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New Haven is a city in the
In 1637 a small party of Puritans reconnoitered the New Haven harbor area and wintered over. In April 1638, the main party of five hundred Puritans who had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of Reverend John Davenport and London merchant
In 1664 New Haven became part of the Connecticut Colony when the two colonies were merged under political pressure from England. Some members of the New Haven Colony seeking to establish a new theocracy elsewhere went on to establish
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
. It is located on New Haven Harbor
New Haven Harbor is an inlet on the north side of Long Island Sound in the state of Connecticut]. The harbor area is an inlet carved by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age approximately 13,000 years ago.
The city of New Haven and ...
on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut
New Haven County is a county in the south central part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 864,835, making it the third-most populous county in Connecticut. Two of the state's top 5 largest cities, New ...
and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census
The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...
, New Haven is the third largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnoc ...
and Stamford and the principal municipality of Greater New Haven Greater New Haven is the metropolitan area whose extent includes those towns in the U.S. state of Connecticut that share an economic, social, political, and historical focus on the city of New Haven. It occupies the south-central portion of the sta ...
, which had a total 2020 population of 864,835.
New Haven was one of the first planned cities
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
in the U.S. A year after its founding by English Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
s in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid
Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to:
Common usage
* Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road
* Grid reference, used to define a location on a map
Arts, entertainment, and media
* News ...
, creating the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is the New Haven Green, a square at the center of Downtown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmark.
New Haven is the home of Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, New Haven's biggest taxpayer and employer, and an integral part of the city's economy. Health care, professional and financial services and retail trade also contribute to the city's economic activity.
The city served as co-capital of Connecticut from 1701 until 1873, when sole governance was transferred to the more centrally located city of Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
. New Haven has since billed itself as the "Cultural Capital of Connecticut" for its supply of established theaters, museums, and music venues. New Haven had the first public tree planting program in America, producing a canopy of mature trees (including some large elm
Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
s) that gave the city the nickname "The Elm City".
History
Pre-colonial foundation as an independent colony
Before Europeans arrived, the New Haven area was the home of theQuinnipiac
Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: '' Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''Niitsítapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wamp ...
tribe of Native Americans, who lived in villages around the harbor and subsisted off local fisheries and the farming of maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
. The area was briefly visited by Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
explorer Adriaen Block
Adriaen (Arjan) Block (c. 1567 – buried April 27, 1627) was a Dutch private trader, privateer, and ship's captain who is best known for exploring the coastal and river valley areas between present-day New Jersey and Massachusetts during four v ...
in 1614. Dutch traders set up a small trading system of beaver pelts with the local inhabitants, but trade was sporadic and the Dutch did not settle permanently in the area.
In 1637 a small party of Puritans reconnoitered the New Haven harbor area and wintered over. In April 1638, the main party of five hundred Puritans who had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of Reverend John Davenport and London merchant Theophilus Eaton
Theophilus Eaton (January 7, 1658) was a wealthy New England Puritan merchant, first Governor of New Haven Colony, Connecticut, co founder of that same colony and co founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His brother, Nathaniel Eaton, w ...
sailed into the harbor. It was their hope to set up a theological community with the government more closely linked to the church than that in Massachusetts, and to exploit the area's excellent potential as a port. The Quinnipiacs, who were under attack by neighboring Pequots
The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or t ...
, sold their land to the settlers in return for protection.
By 1640, "Quinnipiac's" theocratic government and nine-square grid plan were in place, and the town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
was renamed Newhaven, with ' haven' meaning harbor or port. (However, the area to the north remained Quinnipiac until 1678, when it was renamed Hamden.) The settlement became the headquarters of the New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony was a small English colony in North America from 1638 to 1664 primarily in parts of what is now the state of Connecticut, but also with outposts in modern-day New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
The history of ...
, distinct from the Connecticut Colony previously established to the north centering on Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
. Reflecting its theocratic
Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs.
Etymology
The word theocracy originates fr ...
roots, the New Haven Colony forbid the establishment of other churches, whereas the Connecticut Colony permitted them.
Economic disaster struck Newhaven in 1646, when the town sent its first fully loaded ship of local goods (the "Great Shippe") back to England. It never reached its destination, and its disappearance stymied New Haven's development versus the rising trade powers of Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and New Amsterdam.
In 1660, Colony founder John Davenport's wishes were fulfilled, and Hopkins School
Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1660, Edward Hopkins, seven-time governor of the Connecticut Colony, bequeathed a portion of his estate to found s ...
was founded in New Haven with money from the estate of Edward Hopkins
Edward Hopkins (1600 – March 1657) was an English colonist and politician and 2nd Governor of the Connecticut Colony. Active on both sides of the Atlantic, he was a founder of the New Haven and Connecticut colonies, serving seven one-year t ...
.
In 1661, the Regicides
Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...
who had signed the death warrant of Charles I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...
were pursued by Charles II. Two of them, Colonel Edward Whalley
Edward Whalley (c. 1607 – c. 1675) was an English military leader during the English Civil War and was one of the regicides who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England.
Early career
The exact dates of his birth and death are unk ...
and Colonel William Goffe
Major-General William Goffe, in or before 1618 to , was an English religious radical and soldier who fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and served in the New Model Army. A close associate and supporter of Oliver Cromwell, he ...
, fled to New Haven for refuge. Davenport arranged for them to hide in the West Rock
West Rock Ridge or West Rock of south-central Connecticut, is a long trap rock mountain ridge located on the west side of New Haven with a high point of . The ridge forms a continuous line of exposed cliffs visible from metropolitan New Haven an ...
hills northwest of the town. Later a third judge, John Dixwell
John Dixwell (1607 – 18 March 1689) was an English man who sat in Parliament, fought for the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War, and was one of the Commissioners who sat in judgement on King Charles I and condemned him to death. At ...
, joined the others.
As part of the Connecticut Colony
In 1664 New Haven became part of the Connecticut Colony when the two colonies were merged under political pressure from England. Some members of the New Haven Colony seeking to establish a new theocracy elsewhere went on to establish Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.capital of Connecticut in 1701, a status it retained until 1873.
In 1716, the Collegiate School relocated from
The city struck fortune in the late 18th century with the inventions and industrial activity of Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate who remained in New Haven to develop the cotton gin and establish a gun-manufacturing factory in the northern part of the city near the Hamden town line. That area is still known as Whitneyville, and the main road through both towns is known as Whitney Avenue. The factory is now the Eli Whitney Museum, which has a particular emphasis on activities for children and exhibits pertaining to the
According to the
New Haven has a long tradition of
Comprehensive Report: New Haven pg3 The downtown area provides about half of the city's jobs and half of its tax base and in recent years has become filled with dozens of new upscale restaurants, in addition to shops and thousands of apartments and condominium units which subsequently help overall growth of the city.
The city has many distinct neighborhoods. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the
The
New Haven's economy originally was based in manufacturing, but the postwar period brought rapid industrial decline; the entire Northeast was affected, and medium-sized cities with large working-class populations, like New Haven, were hit particularly hard. Simultaneously, the growth and expansion of
New Haven is governed via the mayor-council system. Connecticut municipalities (like those of neighboring states 
, ''New Haven Register'' (August 22, 2015). New Haven is served by the
New Haven is the birthplace of former
Boston.com
, "Supreme court rules in favor of conn firefighters" The case, ''Ricci v. DeStefano'', became highly publicized and brought national attention to New Haven politics due to the involvement of then-US Supreme Court, Supreme Court nominee (and Yale Law School graduate) Sonia Sotomayor in a lower court decision. Garry Trudeau, creator of the political ''Doonesbury'' comic strip, attended Yale University. There he met fellow student and later Green Party of the United States, Green Party candidate for United States Congress, Congress Charles Pillsbury (attorney), Charles Pillsbury, a long-time New Haven resident for whom Trudeau's comic strip is named. During his college years, Pillsbury was known by the nickname "The Doones". A International legal theory, theory of international law, which argues for a sociological normative approach in regards to jurisprudence, is named the International legal theory#New Haven Approach, New Haven Approach, after the city. Connecticut US senator Richard Blumenthal is a Yale graduate, as is former Connecticut US Senator Joe Lieberman who also was a New Haven resident for many years, before moving back to his hometown of Stamford.
New Haven's greatest culinary claim to fame may be its pizza, which has been claimed to be among the best in the country, or even in the world. New Haven-style pizza, called "apizza", made its debut at the iconic Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (known as Pepe's) in 1925. Apizza is baked in coal- or wood-fired brick ovens, and is notable for its thin crust. Apizza may be red (with a tomato-based sauce) or white (with a sauce of garlic and olive oil), and pies ordered "plain" are made without the otherwise customary mozzarella (originally smoked mozzarella, known as "scamorza" in Italian). A white clam pie is a well-known specialty of the restaurants on Wooster Square, Wooster Street in the Little Italy section of New Haven, including Pepe's and Sally's Apizza (which opened in 1938). Modern Apizza on State Street, which opened in 1934, is also well-known.
A second New Haven gastronomical claim to fame is
. Morganreed.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-15.), ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''My Fair Lady'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music'', and the Tennessee Williams play ''A Streetcar Named Desire (play), A Streetcar Named Desire''. Bow Tie Cinemas owns and operates the Criterion Cinemas, the first new movie theater to open in New Haven in over 30 years and the first luxury movie complex in the city's history. The Criterion has seven screens and opened in November 2004, showing a mix of upscale first run commercial and independent film.
