Talk:West Haven, Connecticut

It is often referred to as "Waste Haven" by town outsiders.//

really necessary?

"Waste Haven"
I would argue that the term "Waste Haven" is also vandalism. What is the reason that outsiders call West Haven "Waste Haven"? I am a resident of Connecticut and every city has "derisive" nicknames. I have searched a variety of city wiki entries and none of them present such a vile nickname for a city. An exmaple on the state level is that I have heard New Jersey refered to as the "armpit" of America. Yet, that tidbit rightfully doesn't appear on the wiki page. The term "Waste Haven" is offense, period. It is of no informational value.

I was part of the West Haven community. It is a community of people who help each other out. There are many families and it's a great place to raise young chldren. Why are you so persistent on spreading to the rest of the world the ignorance that some CT residents might have for what is a beautiful seaside city?


 * Agreed. I have lived in West Haven my whole life and it really isn't a valid argument to call it "waste haven". Every city has its problems that's the bottom line. West Haven is full of people who help each other out and want the greater good for the city. Robertforleo3 (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I have no vendetta against West Haven (there are many things I love about it), but the Waster Haven moniker is quite common. Like it or not, the city has it's problems (I don't deny the ongoing effort to clean it up), and I feel that a complete article would include them in some way.  The better Wikipedia city articles include more information than just demographics.  For example, the Hartford article mentions the revitiavlisation work in the city.  Wikipedia is not for projecting town images to help real estate values - it is for the spread of information.  Your personal experience of living in West Haven is intrinsically POV and holds questionable weight here.  I plan on re-writing this article to reflect the changing nature of the city and to create a more informative article. Lastly, I ask that you follow protocol and sign your posts properly.Plasticbadge 03:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay. First, I no longer live in West Haven and I am not trying to project a town image or help real estate values.  I still feel my argument is valid.  The term "Waste Haven" is prejudicial and is simply not an accurate description.  It's an opinion held mostly by persons who don't even have POV experience.  In fact most people who use the term Waste Haven have never ever lived in West Haven and use the term because they learned it from someone else -- similar to the propogation of racial epithets, homophobic slurs, and other undesireable speech.  Again, I ask "What is the reason that outsiders call West Haven "Waste Haven"?  Using Waste Haven without any source listed or noted appears suspect and inflammatory.  You say the Waste Haven moniker is quite common but in fact you list no source.  You also list no reasons.  A more constructive article would speak to any problems the city is having but wouldn't include an unreferenced, lone sentence with a loaded colloquialism.  This is supposed to be an encyclopedia of sorts.Cjoseph 05:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I plan to expand it further when I have the time. I have lived in New Haven county area and actually spent quite a great deal of time in West Haven itself, so I am quite well qualified to speak on any colloquialisms as such.  In fact, many young West Haven residents I knew were the biggest users of the term "Waste Haven", some using it as a badge of honor.  Regardless, this article needs expansion badly.  My next draft will include citations, but will probably include the term "Waste Haven", though in a more contextual form than the previous article.  Surely you can't disagree that the term would have a place within a related segment? Plasticbadge 05:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Having lived in West Haven since 1990, I have *never* heard ANYONE use the term 'Waste Haven' until I found this wiki. Is this perhaps a college student or high school student colloquialism?

- I find it very hard to believe that you have lived in West Haven for over a decade without hearing this term. Plasticbadge 04:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hard to believe or not, I've never heard anyone use that phrase. That's why I was wondering if it was a term that is popularized by those who have attended West Haven High School or UNH.

- From personal experience I have heard in used in not only West Haven and Notre Dame high schools, UNH, Quinnipiac, and Yale circles, but also in the realms of journalism and local politics - and by residents themsleves. It it quite widespread among the adolescent and middle aged demographics, although I haven't heard it as often from the elderly (maybe they are nostalgic for the "old" West Haven they knew).Plasticbadge 20:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

--It doesn't matter who uses it, "Waste Haven" is an insulting moniker. Reading it/hearing it in the "realms of journalism" doesn't make it any less so--and to consider local politics a credible source is laughable. Hardly anything in politics nowadays is not a negative attack on someone or something. I have a feeling, which I am sure you will contest until you are blue in the face, that if you were actually a West Haven native, you would not feel that a derisive remark such as this is a credible addition to an encyclopedic article. Or a necessary one, for that matter. Your efforts to expand on the article are appreciated, but why don't we try to leave out juvenile epithets such as this? --LadyCroc 05:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Links discussion
I would like to end the rampant revert war regarding the links. I hold that all links avalible through the given city website are extranneous (few if any town wikis have direct links to their justice of the peace). The one city link provides a path to the others, so why clutter the wiki?

Inserting errors
Someone, I don't even care who, edited my entry to say that Jimmies of Savin Rock, a famous restaurant known for its seafood and hot dogs, had closed down. This is not true, as I just verified by calling Jimmies.

If you're going to edit something, it's best to verify that what you are changing is true, especially if it could affect a living person or ongoing business.

