Remembering Green Street

Image Source: Middletown, Connecticut

“Green Street was--for me--it was everything.” 

When I came to Wesleyan, I decided my work study allotment would come from Oddfellows Playhouse, a youth theater a few blocks from campus that allowed Wesleyan students to leave the microcosm of college and build relationships with members of the Middletown community. During my first few weeks, I met one of the most wonderful, compassionate, and intelligent people I have ever known: Cookie Quinones, known at Oddfellows as “Mrs. Cookie” and more broadly as the “Mayor of the North End.” Cookie is Oddfellows’ after-school supervisor and president of the North End Action Team (NEAT) for the greater community. Before coming to Oddfellows, Cookie was the after-school supervisor of Green Street Teaching and Learning Center. 

As soon as Cookie told me about Green Street, I wanted to get involved. Sadly, in June 2017, after a 12-year run, Wesleyan stopped funding the center. How and why could such a pivotal program be closed, especially when it seemed that every member of the Middletown community benefited from its existence? The answer lies in the perpetual challenge of finding long-term, sustainable funding for programs that build neighborhood pride and stability along with learning and opportunity. It’s a challenge that hurts under-resourced communities the most – but one that we can help solve. 

Green Street was created through a three-way agreement among NEAT, Wesleyan University, and the city of Middletown. NEAT’s role was to ask the community what it needed and secure financial support. Families wanted “somewhere the kids could go, be safe, have fun…to get kids off the streets,” Cookie told me. Between 2005 and January 2018, Green Street served over 18,000 people from Middletown and surrounding cities, with an emphasis on those from impoverished and underserved areas. About half were North End residents.

The city of Middletown provided the building and money for students’ financial aid. Wesleyan agreed to be the program’s primary funder, on the stipulation that at some point Green Street would become entirely self-sufficient. Wesleyan also invested $2.6 million to renovate a former school building to serve as the center.

Green Street blossomed as a hub of community, education, and joy in Middletown. The center offered many unique and empowering classes, such as computer science, graffiti art, and ballet. The building had its own recording studio, dance studios, theater, and computer labs. It hosted summer STEM camps for girls, provided science safety workshops and math institutes for teachers, held literary open mics, and hosted lectures and performances from professional artists, Wesleyan alumni and faculty, and community members. It was also a place for community organizing. When talks of closing Macdonough Elementary began, residents gathered at Green Street to organize and fight for the school.

But Green Street was more than an afterschool program or community center. It was a big family. Green Street prided itself on being accessible to all members of the community, especially those who otherwise might have few alternatives. Although most of the participating children received financial aid, many still could not afford the program, so Green Street often waived tuition fees. Cookie worked with families to cover the tuition in other ways, including installment payments or volunteering their time. “Some parents didn't know that their kids had that talent,” Cookie said. Until Green Street started, “they didn't have that opportunity to see where their kids were gifted…It was helping out everyone.” 

Wesleyan students benefited from Green Street, too. The program was a major employer for work-study students, giving about 25 students at a time long-term job opportunities and experience in the education field. Green Street also created an important link between Middletown residents, like Cookie, and Wesleyan students. Wesleyan students “think I taught them, but they taught me a lot,” Cookie said. “ I felt like they still touch my heart and I'm still able to touch theirs. And I want for every Wesleyan student to know that I appreciated them.” 

To the people who worked and learned at Green Street, the program’s closure came abruptly and unexpectedly, without community discussion, and timed to occur when most Wesleyan students had left campus for the summer. “They did it when there was nobody to fight besides the community, and they weren't paying mind to the community at that time. ” 

The announcement devastated everyone who had put years of their love, care, and hope into Green Street. 

“We weren't asked how we felt, or told what could have been done more to keep it open,” Cookie recalled. In fall 2017, returning Wesleyan students who had expected to resume their jobs at Green Street were equally surprised. Students protested the closure and tried to overturn it, but without success.

The reason given by Wesleyan President Michael Roth was the center’s expense, in a climate of shrinking funding for the arts. Wesleyan had invested $4 million dollars over 12 years in Green Street, covering expenses the program could not raise from grants, private donors, and foundations. At the time Green Street closed, it had an annual budget of about $500,000, of which it raised about $255,000 from grants and donations and about $92,000 from tuition. Because Wesleyan had agreed at the start to provide funding and support until Green Street became self-sufficient, the withdrawal of college funding seemed to many people a broken promise–especially because the sponsoring agreement apparently didn’t include helping to guide, teach, or support Green Street staff toward the goal of becoming self-sufficient. 

Community members were shocked and outraged when Wesleyan withdrew its support for this pillar of community strengthening and support. Many saw the move as inexplicable for a university with a $1.7 billion endowment and access to a network of wealthy donors and alumni. “If it's something you're doing for the community, I don't see a price tag on it,” Cookie says. “You're helping the community… and the kids.”

The community’s perception of betrayal by Wesleyan damaged the already fraught relationship between Middletown and the university. Most Middletown residents I speak with often are suspicious or resentful toward Wesleyan, feeling that the “gown” is always trying to take over the “town.”  The closure of Green Street, and the way in which Wesleyan deterred community discussion or decision making during the process, did nothing to resolve this tenuous relationship between the university and the Middletown community. “We did think Wesleyan was the answer. But when [the center] got taken away, it just kind of broke us all,” Cookie said.

It’s clear that Green Street’s legacy remains a constant presence in Middletown. Parents continue to approach former Green Street staff and ask what opportunities are available for their children. People are still mourning the loss of such an empowering and meaningful community haven. The closure of Green Street, and the perceived betrayal by Wesleyan, is still felt deeply in Middletown.  “People still ask what happened to Green Street,” Cookie told me. “They thought it was going to be here for a longer time. It was just really, really sad to see that big piece go.”  

I’m not sure if that wound will ever fully heal. But we can certainly try. By supporting and advocating for Middletown, and building and strengthening our ties with the community, we can begin to repair the hole that is still felt. I asked Cookie what Middletown needs most today. She listed a desperate need for safe youth spaces – places where kids can “just have fun and be safe,” where adults and children can “grow and thrive” – especially in the community’s underserved areas, such as the North End. At an even more basic level, Middletown needs Wesleyan students to remember they are part of a larger community. And, as students, we need to remember our history with Middletown. If we let past mistakes and betrayals slip from our memories, we simply repeat and reinforce that hurt. 

What can we do? Being a part of this community means leaving Wesleyan’s campus and engaging with the rest of the town in which we reside. It means listening to the community, making connections, learning the names and faces of the people we share a town with, loving and supporting the community we are part of. 

Here’s an example: WesNEAT, an off-shoot of NEAT, was created in spring 2018 when Green Street lost funding for its full-time staff. Wesleyan students volunteered their time to staff NEAT’s office and help community members find the resources they needed. Although the NEAT office closed during the pandemic, it reopened last month and again needs Wes students to help support and build relationships with the rest of the Middletown community. 

Since the day I learned about Green Street, it never left my mind. I began to feel the ache in Middletown for its former hub of community empowerment. I felt the ache in my own heart for an organization that I know would have changed my life as a child had I had the opportunity to enter one of its many programs. I saw our campus’ memory of Green Street, and the injustice that occurred when it ended, fade further and further away. The fading memory is, in itself, an injustice. If you can’t donate your own or your family’s resources, including your time, to your community then at least choose to remember. Remember what this community once had and what it deserves to have again. Remember the knowledge and empowerment and joy Green Street brought to so many. Don’t let the power of what Green Street was slip away. Don’t let past mistakes become present ones.