New Haven has a variety of museums, many of them associated with Yale. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library features an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible. There is also the Connecticut Children's Museum; the
New Haven has a history of professional sports franchises dating back to the 19th century and has been the home to professional baseball, basketball, American football, football, ice hockey, hockey, and soccer teams—including the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1973 to 1974, who played at the Yale Bowl. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, New Haven consistently had minor league hockey and baseball teams, which played at the New Haven Arena (built in 1926, demolished in 1972),
New Haven has many architectural landmarks dating from every important time period and architectural style in American history. The city has been home to a number of architects and architectural firms that have left their mark on the city including Ithiel Town and Henry Austin (architect), Henry Austin in the 19th century and Cesar Pelli, Warren Platner, Kevin Roche, Herbert Newman and Barry Svigals in the 20th. The Yale School of Architecture has fostered this important component of the city's economy. Cass Gilbert, of the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts school, designed New Haven's
Many historical sites exist throughout the city, including National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut, 59 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Of these, nine are among the List of National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut, 60 U.S. National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut. The 
In 1660,
New Haven is connected to New York City and points along the Northeast Corridor by commuter rail, regional rail and inter-city rail. Service is provided by:
* Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line (commuter rail) to points west, such as Bridgeport, Stamford, Greenwich, and New York City
* Shore Line East (commuter rail) to points east, such as Old Saybrook and New London, with limited rush-hour service west to Stamford
*
The Connecticut Transit New Haven, New Haven Division of Connecticut Transit (CT Transit), the state's bus system, is the second largest division in the state with 24 routes. All routes originate from the
The city also has several major surface arteries. U.S. Route 1 in Connecticut, U.S. Route 1 (Columbus Avenue, Union Avenue, Water Street, Forbes Avenue) runs in an east–west direction south of downtown serving
New Haven is mentioned in the song Peace Frog by The Doors, referencing a 1967 incident where Morrison was arrested for "attempting to incite a riot" in the middle of a concert at the New Haven Arena.
Old Saybrook
Old Saybrook is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 10,481 at the 2020 census. It contains the incorporated borough of Fenwick, as well as the census-designated places of Old Saybrook Center and Saybroo ...
to New Haven, establishing New Haven as a center of learning. In 1718, in response to a large donation from East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
merchant Elihu Yale
Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Although born in Boston, Massachusetts, he only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales and India ...
, former Governor of Madras, the name of the Collegiate School was changed to Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
.
For over a century, New Haven citizens had fought in the colonial militia alongside regular British forces, as in the French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
. As the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
approached, General David Wooster
David Wooster ( – May 2, 1777) was an American general who served in the French and Indian War and in the American Revolutionary War. He died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Several cities, schools, and public ...
and other influential residents hoped that the conflict with the government in Britain could be resolved short of rebellion. On 23 April 1775, which is still celebrated in New Haven as Powder House Day, the Second Company, Governor's Foot Guard
The Governor's Guards of Connecticut are four distinct units of the Connecticut State Guard, a part of the organized militia under the Connecticut State Militia. There are two foot guard units and two horse guard units. All four units are formed ...
, of New Haven entered the struggle against the British parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
. Under Captain Benedict Arnold, they broke into the powder house to arm themselves and began a three-day march to Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
. Other New Haven militia members were on hand to escort George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
from his overnight stay in New Haven on his way to Cambridge. Contemporary reports, from both sides, remark on the New Haven volunteers' professional military bearing, including uniforms.
On July 5, 1779, 2,600 loyalists and British regulars under General William Tryon
Lieutenant-General William Tryon (8 June 172927 January 1788) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as governor of North Carolina from 1764 to 1771 and the governor of New York from 1771 to 1777. He also served durin ...
, governor of New York, landed in New Haven Harbor and raided the 3,500-person town. A militia of Yale students had been preparing for battle, and former Yale president and Yale Divinity School
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...
professor Naphtali Daggett
Naphtali Daggett (September 8, 1727 – November 25, 1780) was an American academic and educator. He graduated from Yale University in 1748.Kelley, Brooks Mather. (1999)''Yale: A History,'' p. 62./ref> Three years later, he became pastor of the ...
rode out to confront the Redcoats. Yale president Ezra Stiles recounted in his diary that while he moved furniture in anticipation of battle, he still couldn't quite believe the revolution had begun. New Haven was not torched as the invaders did with Danbury
Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut.
Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat City ...
in 1777, or Fairfield and Norwalk a week after the New Haven raid, so many of the town's colonial features were preserved.
Post-colonial period and industrialization
New Haven was incorporated as a city in 1784, andRoger Sherman
Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an American statesman, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign four of the great state papers of the United States related to the founding: the Con ...
, one of the signers of the Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
and author of the "Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman Compromise) was an agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation each state woul ...
", became the new city's first mayor.
The city struck fortune in the late 18th century with the inventions and industrial activity of Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate who remained in New Haven to develop the cotton gin and establish a gun-manufacturing factory in the northern part of the city near the Hamden town line. That area is still known as Whitneyville, and the main road through both towns is known as Whitney Avenue. The factory is now the Eli Whitney Museum, which has a particular emphasis on activities for children and exhibits pertaining to the A. C. Gilbert Company
The A. C. Gilbert Company was an American toy company, once one of the largest in the world. Gilbert originated the Erector Set, which is a construction toy similar to Meccano in the rest of the world, and made chemistry sets, microscope kits, ...
. His factory, along with that of Simeon North
Simeon North (July 13, 1765 – August 25, 1852) was a Middletown, Connecticut, gun manufacturer, who developed one of America's first milling machines (possibly the very first) in 1818 and played an important role in the development of interchan ...
, and the lively clock-making and brass hardware sectors, contributed to making early Connecticut a powerful manufacturing economy; so many arms manufacturers sprang up that the state became known as "The Arsenal of America". It was in Whitney's gun-manufacturing plant that Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of ...
invented the automatic revolver
An automatic revolver also known as semi-automatic revolver, is a revolver that uses the recoil energy of firing for cocking the hammer and revolving the cylinder, rather than using manual operations to perform these actions. Despite the misnom ...
in 1836. Many other talented machinists and firearms designers would go on to found successful firearms manufacturing companies in New Haven, including Oliver Winchester and O.F. Mossberg & Sons.
The Farmington Canal
The Farmington Canal, also known as the New Haven and Northampton Canal, was a major private canal built in the early 19th century to provide water transportation from New Haven into the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond. Its Mass ...
, created in the early 19th century, was a short-lived transporter of goods into the interior regions of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and ran from New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts.
New Haven was to be the site of the first college for African Americans in the United States, but the plan was obstructed by efforts led by Yale Law School founder and former New Haven Mayor David Daggett
David Daggett (December 31, 1764 – April 12, 1851) was a U.S. senator, mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, Judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, and a founder of the Yale Law School. He helped block plans for the first college for Afri ...
, who went on to serve as a U.S. Senator and judge on Connecticut's highest court. Daggett denigrated African Americans, denied they were citizens, and presided over the trial of a woman persecuted for trying to admit an African American girl to her boarding school and, having that effort blocked, running a boarding school for African American girls.
New Haven was home to one of the important early events in the burgeoning anti-slavery movement
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
when, in 1839, the trial of mutineering Mende tribesmen being transported as slaves on the Spanish slaveship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...
'' Amistad'' was held in New Haven's United States District Court. There is a statue of Joseph Cinqué
Sengbe Pieh (18141879), also known as Joseph Cinqué or Cinquez and sometimes referred to mononymously as Cinqué, was a West African man of the Mende people who led a revolt of many Africans on the Spanish slave ship ''La Amistad'' in July 1839 ...
, the informal leader of the slaves, beside City Hall. See "Museums" below for more information. Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
delivered a speech on slavery in New Haven in 1860, shortly before he secured the Republican nomination for President.
The American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
boosted the local economy with wartime purchases of industrial goods, including that of the New Haven Arms Company, which would later become the Winchester Repeating Arms Company
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...
. (Winchester would continue to produce arms in New Haven until 2006, and many of the buildings that were a part of the Winchester plant are now a part of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District is a historic district in New Haven, Connecticut that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. It includes 867 properties, which "include 858 major structures and 13 ...
). After the war, population grew and doubled by the start of the 20th century, most notably due to the influx of immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
from southern Europe, particularly Italy. Today, roughly half the populations of East Haven, West Haven, and North Haven are Italian-American
Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...
. Jewish immigration to New Haven has left an enduring mark on the city. Westville was the center of Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
life in New Haven, though today many have fanned out to suburban communities such as Woodbridge and Cheshire. Lowell House
Lowell House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University, located at 10 Holyoke Place facing Mount Auburn Street between Harvard Yard and the Charles River. Officially, it is named for the Lowell family, but an orna ...
, the city's first settlement
Settlement may refer to:
*Human settlement, a community where people live
*Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building
* Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
*Settlement (fin ...
, opened in 1900.
Post-industrial era and urban redevelopment
New Haven's expansion continued during the two World Wars, with most new inhabitants beingAfrican American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s from the American South and Puerto Ricans. The city reached its peak population after World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. The area of New Haven is only , encouraging further development of new housing after 1950 in adjacent, suburban towns. Moreover, as in other U.S. cities in the 1950s
The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the "Fifties" or the " '50s") (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959.
Throughout the decade, the world continued its re ...
, New Haven began to suffer white flight
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
of middle-class workers. One author suggested that aggressive redlining and rezoning made it difficult for residents to obtain financing for older, deteriorating urban housing stock, thereby condemning such structures to deterioration.
In 1954; then-mayor Richard C. Lee began some of the earliest major urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
projects in the United States. Certain sections of downtown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
were redeveloped to include museums, new office towers, a hotel, and large shopping complexes. Other parts of the city, particularly the Wooster Square and Fair Haven neighborhoods were affected by the construction of Interstate 95 along the Long Wharf section, Interstate 91
Interstate 91 (I-91) is an Interstate Highway in the New England region of the United States. It provides the primary north–south thoroughfare in the western part of the region. The Interstate generally follows the course of the Conne ...
, and the Oak Street Connector. The Oak Street Connector (Route 34
The following highways are numbered 34: for a list of roads numbered N34 : see list of N34 roads.
International
* AH34, Asian Highway 34
* European route E34
Australia
* Cox Peninsula Road (Northern Territory)
* (Sydney)
* Maroondah Highway (Vi ...
), running between Interstate 95, downtown, and The Hill neighborhood, was originally intended as a highway to the city's western suburbs but was only completed as a highway to the downtown area, with the area to the west becoming a boulevard (See "Redevelopment" below).
In 1970, a series of criminal prosecutions against various members of the Black Panther Party took place in New Haven, inciting mass protests on the New Haven Green involving twelve thousand demonstrators and many well-known New Left political activists. (See "Political Culture" below for more information).
