is seen and touch upon what is felt. The accounts range from personal stories to opinions on what is currently happening in the world. The people range from a college student from Long Island to a seventy-five-year-old custodial worker.