InkQuill 18:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Route 122
Thanks for catching my error, but according to Google Maps, Route 122 doesn't end at I-95 but turns east at Elm Street and continues to Kimberly Avenue and the New Haven line. Is there an authoritative source for the routes of state roads? I-95 is an odd place for a state route to end, at least this one, since there is no intersection there. Anyone have another source? --InkQuill 04:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, state maintenance continues beyond I-95 along Elm Street and Kimberly Avenue up to Ella Grasso Boulevard. This portion is an unsigned state road. If you're from the area, I'm sure you'll note the lack of any signage along this portion. The town road map and state highway log are probably your best sources for these things. --Polaron | Talk 04:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Principal communities
I added an explanation, which I'm not sure clarifies things, and substituted West Shore for Savin Rock, which really doesn't exist as a "community" anymore. Unlike nearby cities and towns (New Haven, Hamden, Milford, Branford), West Haven is not neatly divided into distinct neighborhoods, other than Allingtown. Is the Benham Hill area part of the West Shore? It's not that close to the water. Similarly, the section bounded roughly by First Avenue below Route 1, Third Avenue and Beach Street is kind of far from what might be called the "center." These statements could be argued but that's the point--the areas are not clearly delineated. If the section stays, it needs to be clear that these "principal communities" are not inclusive of the city proper. --InkQuill 22:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * These are just named communities that are listed by the DECD. They are by no means meant to constitute the entire municipality. These are probably just the areas with well-defined civic identities due to them being settled separately from the main town center. For example, in the case of New Haven, the equivalent areas listed would only be Fair Haven and Westville. --Polaron | Talk 01:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If by DECD you mean the state Department of Economic and Community Development, I'm really not sure how they compiled their information. Savin Rock doesn't exist as a community; West Shore does. It even has its own fire department. It is a far more distinct community than Savin Rock could be. When the amusement park existed, it would have meant something, but redevelopment has changed that. Unless you want to call them historical communities, I think they should reflect current reality. To call Savin Rock one and not acknowledge West Shore does not reflect West Haven now. While the former is arguable, I suppose (I don't know what reference to use to refute the DECD, the fact of the WSFD would, I think, merit its listing. Again, once the three fire departments have been mentioned, I'm not sure there's anything that naming "principal communities" adds. To use the New Haven analogy, the only community in West Haven that compares with Westville and Fair Haven is Allingtown. (And in New Haven's case, if those are the only two the DECD lists, it's using criteria that I cannot understand. Morse Cove, the Annex and downtown certainly qualify, and there are others that are listed on the newhavenct.gov. --InkQuill 02:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This is correct. These names would probably be more under just labeled areas in certain communities, rather than a community itself. Savin Rock would be an area in West Shore, Benham Hill would be another area in West Shore. Robertforleo3 (talk) 00:48, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think your current version is good. The fire districts are about as official as one can get in terms of subdivisions of West Haven. If you prefer incorporating this information into the geography section as prose, that might be even better. --Polaron | Talk 02:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced text removed
The text below lacked a source. (It is not sourcable to the Census data that is the basis for the rest of the Demographics section.) This can be restored if it comes from a published reliable source, but Wikipedia cannot publish original research (even if it's true, it needs to be verifiable). A large plurality of the white population is Italian-American, recalling large Italian immigration to the New Haven area at the turn of the twentieth century. --Orlady (talk) 13:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That appears to be true, though, based on the Census Bureau profile. The ratio of the population who identified as having Italian ancestry to the population who state they are white (alone or in some combination) is about 36%. --Polaron | Talk 16:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

notable residents sourcing
I added some sourcing for one person, and removed (by commenting out) the following items from the Notable Residents section in the article; I don't think any should be listed in the article for whom West Haven association is not a) documented by reliable sources and b) significant. Sourcing needs to be in this article; just asserting that West Haven is mentioned in an article about the person (whether or not West Haven association is supported by sources there) is not sufficient. Merely being born in, or having died in, West Haven does not IMO establish significant association. If the town actually embraces association with the person in public ways, that should be documented and would suffice, IMO. Please help identify and document associations. -- do ncr  am  13:54, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ulish Booker, NFL football player
 * Melanie Chartoff, actress
 * Eleanor Estes (1906–1988), author of children's literature
 * Douglas Ford (born Fortunato; born 1922) professional golfer
 * William L. Hadden, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1943–45 and Attorney General from 1945–51
 * Kevin Heffernan, actor, writer, producer, director, and comedian
 * Rob Jackson, NFL football player
 * Jamey Jasta, metalcore musician
 * Samuel Johnson (1696–1772), clergyman and the first president of the Anglican King's College (which later became Columbia University).
 * Rufus Porter (1792–1884), painter, inventor, founder of Scientific American
 * Donald Thomas, professional football player
 * Smoky Joe Wood (1889–1985), Major League Baseball pitcher
 * Tony Sparano, NFL coach
 * Jonathan D. Spence, professor of history at Yale University and author specializing in modern Chinese history

Comment: Are NECTAs the same thing as Regions?
"A New England city and town area (NECTA) is a geographic and statistical entity defined by the U.S. federal government for use in the six-state New England region of the United States. NECTAs are analogous to metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas and are defined using the same criteria, except that they are defined on the basis of New England towns instead of entire counties. NECTAs are classified as either metropolitan or micropolitan NECTAs. A micropolitan NECTA has an urban core with a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000, whereas a metropolitan NECTA has an urban core with a population of at least 50,000."

New England city and town area

"In geography, regions are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and the environment (environmental geography). Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law."

Region

§§→StephenTS42 (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Rewriting lead section
I noticed that a re-write of the lead section has been requested but not performed. I intend on basing the format of the lead section on the lead section of the article for New Haven, CT, available here. (This is not because New Haven is geographically close to West Haven, but merely because the lead section of the New Haven article is very thorough in its summary. Of course, West Haven, being smaller and less active than New Haven, will not contain all elements of the latter).

I believe that a decent structure would have geographic and demographic information (e.g. location within Connecticut, population size) in the first paragraph, a brief overview of the history of the city (founding, previous industry, etc) in the second, and a word about current events in the city (namely education and business, unless I do more research) in the final paragraph.

If there is anything I'm missing, please let me know. I'm open to any suggestion as long as it has a proper justification. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheKenster (talk • contribs) 02:00, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:West Haven (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:03, 6 July 2021 (UTC)