From the 1960s through the late 1990s, central areas of New Haven continued to decline both economically and in terms of population despite attempts to resurrect certain neighborhoods through renewal projects. In conjunction with its declining population, New Haven experienced a steep rise in its crime rate
Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes:
* scientific research, such as criminological studies, vi ...
.
Since approximately 2000, many parts of downtown New Haven have been revitalized with new restaurants, nightlife, and small retail stores. In particular, the area surrounding the New Haven Green has experienced an influx of apartments and condominiums. In recent years, downtown retail options have increased with the opening of new stores such as Urban Oufitters, J Crew, Origins, American Apparel, Gant Clothing, and an Apple Store, joining older stores such as Barnes & Noble and Raggs Clothing. In addition, two new supermarkets opened to serve downtown's growing residential population. A Stop & Shop opened just west of downtown, while Elm City Market, located one block from the Green, opened in 2011. The recent turnaround of downtown New Haven has received positive press from various periodicals.
Major projects include the current construction of a new campus for Gateway Community College downtown, and also a 32-story, 500-unit apartment/retail building called 360 State Street
360 State Street is a residential skyscraper completed in 2010 in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the second-tallest building in the city, and the largest apartment building in the state. DeSimone Consulting Engineers were the structural engineer ...
. The 360 State Street project is now occupied and is the largest residential building in Connecticut. A new boathouse and dock is planned for New Haven Harbor, and the linear park Farmington Canal Trail is set to extend into downtown New Haven within the coming year. Additionally, foundation and ramp work to widen I-95 to create a new harbor crossing for New Haven, with an extradosed bridge to replace the 1950s-era Q Bridge
The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, commonly referred to as the Q Bridge by locals, is an extradosed bridge that carries Interstate 95 (Connecticut Turnpike) over the mouth of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, in the U.S. state of Connecticut. This ...
, has begun. The city still hopes to redevelop the site of the New Haven Coliseum
New Haven Coliseum was a sports and entertainment arena located in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. Construction began in 1968 and was completed in 1972. The Coliseum was officially closed on September 1, 2002, by Mayor John DeStefano Jr., and d ...
, which was demolished in 2007.
In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination
Reverse discrimination is a term for discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, nationality ...
brought by 18 white firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
firefighters scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. In the subsequent '' Ricci v. DeStefano'' decision the court found 5–4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test results violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...
. As a result, a district court subsequently ordered the city to promote 14 of the white firefighters.
In 2010 and 2011, state and federal funds were awarded to Connecticut (and Massachusetts) to construct the Hartford Line
The Hartford Line is a commuter rail service between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, using the Amtrak-owned New Haven–Springfield Line. The project is a joint venture between the states of Connecticut and Massachuset ...
, with a southern terminus at New Haven's Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
and a northern terminus at Springfield's Union Station. According to the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
, "This corridor urrentlyhas one train per day connecting communities in Connecticut and Massachusetts to the Northeast Corridor and Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
. The vision for this corridor is to restore the alignment to its original route via the Knowledge Corridor
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is dist ...
in western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts, known colloquially as “Western Mass,” is a region in Massachusetts, one of the six U.S. states that make up the New England region of the United States. Western Massachusetts has diverse topography; 22 colleges and u ...
, improving trip time and increasing the population base that can be served." Set for construction in 2013, the "Knowledge Corridor high speed intercity passenger rail" project will cost approximately $1 billion, and the ultimate northern terminus for the project is reported to be Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
in Canada. Train speeds between will reportedly exceed and increase both cities' rail traffic exponentially.
Timeline of notable firsts
*1638: New Haven becomes the first planned city in America. *1776: Yale student David Bushnell invents the first American submarine. *1787: John Fitch builds the first steamboat. *1793: Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin. *1836:Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of ...
invents the automatic revolver
An automatic revolver also known as semi-automatic revolver, is a revolver that uses the recoil energy of firing for cocking the hammer and revolving the cylinder, rather than using manual operations to perform these actions. Despite the misnom ...
in Whitney's factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...
.
*1839: Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear (December 29, 1800 – July 1, 1860) was an American self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber, for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844. ...
of New Haven discovers the process of vulcanizing
Vulcanization (British: Vulcanisation) is a range of processes for hardening rubbers. The term originally referred exclusively to the treatment of natural rubber with sulfur, which remains the most common practice. It has also grown to includ ...
rubber in Woburn, Massachusetts
Woburn ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,876 at the 2020 census. Woburn is located north of Boston. Woburn uses Massachusetts' mayor-council form of government, in which an elected mayor is ...
, and later perfects it and patents the process in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts.
*1860: Philios P. Blake patents the first corkscrew.
*1877: New Haven hosts the first Bell
A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...
PSTN
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...
(telephone) switch office.
*1878–1880: The District Telephone Company of New Haven creates the world's first telephone exchange and the first telephone directory
A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that ...
and installs the first public phone. The company expanded and became the Connecticut Telephone Company, then the Southern New England Telephone Company
The Southern New England Telephone Company (commonly referred to as SNETCo by its customers), doing business as Frontier Communications of Connecticut, is a local exchange carrier owned by Frontier Communications.
History
It started operations o ...
(now part of AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
).
*1882: The Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. ...
are founded in New Haven. The city still serves as the world headquarters of the organization, which maintains a museum downtown.
*1892: Local confectioner
Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categorie ...
George C. Smith of the Bradley Smith Candy Co. invents the first lollipop
A lollipop is a type of sugar candy usually consisting of hard candy mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking. Different informal terms are used in different places, including lolly, sucker, sticky-pop, etc. Lollipops are ava ...
s.
*Late 19th century-early 20th century: The first public tree planting program takes place in New Haven, at the urging of native James Hillhouse
James Hillhouse (October 20, 1754 – December 29, 1832) was an American lawyer, real estate developer, and politician from New Haven, Connecticut. He represented the state in both chambers of the US Congress. From February to March 1801, Hill ...
.
*1900: Louis Lassen, owner of Louis' Lunch
Louis' Lunch is a hamburger restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, which claims to be the first restaurant to serve hamburgers and the oldest hamburger restaurant in the United States. It was opened as a small lunch wagon in 1895 and was one of ...
, is credited with inventing the hamburger
A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, ...
, as well as the steak sandwich.
*1911: The Erector Set
Erector Set (trademark styled as "ERECTOR") was a brand of metal toy construction sets which were originally patented by Alfred Carlton Gilbert and first sold by his company, the Mysto Manufacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut in 1913. In ...
, the popular and culturally important construction toy, is invented in New Haven by A.C. Gilbert. It was manufactured by the A. C. Gilbert Company at Erector Square from 1913 until the company's bankruptcy in 1967.
*1920: In competition with competing explanations, the Frisbee is said to have originated on the Yale campus, based on the tin pans of the Frisbie Pie Company
The Frisbie Pie Company is an American pie company located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was founded in 1871 by William Russell Frisbie in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when he bought and renamed a branch of the Olds Baking Company. The company wa ...
which were tossed around by students on the New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
.
*1977: The first memorial to victims of the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
on public land in America stands in New Haven's Edgewood Park at the corner of Whalley and West Park avenues. It was built with funds collected from the community and is maintained by Greater New Haven Holocaust Memory, Inc. The ashes of victims killed and cremated
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
at Auschwitz are buried under the memorial.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of t ...
, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 6.67%, is water.
New Haven's best-known geographic features are its large, shallow harbor, and two reddish basalt trap rock
Trap rock, also known as either trapp or trap, is any dark-colored, fine-grained, non-granitic intrusive or extrusive igneous rock. Types of trap rock include basalt, peridotite, diabase, and gabbro.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. ...
ridges which rise to the northeast and northwest of the city core. These trap rocks are known respectively as East Rock
East Rock of south-central Connecticut, United States, with a high point of , is a long trap rock ridge located primarily in the neighborhood of East Rock on the north side of the city of New Haven. A prominent landscape feature and a popular ...
and West Rock
West Rock Ridge or West Rock of south-central Connecticut, is a long trap rock mountain ridge located on the west side of New Haven with a high point of . The ridge forms a continuous line of exposed cliffs visible from metropolitan New Haven an ...
, and both serve as extensive parks. West Rock has been tunneled through to make way for the east–west passage of the Wilbur Cross Parkway
The Wilbur Cross Parkway (also known locally as "The Merritt" in conjunction with its counterpart) is a limited access road in Connecticut, comprising the portion of Route 15 between Milford and Meriden. It is named after Wilbur Lucius Cross ...
(the only highway tunnel through a natural obstacle in Connecticut), and once served as the hideout of the "Regicides
Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...
" (see: Regicides Trail). Most New Haveners refer to these men as "The Three Judges". East Rock features the prominent Soldiers and Sailors war monument on its peak as well as the "Great/Giant Steps" which run up the rock's cliffside.
The city is drained by three rivers; the West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
, Mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
*
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Textile mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...
, and Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: '' Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''Niitsítapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wamp ...
, named in order from west to east. The West River discharges into West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
Harbor, while the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers discharge into New Haven Harbor. Both harbors are embayments of Long Island Sound. In addition, several smaller streams flow through the city's neighborhoods, including Wintergreen Brook, the Beaver Ponds Outlet, Wilmot Brook, Belden Brook, and Prospect Creek. Not all of these small streams have continuous flow year-round.
Climate
According to theKöppen classification Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author an ...
, New Haven is ''cfa'', or a humid subtropical climate, however it borders on a hot-summer humid continental climate. The city has hot, humid summers and cool to cold winters. From May to late September, the weather is typically hot and humid, with average temperatures exceeding on 70 days per year. In summer, the Bermuda High
The Azores High also known as North Atlantic (Subtropical) High/Anticyclone or the Bermuda-Azores High, is a large subtropical semi-permanent centre of high atmospheric pressure typically found south of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, at the Ho ...
creates as southern flow of warm and humid air, with frequent thundershowers. October to early December is normally mild to cool late in the season, while early spring (April) can be cool to warm. Winters are cold with both rain and snow fall. The weather patterns that affect New Haven result from a primarily offshore direction, thus reducing the marine influence of Long Island Sound—although, like other marine areas, differences in temperature between areas right along the coastline and areas a mile or two inland can be large at times. During summer heat waves, temperatures may reach or higher on occasion with heat-index values of over . Tropical cyclones
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dependi ...
have struck New Haven in the past, including 1938 Hurricane ( Long Island Express), Hurricane Carol
Hurricane Carol was among the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island in the United States. It developed from a tropical wave near the Bahamas on August 25, 1954, and slowly strengthened as it ...
in 1954, Hurricane Gloria
Hurricane Gloria was a powerful hurricane that caused significant damage along the east coast of the United States and in Atlantic Canada during the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the first significant tropical cyclone to strike the n ...
in 1985. The hardiness zone is 7a.
