Thomas Breen photo
Mayoral hopeful Tom Goldenberg with Knickerbocker regular Willie Holmes and club Vice President Patty Newton-Foster.
The Knickerbocker’s castle-like clubhouse at 715 Sherman Pkwy.
Willie Holmes stepped into the Knickerbocker on Wednesday night for the same reason that he’s been showing up to the Newhallville African American golf club’s events for the past 75 years: to relax with friends, talk about the pleasures of golf and the state of Black New Haven, grab a drink, and mix it up with local political power players and those looking to join their ranks.
Holmes, 95, has been a member of the Knickerbocker Golf Club since 1948 — four years after it was founded, and 31 years before it bought its long-time clubhouse at 715 Sherman Pkwy. / 280 West Hazel St.
On Wednesday night, Holmes joined several dozen other attendees at the Knickerbocker not for a birthday party or baby shower or dance lesson or any one of the other typical events that take place over the course of the year at the African American cultural institution. Instead, Holmes and others were present for a campaign fundraiser for Republican and Independent Party mayoral candidate Tom Goldenberg.
Goldenberg, an ex-McKinsey consultant who grew up in West Haven and lives in East Rock, is running against two-term incumbent and Democratic and Working Families Party nominee Mayor Justin Elicker in the Nov. 7 general election.
Outside, and inside, the Knickerbocker on Wednesday.
Of the half-dozen attendees this reporter spoke with during the first 30 minutes of Wednesday night’s fundraiser, some said they had shown up simply because they’re Knickerbocker regulars. Others came because they’ve known Goldenberg’s campaign adviser Jason Bartlett for years, some because they like what Goldenberg’s been saying on the campaign trail about the need for the city to boost Black-owned small businesses and to invest in and communicate clearly with majority Black neighborhoods like Dixwell and Newhallville.
Wednesday night wasn’t Holmes’ first time crossing paths with Goldenberg this election season. The Korean War Veteran joined his fellow local Independent Party members at the Fair Haven restaurant La Molienda a little over a month ago to endorse Goldenberg to serve as libertarian-leaning minor statewide party’s mayoral nominee.
“I’m just looking to see what’s happening,” Holmes said when asked on Wednesday what he thinks of Goldenberg’s mayoral run. “I think he’s a decent gentleman.”
At the top of Holmes’ political wish-list for whoever is mayor: “Keep the taxes down. Keep the crime down.”
Holmes and Jason Bartlett.
As the Knickerbocker’s resident historian, Holmes walked this reporter through some of the high-powered New Haveners who have belonged to the club, including former Police Chief Mel Wearing and former schools Supt. Reggie Mayo. He gave Bartlett a hug as the two thought back to when they first met, likely some time in the late 1980s.
Holmes also heralded golf as “the game where big deals are cut,” and the Knickerbocker as a place that has been “a second home” to him over the decades. “It’s our country club.”
“It’s got historical significance. It’s the heart and soul of the Black community,” Bartlett said about the Knickerbocker. It’s long been a venue for people to gather and talk “about the state of Blackness here in New Haven.” (Click here to watch a video recording of a speech that Bartlett gave at Wednesday’s fundraiser.)
Knickerbocker Vice President Patty Newton-Foster (right): Looking for more city support for small businesses.
Khalfani Ajamu: “I was a Shafiq fan. I’m definitely anti-Elicker.” Too few resources for the kids, too much gentrification.
Former firefighters Todd Kornacki and Wayne Ricks. Kornacki’s top issue: “Getting people back in City Hall. Government, you need to be there. You need to be present.”
Contributed photo
With the Newhallville Community Management Team’s Carlota Clark (right).
Katurah Bryant, a longtime New Havener and nurse who lives on Willis Street, said she showed up to the Knickerbocker-hosted fundraiser for Goldenberg on Wednesday night because she has some questions for all candidates running for local office.
At the top of the list: “Have you triaged our city?” Have the candidates “looked at the areas that need the most economic help, wellness help?” Oftentimes, she said, Black and brown neighborhoods like Dixwell and Newhallville are overlooked and underresourced.
“Our economic corridor is deteriorated,” she said about Newhallville. Her neighborhood needs more and better access to emergency medical care. “We need safe streets.” And a “wellness center.” And less drag racing, and housing that is well maintained, and safe and supportive places for people currently sleeping outdoors to go. “I want my neighborhood to look like East Rock,” she said.
As for the Knickerbocker, Bryant continued, she comes to the club once a week for salsa dance classes. “This is a cornerstone for us,” she said. “A place we trust. A place that is safe.”
Bartender Marshall Wells: Cranberry juice, coming up.
Behind the bar, Marshall Wells poured out one glass of cranberry juice and one glass of ginger ale, the latter requested by Goldenberg.
The 89-year-old Iowa native has been coming to the Knickerbocker ever since 1992, when the club was on his account for his job as a liquor salesman. (Before that, he worked as a foreman for the United Nuclear Corporation at its facility on Shelton Avenue.)
When he retired, Wells became the Knickerbocker’s bartender. He’s taken on more and more responsibilities at the club over the years.
“This is one of the oldest Black golf clubs in the country,” he said with pride. It hosts an annual golf tournament at New Haven’s municipal course. It also hosts plenty of baby showers and birthday parties and “repasts” and private events. “We socialize,” he said about the club’s members.
(Click here to read a detailed architectural and social history of the Medieval Gothic Revival-style building that houses the Knickerbocker club on Sherman Parkway. According to the National Register of Historic Places, the clubhouse — with its distinctive protruding brickwork — was built in the late 1920s as a home for the Schlaraffia Nova Portus German and Educational Club. The Knickerbocker Golf Club’s ownership of the building since 1979 “has ensured that Newhallville’s castle continues to serve as [a] social center that promotes ethnic continuity and community pride,” that filing reads.)
Goldenberg and Bartlett.
Goldenberg told the Independent that he decided to host a fundraiser at the Knickerbocker after meeting Willie Holmes at the Independent Party caucus vote in Fair Haven.
“This is a part of what makes New Haven great,” he said. “It’s really an iconic place for African Americans in New Haven.”
He said he thinks the voter turnout for Sept. 12’s Democratic primary was as low as it was (around 23 percent) in part because people in majority Black neighborhoods like Newhallville did not feel inspired by or connected to either of the candidates.
“I want to fight for these neighborhoods,” he said. “I want to fight for and inspire these neighborhoods.”