Streetscape
New Haven has a long tradition of urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
and a purposeful design for the city's layout. The city could be argued to have some of the first preconceived layouts in the country. Upon founding, New Haven was laid out in a grid plan of nine square blocks; the central square was left open, in the tradition of many New England towns, as the city green (a commons area). The city also instituted the first public tree planting program in America. As in other cities, many of the elm
Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
s that gave New Haven the nickname "Elm City" perished in the mid-20th century due to Dutch elm disease
Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...
, although many have since been replanted. The New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
is currently home to three separate historic churches which speak to the original theocratic nature of the city. The Green remains the social center of the city today. It was named a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1970.
Downtown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
, occupied by nearly 7,000 residents, has a more residential character than most downtowns.CityOfNewHaven.comComprehensive Report: New Haven pg3 The downtown area provides about half of the city's jobs and half of its tax base and in recent years has become filled with dozens of new upscale restaurants, in addition to shops and thousands of apartments and condominium units which subsequently help overall growth of the city.
Neighborhoods
The city has many distinct neighborhoods. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...
, are the following neighborhoods: the west central neighborhoods of Dixwell and Dwight; the southern neighborhoods of The Hill, historic water-front City Point (or Oyster Point), and the harborside district of Long Wharf; the western neighborhoods of Beaver Hills, Edgewood Edgewood may refer to:
Places Canada
*Edgewood, British Columbia
South Africa
*Edgewood, a University of KwaZulu-Natal campus in Pinetown, South Africa
United States Cities and towns
*Edgewood, California
*Edgewood, Florida
*Edgewood, Illinois, a ...
, West River West River may refer to:
Rivers
Canada
*West River (Antigonish, Nova Scotia) in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia
* West River (Pictou, Nova Scotia) in Pictou County, Nova Scotia
* West River (Halifax, Nova Scotia) in Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia
* West ...
, Westville, Amity, and West Rock-Westhills; East Rock
East Rock of south-central Connecticut, United States, with a high point of , is a long trap rock ridge located primarily in the neighborhood of East Rock on the north side of the city of New Haven. A prominent landscape feature and a popular ...
, Cedar Hill, Prospect Hill, and Newhallville
Newhallville is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, named for industrialist George Newhall.
As delineated on city planning maps, Newhallville is bordered on the north by the town of Hamden, on the east by Winchester Avenue, on ...
in the northern side of town; the east central neighborhoods of Mill River and Wooster Square
Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel S ...
, an Italian-American neighborhood; Fair Haven, an immigrant community located between the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers; Quinnipiac Meadows and Fair Haven Heights across the Quinnipiac River; and facing the eastern side of the harbor, The Annex
The Annex is a neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The traditional boundaries of the neighbourhood are north to Dupont Street, south to Bloor Street, west to Bathurst Street and east to Avenue Road. The City of Toronto recognizes ...
and East Shore (or Morris Cove).
Demographics
Census data
The U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
reports a 2010 population of 129,779, with 47,094 households and 25,854 families within the city of New Haven. The population density was . There were 52,941 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 42.6% White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
, 35.4% African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 0.5% Native American, 4.6% Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 0.1% Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of O ...
, 12.9% from other races
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
, and 3.9% from two or more races. Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
or Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
residents of any race were 27.4% of the population. Non-Hispanic Whites
Non-Hispanic whites or Non-Latino whites are Americans who are classified as "white", and are not of Hispanic (also known as "Latino") heritage. The United States Census Bureau defines ''white'' to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Ame ...
were 31.8% of the population in 2010, down from 69.6% in 1970. The city's Latino population is growing rapidly. Previous influxes among ethnic groups have been African-Americans in the postwar era, and Irish, Italian and (to a lesser degree) Slavic peoples in the prewar period.
As of the 2010 census, of the 47,094 households, 29.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.5% include married couples living together, 22.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.1% were non-families. 36.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size 3.19.
The ages of New Haven's residents were 25.4% under the age of 18, 16.4% from 18 to 24, 31.2% from 25 to 44, 16.7% from 45 to 64, and 10.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29 years, which was significantly lower than the national average. There were 91.8 males per 100 females. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.6 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $29,604, and the median income for a family was $35,950. Median income for males was $33,605, compared with $28,424 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population.
Per capita i ...
for the city was $16,393. About 20.5% of families and 24.4% of the population were living below the poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...
, including 32.2% of those under age 18 and 17.9% of those age 65 or over.
Other data
It is estimated that 14% of New Haven residents are pedestrian commuters, ranking it number four by highest percentage in the United States. This is primarily due to New Haven's small area and the presence ofYale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
.
New Haven is noted for having the highest percentage of Italian American residents of any US city.
New Haven is a predominantly Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
city, as the city's Dominican, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Puerto Rican populations are overwhelmingly Catholic. The city is part of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
also make up a considerable portion of the population, as do Black Baptists. There is a growing number of (mostly Puerto Rican) Pentecostal
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement
s as well. There are churches for all major branches of Christianity within the city, multiple store-front churches, ministries (especially in working-class Latino and Black neighborhoods), a mosque, many synagogues (including two yeshivas), and other places of worship; the level of religious diversity in the city is high.
A study of the demographics of the New Haven metro area, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity, found that they were the closest of any American city to the national average.
Economy
New Haven's economy originally was based in manufacturing, but the postwar period brought rapid industrial decline; the entire Northeast was affected, and medium-sized cities with large working-class populations, like New Haven, were hit particularly hard. Simultaneously, the growth and expansion of Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
further affected the economic shift. Today, over half (56%) of the city's economy is now made up of services, in particular education and health care; Yale is the city's largest employer, followed by Yale – New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Haven ...
. Other large employers include Southern Connecticut State University
Southern Connecticut State University (Southern Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State, SCSU, or simply Southern) is a public university in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Connecticut State University System, it was founded in 1893 and is ...
, Assa Abloy
Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish conglomerate whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, ...
lock manufacturing, the Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. ...
headquarters, Higher One, Alexion Pharmaceuticals
Alexion Pharmaceuticals is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts that specializes in orphan drugs to treat rare diseases. It became an independent subsidiary of AstraZeneca in 2021.
Its products include ecul ...
, Covidien and United Illuminating.< Clothing stores Gant and Ann Taylor Ann or Anne Taylor may refer to:
*Ann Taylor (writer, born 1757) (1757–1830), English writer
*Ann Taylor (poet) (1782–1866), English poet and children's writer, daughter of the above
*Ann Taylor (actress) (born 1936), British actress, hostess a ...
were founded in the city.
In 2017, New Haven was ranked by a Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
study as one of the top 10 cities in America for launching tech startups, and top two in New England.
Industry sectors: Agriculture (.6%), Construction and Mining (4.9%), Manufacturing (2.9%), Transportation and Utilities (2.9%), Trade (21.7%), Finance and Real Estate (7.1%), Services (55.9%), Government (4.0%)
Headquarters
TheKnights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. ...
, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization and a Fortune 1000
The Fortune 1000 are the 1,000 largest American companies ranked by revenues, as compiled by the American business magazine ''Fortune''. It only includes companies which are incorporated or authorized to do business in the United States, and for ...
company, is headquartered in New Haven. Amphenol
Amphenol Corporation is a major producer of electronic and fiber optic connectors, cable and interconnect systems such as coaxial cables. Amphenol is a portmanteau from the corporation's original name, American Phenolic Corp.
History
Amphenol ...
, based in Greater New Haven ( Wallingford), is a Fortune 100 company. Eight Courant 100 companies are based in Greater New Haven, with four headquartered in New Haven proper. New Haven-based companies traded on stock exchanges include NewAlliance Bank, the second largest bank in Connecticut and fourth-largest in New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
(NYSE: NAL), Higher One Holdings (NYSE: ONE), a financial services firm, United Illuminating, the electricity distributor for southern Connecticut (NYSE: UIL), and Transpro Inc. (AMEX: TPR). Vion Pharmaceuticals
Vion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was a New Haven, Connecticut based pharmaceutical company founded in March 1992 to commercialize several discoveries made in the biomedical laboratories at Yale University.
Clinical development
Two anticancer agents, On ...
is traded OTC (OTC BB: VIONQ.OB). The American division of Assa Abloy
Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish conglomerate whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, ...
(one of the world's leading manufacturers of locks) is located in the city. The Southern New England Telephone Company
The Southern New England Telephone Company (commonly referred to as SNETCo by its customers), doing business as Frontier Communications of Connecticut, is a local exchange carrier owned by Frontier Communications.
History
It started operations o ...
(SNET) began operations in the city as the District Telephone Company of New Haven in 1878; the company remains headquartered in New Haven as a subsidiary of Frontier Communications
Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. (known as Citizens Utilities Company until May 2000 and Citizens Communications Company until July 31, 2008) is an American telecommunications company. The company previously served primarily rural areas and s ...
and provides telephone service for all but two municipalities in Connecticut. SeeClickFix
SeeClickFix is a digital communications system company founded and based in Downtown New Haven, Connecticut. The company runs a website and app which assist users in communicating with local governments about non-emergency issues. SeeClickFix was ...
was founded and has been headquartered in the city since 2007. Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company
The Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company is a candy-making division within the Hershey Company.
History
Peter Paul was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1919 by six Armenian immigrants led by Peter Paul Halajian Peter Paul Halajian (1864 ...
(a candy-making division of the Hershey Company
The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...
) was formerly located in the city. Achillion Pharmaceuticals and Alexion Pharmaceuticals were also formerly headquartered in New Haven.
Law and government
Political structure
New Haven is governed via the mayor-council system. Connecticut municipalities (like those of neighboring states Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
and Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
) provide nearly all local services (such as fire and rescue, education, snow removal, etc.), as county government has been abolished since 1960.
New Haven County
New Haven County is a county in the south central part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 864,835, making it the third-most populous county in Connecticut. Two of the state's top 5 largest cities, New ...
merely refers to a grouping of towns and a judicial district, not a governmental entity. New Haven is a member of the South Central Connecticut Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG), a regional agency created to facilitate coordination between area municipal governments and state and federal agencies, in the absence of county government.
Justin Elicker is the mayor of New Haven. He was sworn in as the 51st mayor of New Haven on January 1, 2020.
The city council, called the Board of Alders, consists of thirty members, each elected from single-member wards. Each of the 30 wards consists of slightly over 4,300 residents; redistricting takes place every ten years.
The city is overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2017, of the town's 83,694 voters, 66% were registered as Democrats (-4% since 2015), 4% were registered as Republicans (+1%), and 29% were unaffiliated (+3). The board of alders is dominated by Democrats; a Republican has not served as a New Haven alder since 2011.New Haven's Board of Alders races feature challengers and upcoming primary, ''New Haven Register'' (August 22, 2015). New Haven is served by the
New Haven Police Department
The New Haven Police Department is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of New Haven, Connecticut.
History
Founding and early years
The NHPD was formed with the signing of a bill on July 27, 1861. Its first elected Chief was J ...
, which had 443 sworn officers in 2011. The city is also served by the New Haven Fire Department.
New Haven lies within Connecticut's 3rd congressional district
Connecticut's 3rd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in the central part of the state, the district includes the city of New Haven and its surrounding suburbs.
Principal cities include: ...
and has been represented by Rosa DeLauro
Rosa Luisa DeLauro (; born March 2, 1943) is an American politician who has been the U.S. representative for since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is based in New Haven and includes most of its suburbs. DeLauro is ...
since 1991. Martin Looney and Gary Holder-Winfield
Gary A. Winfield (born March 11, 1974) is an American politician from the state of Connecticut and member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. He serves in the Connecticut State Senate, representing the 10th district. From ...
represent New Haven in the Connecticut State Senate
The Connecticut State Senate is the upper house of the Connecticut General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The state senate comprises 36 members, each representing a district with around 99,280 inhabitants. Sen ...
, and the city lies within six districts (numbers 92 through 97) of the Connecticut House of Representatives
The Connecticut State House of Representatives is the lower house in the Connecticut General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The house is composed of 151 members representing an equal number of districts, with ...
.
The Greater New Haven area is served by the New Haven Judicial District Court and the New Haven Superior Court, both headquartered at the New Haven County Courthouse. The federal District Court for the District of Connecticut has a New Haven facility, the Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse
The Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse is a monumental courthouse of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, located on the east side of the New Haven Green. Built between 1913 and 1919, the structure was spared from ...
.
Political history
New Haven is the birthplace of former president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, who was born when his father, former president George H. W. Bush, was living in New Haven while a student at Yale. In addition to being the site of the college educations of both Presidents Bush, as Yale students, New Haven was also the temporary home of former presidents William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
, as well as Secretary of State John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
. President Clinton met his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, while the two were students at Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...
. Former vice presidents
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
John C. Calhoun and Dick Cheney also studied in New Haven (although the latter did not graduate from Yale). Before the 2008 election, the last time there was not a person with ties to New Haven and Yale on either major party's ticket was 1968. James Hillhouse
James Hillhouse (October 20, 1754 – December 29, 1832) was an American lawyer, real estate developer, and politician from New Haven, Connecticut. He represented the state in both chambers of the US Congress. From February to March 1801, Hill ...
, a New Haven native, served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate in 1801.
New Haven voters overwhelmingly supported Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
in the 2000 election, Yale graduate John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
in 2004, and Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
in 2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
and 2012. In the 2008 election, New Haven County
New Haven County is a county in the south central part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 864,835, making it the third-most populous county in Connecticut. Two of the state's top 5 largest cities, New ...
was third among all Connecticut counties in campaign contributions, after Fairfield and Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
counties. (Connecticut, in turn, was ranked 14th among all states in total campaign contributions.)
New Haven was the subject of '' Who Governs? Democracy and Power in An American City'', a very influential book in political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
by preeminent Yale professor Robert A. Dahl
Robert Alan Dahl (; December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are ...
, which includes an extensive history of the city and thorough description of its politics in the 1950s. New Haven's theocratic history is also mentioned several times by Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wor ...
in his classic volume on 19th-century American political life, ''Democracy in America
(; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to ''On Democracy in America'', but official English translations are usually simply entitl ...
''. New Haven was the residence of conservative thinker William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
, in 1951, when he wrote his influential ''God and Man at Yale
''God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom"'' is a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr., based on his undergraduate experiences at Yale University. Buckley, then aged 25, criticized Yale for forcing collectivist, Keynesian, a ...
''. William Lee Miller's ''The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society'' (1966) similarly explores the relationship between local politics in New Haven and national political movements, focusing on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Universit ...
and urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
.
George Williamson Crawford, a Yale Law School graduate, served as the city's first black corporation counsel from 1954 to 1962, under Mayor Richard C. Lee.
In 1970, the New Haven Black Panther trials
In 1969-1971 there was a series of criminal prosecutions in New Haven, Connecticut, against various members and associates of the Black Panther Party. The charges ranged from criminal conspiracy to first-degree murder. All charges stemmed from t ...
took place, the largest and longest trials in Connecticut history. Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale
Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", ...
and ten other party members were tried for murdering an alleged informant. Beginning on May Day
May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. Tr ...
, the city became a center of protest for 12,000 Panther supporters, college students, and New Left activists (including Jean Genet, Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copies ...
, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin
Jerry Clyde Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman. He is known for being one of the ...
, and John Froines
John Radford Froines (; June 13, 1939 – July 13, 2022) was an American chemist and anti-war activist, noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chica ...
), who amassed on the New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
, across the street from where the trials were being held. Violent confrontations between the demonstrators and the New Haven Police
The New Haven Police Department is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of New Haven, Connecticut.
History
Founding and early years
The NHPD was formed with the signing of a bill on July 27, 1861. Its first elected Chief was ...
occurred, and several bombs were set off in the area by radicals. The event became a rallying point for the New Left and critics of the Nixon Administration
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment because of the Watergate Scanda ...
.
During the summer of 2007, New Haven was the center of protests by anti-immigration
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
groups who opposed the city's program of offering municipal ID cards, known as the Elm City Resident Card, to illegal immigrants
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
. In 2008, the country of Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
opened a consulate
A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth c ...
in New Haven to serve the large Ecuadorean immigrant population in the area. It is the first foreign mission to open in New Haven since Italy opened a consulate (now closed) in the city in 1910.
In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination
Reverse discrimination is a term for discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, nationality ...
brought by 20 white and Hispanic firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no black people, blacks scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. On 29 June 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the firefighters, agreeing that they were improperly denied promotion because of their race.Williams, Joseph (2009-06-30). Supreme Court rules in favor of Conn. firefighters. The Boston Globe. Retrieved on 2009-07-06 froBoston.com
, "Supreme court rules in favor of conn firefighters" The case, ''Ricci v. DeStefano'', became highly publicized and brought national attention to New Haven politics due to the involvement of then-US Supreme Court, Supreme Court nominee (and Yale Law School graduate) Sonia Sotomayor in a lower court decision. Garry Trudeau, creator of the political ''Doonesbury'' comic strip, attended Yale University. There he met fellow student and later Green Party of the United States, Green Party candidate for United States Congress, Congress Charles Pillsbury (attorney), Charles Pillsbury, a long-time New Haven resident for whom Trudeau's comic strip is named. During his college years, Pillsbury was known by the nickname "The Doones". A International legal theory, theory of international law, which argues for a sociological normative approach in regards to jurisprudence, is named the International legal theory#New Haven Approach, New Haven Approach, after the city. Connecticut US senator Richard Blumenthal is a Yale graduate, as is former Connecticut US Senator Joe Lieberman who also was a New Haven resident for many years, before moving back to his hometown of Stamford.
Crime
Crime increased in the 1990s, with New Haven having one of the ten highest violent crime rates per capita in the United States. In the late 1990s New Haven's crime began to stabilize. The city, adopting a policy of neighborhood watch, community policing, saw crime rates drop during the 2000s. Violent crime levels vary dramatically among New Haven's neighborhoods, with some areas having crime rates in line with the state of Connecticut average, and others having extremely high rates of crime. A 2011 New Haven Health Department report identifies these issues in greater detail. In 2010, New Haven ranked as the 18th most dangerous city in the United States (albeit below the safety benchmark of 200.00 for the second year in a row). However, according to a completely different analysis conducted by the "24/7 Wall Street Blog", in 2011 New Haven had risen to become the fourth most dangerous city in the United States, and was widely cited in the press as such. However, an analysis by the Regional Data Cooperative for Greater New Haven, Inc., has shown that due to issues of comparative denominators and other factors, such municipality-based rankings can be considered inaccurate. For example, two cities of identical population can cover widely differing land areas, making such analyses irrelevant. The research organization called for comparisons based on neighborhoods, blocks, or standard methodologies (similar to those used by Brookings, DiversityData, and other established institutions), not based on municipalities.Education
Colleges and universities
New Haven is a notable center for higher education.Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, at the heart of downtown, is one of the city's best known features and its largest employer. New Haven is also home to Southern Connecticut State University
Southern Connecticut State University (Southern Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State, SCSU, or simply Southern) is a public university in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Connecticut State University System, it was founded in 1893 and is ...
, part of the Connecticut State University System, and Albertus Magnus College, a private institution. Gateway Community College has a campus in downtown New Haven, formerly located in the Long Wharf district; Gateway consolidated into one campus downtown into a new state-of-the-art campus (on the site of the old Macy's building) and was open for the Fall 2012 semester.
There are several institutions immediately outside of New Haven, as well. Quinnipiac University and the Paier College of Art are located just to the north, in the town of Hamden. The University of New Haven is located not in New Haven but in neighboring West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
.
Primary and secondary schools
New Haven Public Schools is the school district serving the city. Wilbur Cross High School and Hillhouse High School are New Haven's two largest public secondary schools.Hopkins School
Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1660, Edward Hopkins, seven-time governor of the Connecticut Colony, bequeathed a portion of his estate to found s ...
, a private school, was founded in 1660 and is the fifth-oldest educational institution in the United States. New Haven is home to a number of other private schools as well as public magnet schools, including Metropolitan Business Academy, High School in the Community, Hill Regional Career High School, Co-op High School, New Haven Academy, Edgewood Magnet School, ACES Educational Center for the Arts, the Foote School and the Sound School, all of which draw students from New Haven and suburban towns. New Haven is also home to two Achievement First charter schools, Amistad Academy and Elm City College Prep, and to Common Ground, an environmental charter school.
The city is renowned for its progressive school lunch programs, and participation in statewide bussing efforts toward increased diversity in schools.
Culture
Cuisine
Livability.com named New Haven as the Best Foodie City in the country in 2014. There are dozens of Zagat Survey, Zagat-rated restaurants in New Haven, the most in Connecticut and the third most inNew England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
(after Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge). More than 120 restaurants are located within two blocks of the New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
. The city is home to an eclectic mix of ethnic restaurants and small markets specializing in various foreign foods. Represented cuisines include Malaysian, Ethiopian, Spanish, Belgian, French, Greek, Latin American, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Cuban, Peruvian, Syrian/Lebanese, and Turkish.
New Haven's greatest culinary claim to fame may be its pizza, which has been claimed to be among the best in the country, or even in the world. New Haven-style pizza, called "apizza", made its debut at the iconic Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (known as Pepe's) in 1925. Apizza is baked in coal- or wood-fired brick ovens, and is notable for its thin crust. Apizza may be red (with a tomato-based sauce) or white (with a sauce of garlic and olive oil), and pies ordered "plain" are made without the otherwise customary mozzarella (originally smoked mozzarella, known as "scamorza" in Italian). A white clam pie is a well-known specialty of the restaurants on Wooster Square, Wooster Street in the Little Italy section of New Haven, including Pepe's and Sally's Apizza (which opened in 1938). Modern Apizza on State Street, which opened in 1934, is also well-known.
A second New Haven gastronomical claim to fame is Louis' Lunch
Louis' Lunch is a hamburger restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, which claims to be the first restaurant to serve hamburgers and the oldest hamburger restaurant in the United States. It was opened as a small lunch wagon in 1895 and was one of ...
, which is located in a small brick building on Crown Street and has been serving fast food since 1895. Though fiercely debated, the restaurant's founder Louis Lassen is credited by the Library of Congress with inventing the hamburger
A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, ...
and steak sandwich. Louis' Lunch broiling, broils hamburgers, steak sandwiches and hot dogs vertically in original antique 1898 cast iron stoves using gridiron (cooking), gridirons, patented by local resident Luigi Pieragostini in 1939, that hold the meat in place while it cooks.
A third New Haven gastronomical claim to fame is Miya's, the first sustainable sushi restaurant in the world. Miya's, founded by Chef Yoshiko Lai in 1982, featured the first sustainable seafood-based sushi menu, the first plant-based sushi menu, and the first invasive species menu in the world. Second generation Miya's chef, Bun Lai, is the 2016 White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
Champions of Change for Sustainable Seafood and a James Beard Foundation Award nominee. Chef Bun Lai is credited as the first chef in the world for implementing a sustainability paradigm to the cuisine of sushi.
During weekday lunchtime, over 150 lunch carts and food trucks cater to diners around the city. The carts and food trucks cluster at four main points: on Long Wharf Drive, along the city's shoreline with quick access off Interstate 95, by Yale – New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Haven ...
in the center of the Hospital Green (Cedar and York streets), by Yale's Trumbull College (Elm and York streets), and on the intersection of Prospect and Sachem streets by the Yale School of Management.
Popular farmers' markets, managed by the local non-profit CitySeed, set up shop weekly in several neighborhoods, including Westville/Edgewood Park, Fair Haven, Upper State Street, Wooster Square, and Downtown/New Haven Green.
A large grocery store, the Elm City Market, opened on 360 State Street in New Haven in early fall 2011 and served local produce and groceries to the community. Originally, the market was a member-owned co-op, but debt defaults in August 2014 forced a sale of the business. It is now an employee-owned business; the co-op's previous owners received no equity in the new business.
In the past several years, two separate Downtown food tour companies have started offering popular restaurant tours on weekends.
Taste of New Haven Tours offers several different weekly restaurant/bar tours and a popular pizza, bike, and pints tour. Culinary Walking Tours offers monthly restaurant tours and sponsors an annual Elm City Iron Chef competition.
Theatre and film
The city hosts numerous theatres and production houses, including the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Long Wharf Theatre, and the Shubert Theatre (New Haven), Shubert Theatre. There is also theatre activity from the Yale School of Drama, which works through the Yale University Theatre and the student-run Yale Cabaret.Southern Connecticut State University
Southern Connecticut State University (Southern Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State, SCSU, or simply Southern) is a public university in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Connecticut State University System, it was founded in 1893 and is ...
hosts the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. The shuttered Palace Theatre (opposite the Shubert Theatre) was renovated and reopened as the College Street Music Hall in May, 2015. Smaller theatres include the Little Theater on Lincoln Street. Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School also has a theatre on College Street. The theatre is used for student productions, and is the home to weekly services to a local non-denominational church, the City Church New Haven.
The Shubert Theatre once premiered many major theatrical productions before their Broadway debuts. Productions that premiered at the Shubert include ''Oklahoma!'' (which was also written in New HavenThe Taft Apartment Building—New Haven, Connecticut. Morganreed.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-15.), ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''My Fair Lady'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music'', and the Tennessee Williams play ''A Streetcar Named Desire (play), A Streetcar Named Desire''. Bow Tie Cinemas owns and operates the Criterion Cinemas, the first new movie theater to open in New Haven in over 30 years and the first luxury movie complex in the city's history. The Criterion has seven screens and opened in November 2004, showing a mix of upscale first run commercial and independent film.
Museums
New Haven has a variety of museums, many of them associated with Yale. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library features an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible. There is also the Connecticut Children's Museum; the Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus (K of C) is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. ...
museum near that organization's world headquarters; the Peabody Museum of Natural History; the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments; the Eli Whitney Museum (across the town line in Hamden, Connecticut, on Whitney Avenue); the Yale Center for British Art, which houses the largest collection of British art outside the U.K., and the Yale University Art Gallery, the western hemisphere's oldest college art museum. New Haven is also home to the New Haven Museum and Historical Society on Whitney Avenue, which has a library of many primary source treasures dating from Colonial times to the present.
Artspace, New Haven, Artspace on Orange Street is one of several contemporary art galleries around the city, showcasing the work of local, national, and international artists. Others include City Gallery and A. Leaf Gallery in the downtown area. Westville galleries include Kehler Liddell, Jennifer Jane Gallery, and The Hungry Eye. The Erector Square complex in the Fair Haven neighborhood houses, the Parachute Factory gallery along with numerous artist studios, and the complex serves as an active destination during City-Wide Open Studios held yearly in October.
New Haven is the home port of a life-size replica of the historical ''Amistad (ship replica), Freedom Schooner Amistad'', which is open for tours at Long Wharf pier at certain times during the summer. Also at Long Wharf pier is the ''Quinnipiack'' schooner, offering sailing cruises of the harbor area throughout the summer. The ''Quinnipiack'' also functions as a floating classroom for hundreds of local students.
Music
The New Haven Green is the site of many free music concerts, especially during the summer months. These have included the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the July Free Concerts on the Green, and the New Haven Jazz Festival in August. The Jazz Festival, which began in 1982, is one of the longest-running free outdoor festivals in the U.S., until it was canceled for 2007. Headliners such as The Breakfast, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles and Celia Cruz have historically drawn 30,000 to 50,000 fans, filling up the New Haven Green to capacity. The New Haven Jazz Festival was revived in 2008 and has been sponsored since by Jazz Haven. New Haven is home to the concert venue Toad's Place, and a new venue, College Street Music Hall. The city has retained an alternative art and music underground that has helped to influence post-punk era music movements such as indie rock, indie, college rock and underground hip-hop. Other local venues include Cafe Nine, BAR, Pacific Standard Tavern, Stella Blues, Three Sheets, Firehouse 12, and Rudy's. The Yale School of Music contributes to the city's music scene by offering hundreds of free concerts throughout the year at venues in and around the Yale campus. Large performances are held in the 2,700-seat Woolsey Hall auditorium, which contains the Newberry Memorial Organ, world's largest symphonic organs, while chamber music and recitals are performed in Sprague Hall. Heavy metal music, Hardcore band Hatebreed are from Wallingford, but got their start in New Haven under the name Jasta 14 (band), Jasta 14. The band Miracle Legion formed in New Haven in 1983. Folk musicians from New Haven include Loren Mazzacane Connors and Kath Bloom. The Hillhouse Opera Company is a U.S. non-profit opera company based in New Haven that performs in the New Haven area. Founded in 2008 by Victoria Leigh Gardner, Nicole Rodriguez and Jim Coatsworth Hillhouse Opera Company has performed operas as well as opera scenes programs, master classes and concert series. In 2011, the Company professionally staged the works created through the Riverview Opera Project. The Riverview Opera Project created workshops for children and adolescents at Riverview Hospital, Connecticut's only state-funded psychiatric hospital for youth, and helped them to successfully create, produce, and perform four original operas.Festivals
In addition to the Jazz Festival (described above), New Haven serves as the home city of the annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas. New Haven's Saint Patrick's Day parade, which began in 1842, isNew England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
's oldest and draws the largest crowds of any one-day spectator event in Connecticut. The St. Andrew the Apostle Italian Festival has taken place in the historic Wooster Square
Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel S ...
neighborhood every year since 1900. Other parishes in the city celebrate the Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua and a carnival in honor of St. Bernadette Soubirous. New Haven celebrates Powder House Day every April on the New Haven Green to commemorate the city's entrance into the American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War. The annual Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1973 planting of 72 Prunus × yedoensis, Yoshino Japanese cherry blossom trees by the New Haven Historic Commission in collaboration with the New Haven Parks Department and residents of the neighborhood. The Festival now draws well over 5,000 visitors. The Film Fest New Haven has been held annually since 1995.
Nightlife
In the past decade downtown has seen an influx of new restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Large crowds are drawn to the Crown Street area downtown on weekends where many of the restaurants and bars are located. Crown Street between State and High Streets has dozens of establishments, as do nearby Temple and College Streets. Away from downtown, Upper State Street has a number of restaurants and bars popular with local residents and weekend visitors.Newspapers and media
New Haven is served by the daily ''New Haven Register'', the weekly "alternative" ''New Haven Advocate'' (which is run by Tribune, the corporation owning the ''Hartford Courant''), the online daily ''New Haven Independent'', and the monthly ''Grand News Community Newspaper.'' Downtown New Haven is covered by an in-depth civic news forum, Design New Haven. The ''Register'' also backs ''PLAY (magazine), PLAY'' magazine, a weekly entertainment publication. The city is also served by several student-run papers, including the ''Yale Daily News'', the weekly ''Yale Herald'' and a humor tabloid, ''Rumpus Magazine''. WTNH Channel 8, the American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate for Connecticut, WCTX Channel 59, the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the state, Connecticut Public Television station WEDY channel 65, a Public Broadcasting Service, PBS affiliate, and WTXX Channel 34, the IntrigueTV affiliate, broadcast from New Haven. All New York City news and sports team stations broadcast to New Haven County.Sports and athletics
New Haven has a history of professional sports franchises dating back to the 19th century and has been the home to professional baseball, basketball, American football, football, ice hockey, hockey, and soccer teams—including the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1973 to 1974, who played at the Yale Bowl. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, New Haven consistently had minor league hockey and baseball teams, which played at the New Haven Arena (built in 1926, demolished in 1972), New Haven Coliseum
New Haven Coliseum was a sports and entertainment arena located in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. Construction began in 1968 and was completed in 1972. The Coliseum was officially closed on September 1, 2002, by Mayor John DeStefano Jr., and d ...
(1972–2002), and Yale Field (1928–present).
When John DeStefano, Jr., became mayor of New Haven in 1995, he outlined a plan to transform the city into a major cultural and arts center in the Northeast United States, Northeast, which involved investments in programs and projects other than sports franchises. As nearby Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnoc ...
built new sports facilities, the brutalist New Haven Coliseum rapidly deteriorated. Believing the upkeep on the venue to be a drain of tax dollars, the DeStefano administration closed the Coliseum in 2002; it was demolished in 2007. New Haven's last professional sports team, the New Haven County Cutters, left in 2009. The DeStefano administration did, however, see the construction of the New Haven Athletic Center in 1998, a indoor athletic facility with a seating capacity of over 3,000. The NHAC, built adjacent to Hillhouse High School, is used for New Haven public schools athletics, as well as large-scale area and state sporting events; it is the largest high school indoor sports complex in the state.
New Haven was the host of the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games; then-President Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
spoke at the opening ceremonies. The city is home to the New Haven Open at Yale, Pilot Pen International tennis event, which takes place every August at the Connecticut Tennis Center, one of the largest tennis venues in the world. New Haven biannually hosts "Harvard–Yale football rivalry, The Game" between Yale and Harvard University, Harvard, the country's second-oldest college football rivalry. Numerous road running, road races take place in New Haven, including the USATF 20K Championship during the New Haven Road Race.
Greater New Haven Greater New Haven is the metropolitan area whose extent includes those towns in the U.S. state of Connecticut that share an economic, social, political, and historical focus on the city of New Haven. It occupies the south-central portion of the sta ...
is home to a number of college sports teams. The Yale Bulldogs play Division I college sports, as do the Quinnipiac Bobcats in neighboring Hamden. Division II athletics are played by Southern Connecticut State University
Southern Connecticut State University (Southern Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State, SCSU, or simply Southern) is a public university in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Connecticut State University System, it was founded in 1893 and is ...
and the University of New Haven (actually located in neighboring West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
), while Albertus Magnus College athletes perform at the Division III level.
New Haven is home to many New York Yankees, New York Mets, & Boston Red Sox fans due to the proximity of New York City & Boston.
Walter Camp, deemed the "father of American football," was a New Havener.
The New Haven Warriors rugby league team play in the AMNRL. They have a large number of Pacific Islanders playing for them. Their field is located at the West Haven High School's Ken Strong Stadium. They won the 2008 AMNRL Grand Final.
Structures
Architecture
New Haven has many architectural landmarks dating from every important time period and architectural style in American history. The city has been home to a number of architects and architectural firms that have left their mark on the city including Ithiel Town and Henry Austin (architect), Henry Austin in the 19th century and Cesar Pelli, Warren Platner, Kevin Roche, Herbert Newman and Barry Svigals in the 20th. The Yale School of Architecture has fostered this important component of the city's economy. Cass Gilbert, of the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts school, designed New Haven's Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
and the New Haven Free Public Library and was also commissioned for a City Beautiful plan in 1919. Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Alexander Jackson Davis, Philip Johnson, Philip C. Johnson, Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, James Gamble Rogers, Frank Gehry, Charles Willard Moore, Behnisch Architekten, Stefan Behnisch, James Polshek, Paul Rudolph (architect), Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen and Robert Venturi all have designed buildings in New Haven. Yale's 1950s-era Ingalls Rink, designed by Eero Saarinen, was included on the ''America's Favorite Architecture'' list created in 2007.
Several residential homes in New Haven were designed by Alice Washburn, a noted female architect whose Colonial Revival style set a standard for homes in the region.
Many of the city's neighborhoods are well-preserved as walkable "museums" of 19th- and 20th-century American architecture, particularly by the New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
, Hillhouse Avenue and other residential sections close to Downtown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
. Overall, a large proportion of the city's land area is National (NRHP) historic districts. One of the best sources on local architecture is ''New Haven: Architecture and Urban Design'', by Elizabeth Mills Brown.
The five tallest buildings in New Haven are:
# Connecticut Financial Center 383 ft (117m) 26 floors
# 360 State Street
360 State Street is a residential skyscraper completed in 2010 in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the second-tallest building in the city, and the largest apartment building in the state. DeSimone Consulting Engineers were the structural engineer ...
338 ft (103m) 32 floors
# Knights of Columbus Building (New Haven, Connecticut), Knights of Columbus Building 321 ft (98m) 23 floors
# Kline Biology Tower 250 ft (76m) 16 floors
# Crown Towers (New Haven, Connecticut), Crown Towers 233 ft (71m) 22 floors
Historic points of interest
Many historical sites exist throughout the city, including National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut, 59 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Of these, nine are among the List of National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut, 60 U.S. National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut. The New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
, one of the National Historic Landmarks, was formed in 1638, and is home to three 19th-century churches. Below the First Church of Christ in New Haven (referred to as the Center Church on the Green) lies a 17th-century crypt, which is open to visitors. Some of the more famous burials include the first wife of Benedict Arnold and the aunt and grandmother of President Rutherford B. Hayes; Hayes visited the crypt while President in 1880. The Old Campus of Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
is located next to the Green, and includes Connecticut Hall, Yale's oldest building and a National Historic Landmark. The Hillhouse Avenue area, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a part of Yale's campus, has been called a walkable museum, due to its 19th-century mansions and street scape; Charles Dickens is said to have called Hillhouse Avenue "the most beautiful street in America" when visiting the city in 1868.
In 1660, Edward Whalley
Edward Whalley (c. 1607 – c. 1675) was an English military leader during the English Civil War and was one of the regicides who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England.
Early career
The exact dates of his birth and death are unk ...
(a cousin and friend of Oliver Cromwell) and William Goffe
Major-General William Goffe, in or before 1618 to , was an English religious radical and soldier who fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and served in the New Model Army. A close associate and supporter of Oliver Cromwell, he ...
, two English Civil War generals who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England, King Charles I, hid in a rock formation in New Haven after having fled England upon the Restoration (England), restoration of Charles II to the English throne. They were later joined by a third regicide, John Dixwell
John Dixwell (1607 – 18 March 1689) was an English man who sat in Parliament, fought for the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War, and was one of the Commissioners who sat in judgement on King Charles I and condemned him to death. At ...
. The rock formation, which is now a part of West Rock Park, is known as Judges' Cave, and the path leading to the cave is called the Regicides Trail.
After the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, the Connecticut Colony, Connecticut colonial government ordered the construction of Fort Nathan Hale, Black Rock Fort (to be built on top of an older 17th-century fort) to protect the port of New Haven. In 1779, during the Tryon's raid, Battle of New Haven, British soldiers captured Black Rock Fort and burned the barracks to the ground. The fort was reconstructed in 1807 by the federal government (on orders from the Thomas Jefferson administration), and rechristened Fort Nathan Hale, after the Nathan Hale, Revolutionary War hero who had lived in New Haven. The cannons of Fort Nathan Hale were successful in defying British war ships during the War of 1812. In 1863, during the American Civil War, Civil War, a Fort Nathan Hale, second Fort Hale was built next to the original, complete with bomb-resistant bunkers and a moat, to defend the city should a Confederate States of America, Southern raid against New Haven be launched. The United States Congress deeded the site to the state in 1921, and all three versions of the fort have been restored. The site is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and receives thousands of visitors each year.
Grove Street Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark which lies adjacent to Yale's campus, contains the graves of Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an American statesman, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign four of the great state papers of the United States related to the founding: the Con ...
, Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Charles Goodyear
Charles Goodyear (December 29, 1800 – July 1, 1860) was an American self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber, for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844. ...
and Walter Camp, among other notable burials. The cemetery is noted for its Egyptian Revival gateway, and is the oldest planned burial ground in the United States. The Union League, Union League Club of New Haven building, located on Chapel Street, is notable for not only being a historic Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts building, but also is built on the site where Roger Sherman's home once stood; George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
is known to have stayed at the Sherman residence while President in 1789 (one of three times Washington visited New Haven throughout his lifetime).
Two sites pay homage to the time President and Chief Justice of the United States, Chief Justice William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
lived in the city, as both a student and later Professor at Yale: a plaque on Prospect Street marks the site where Taft's home formerly stood, and downtown's Taft Apartment Building (formerly the Taft Hotel) bears the name of the former president who resided in the building for eight years before becoming Chief Justice of the United States.
Lighthouse Point Park, a public beach run by the city, was a popular tourist destination during the Roaring Twenties, attracting luminaries of the period such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. The park remains popular among New Haveners, and is home to the Five Mile Point Lighthouse, constructed in 1847, and the Lighthouse Point Carousel, constructed in 1916. Five Mile Point Light was decommissioned in 1877 following the construction of Southwest Ledge Light at the entrance of the harbor, which remains in service to this day. Both of the lighthouses and the carousel are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Other historic sites in the city include the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (New Haven), Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which stands at the summit of East Rock
East Rock of south-central Connecticut, United States, with a high point of , is a long trap rock ridge located primarily in the neighborhood of East Rock on the north side of the city of New Haven. A prominent landscape feature and a popular ...
, the Marsh Botanical Garden, Wooster Square
Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel S ...
, Dwight Street Historic District, Dwight Street, Louis' Lunch
Louis' Lunch is a hamburger restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, which claims to be the first restaurant to serve hamburgers and the oldest hamburger restaurant in the United States. It was opened as a small lunch wagon in 1895 and was one of ...
, and the Farmington Canal
The Farmington Canal, also known as the New Haven and Northampton Canal, was a major private canal built in the early 19th century to provide water transportation from New Haven into the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond. Its Mass ...
, all of which date back to the 19th century. Other historic parks besides the Green include Edgerton (Hamden and New Haven, Connecticut), Edgerton Park, Edgewood Park, and East Rock Park, each of which is included on the National Register of Historic Places.
Transportation
Rail
New Haven is connected to New York City and points along the Northeast Corridor by commuter rail, regional rail and inter-city rail. Service is provided by:
* Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line (commuter rail) to points west, such as Bridgeport, Stamford, Greenwich, and New York City
* Shore Line East (commuter rail) to points east, such as Old Saybrook and New London, with limited rush-hour service west to Stamford
* Hartford Line
The Hartford Line is a commuter rail service between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, using the Amtrak-owned New Haven–Springfield Line. The project is a joint venture between the states of Connecticut and Massachuset ...
(commuter rail) to points north, such as Meriden, Hartford, Windsor, and Springfield, Massachusetts
* Amtrak (regional and intercity rail)
The city's main railroad station is the historic Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
, which serves Metro-North, Hartford Line, and Shore Line East commuter trains. Union Station is also served by four Amtrak lines: the ''Northeast Regional'' and the high-speed rail, high-speed ''Acela Express'' provide service to New York, Washington, D.C. and Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, and rank as the first and second busiest routes in the country; the New Haven–Springfield Line provides service to Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
and Springfield, Massachusetts; and the ''Vermonter (train), Vermonter'' provides service to both Washington, D.C., and Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, from the Canada–United States border, Canada–US border. Amtrak also codeshares with United Airlines for travel to any airport serviced by United Airlines, via Newark Liberty International Airport originating from or terminating at Union Station .
An additional station, State Street Station (New Haven), State Street Station, was opened in 2002, providing passengers easier access to downtown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
. State Street Station is currently serviced by Shore Line East and Hartford Line trains, plus some peak-hour Metro-North trips.
Bus
The Connecticut Transit New Haven, New Haven Division of Connecticut Transit (CT Transit), the state's bus system, is the second largest division in the state with 24 routes. All routes originate from the New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New ...
, making it the central transfer hub of the city. Service is provided to 19 different municipalities throughout Greater New Haven Greater New Haven is the metropolitan area whose extent includes those towns in the U.S. state of Connecticut that share an economic, social, political, and historical focus on the city of New Haven. It occupies the south-central portion of the sta ...
. Bus routes were formerly identified by letters, but as of October 8, 2017, all service was renamed using 200-series numbers, in accordance with a renumbering of CTtransit's statewide services.
CT Transit's Union Station Shuttle provides free service from Union Station to the New Haven Green and several New Haven parking garages. Peter Pan Bus Lines, Peter Pan and Greyhound Lines, Greyhound bus lines have scheduled stops at Union Station, and connections downtown can be made via the Union Station Shuttle. A private company operates the New Haven/Hartford Express which provides commuter bus service to Hartford. The Yale University Shuttle provides free transportation around New Haven for Yale students, faculty, and staff.
The New Haven Division buses follow routes that had originally been covered by tram, trolley service. Horsecar, Horse-drawn streetcars began operating in New Haven in the 1860s, and by the mid-1890s all the lines had become electric. In the 1920s and 1930s, some of the trolley lines began to be replaced by bus lines, with the last trolley route converted to bus in 1948. The City of New Haven is in the very early stages of considering the restoration of streetcar (light-rail) service, which has been absent since the postwar period.
Bicycle
Bikeshare
On February 21, 2018, New Haven officially launched its Bike New Haven bikeshare program. based on dockless technology powered by Noa Technologies At time of launch, the program features 10 docking stations and 100 bikes, spread throughout the urban core; there are plans to reach 30 bike stations and 300 bikes by the end of April 2018. The launch of the New Haven bikeshare program coincided with the launch of Yale University's own bikeshare program, which uses the same technology powered by Noa.Bike lanes
In 2004, the first bike lane in the city was added to Orange Street, connecting East Rock Park and the East Rock (neighborhood), East Rock neighborhood to downtown. Since then, bike lanes have also been added to sections of Howard Ave, Elm St, Dixwell Avenue, Water Street, Clinton Avenue and State Street. The city has created recommended bike routes for getting around New Haven, including use of the Canal Trail and the Orange Street lane. As of the end of 2012, bicycle lanes have also been added in both directions on Dixwell Avenue along most of the street from downtown to the Hamden town line, as well as along Howard Avenue from Yale New Haven Hospital to City Point. The city has plans to create two additional bike lanes connecting Union Station with downtown, and the Westville neighborhood with downtown. The city has added dozens of covered bicycle parking, bike parking spots at Union Station, in order to facilitate more bike commuting to the station.Farmington Canal Greenway
The Farmington Canal Trail is a rail trail that will eventually run continuously from downtown New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts. The scenic trail follows the path of the historic New Haven and Northampton Company and theFarmington Canal
The Farmington Canal, also known as the New Haven and Northampton Canal, was a major private canal built in the early 19th century to provide water transportation from New Haven into the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and beyond. Its Mass ...
. Currently, there is a continuous stretch of the trail from downtown, through Hamden and into Cheshire, Connecticut, Cheshire, making bicycle commuting between New Haven and those suburbs possible. The trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, a proposed bike path that would link every major city on the East Coast of the United States, East Coast from Florida to Maine.
Roads
New Haven lies at the intersection of Interstate 95 on the coast—which provides access southwards and/or westwards to the western coast of Connecticut and to New York City, and eastwards to the eastern Connecticut shoreline,Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
, and eastern Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
—and Interstate 91
Interstate 91 (I-91) is an Interstate Highway in the New England region of the United States. It provides the primary north–south thoroughfare in the western part of the region. The Interstate generally follows the course of the Conne ...
, which leads northward to the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and the Canada–US border. I-95 is infamous for traffic jams increasing with proximity to New York City; on the east side of New Haven it passes over the Quinnipiac River via the Pearl Harbor Memorial, or "Q Bridge
The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, commonly referred to as the Q Bridge by locals, is an extradosed bridge that carries Interstate 95 (Connecticut Turnpike) over the mouth of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, in the U.S. state of Connecticut. This ...
", which often presents a major bottleneck to traffic. I-91, however, is relatively less congested, except at the intersection with I-95 during peak travel times.
The Oak Street Connector (Connecticut Route 34) intersects I-91 at exit 1, just south of the I-95/I-91 interchange, and runs northwest for a few blocks as an expressway spur into downtown before emptying onto surface roads. The Wilbur Cross Parkway
The Wilbur Cross Parkway (also known locally as "The Merritt" in conjunction with its counterpart) is a limited access road in Connecticut, comprising the portion of Route 15 between Milford and Meriden. It is named after Wilbur Lucius Cross ...
(Connecticut Route 15) runs parallel to I-95 west of New Haven, turning northwards as it nears the city and then running northwards parallel to I-91 through the outer rim of New Haven and Hamden, offering an alternative to the I-95/I-91 journey (restricted to non-commercial vehicles). Route 15 in New Haven is the site of the only highway tunnel in the state (officially designated as Heroes Tunnel), running through West Rock
West Rock Ridge or West Rock of south-central Connecticut, is a long trap rock mountain ridge located on the west side of New Haven with a high point of . The ridge forms a continuous line of exposed cliffs visible from metropolitan New Haven an ...
, home to West Rock Park and the Three Judges Cave.
The city also has several major surface arteries. U.S. Route 1 in Connecticut, U.S. Route 1 (Columbus Avenue, Union Avenue, Water Street, Forbes Avenue) runs in an east–west direction south of downtown serving Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
and leading out of the city to Milford, Connecticut, Milford, West Haven
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
, East Haven, Connecticut, East Haven and Branford, Connecticut, Branford. The main road from downtown heading northwest is Whalley Avenue (partly signed as Connecticut Route 10, Route 10 and Connecticut Route 63, Route 63) leading to Westville and Woodbridge, Connecticut, Woodbridge. Heading north towards Hamden, there are two major thoroughfares, Dixwell Avenue and Whitney Avenue. To the northeast are Middletown Avenue (Connecticut Route 17, Route 17), which leads to the Montowese section of North Haven, and Foxon Boulevard (Connecticut Route 80, Route 80), which leads to the Foxon section of East Haven and to the town of North Branford, Connecticut, North Branford. To the west is Route 34
The following highways are numbered 34: for a list of roads numbered N34 : see list of N34 roads.
International
* AH34, Asian Highway 34
* European route E34
Australia
* Cox Peninsula Road (Northern Territory)
* (Sydney)
* Maroondah Highway (Vi ...
, which leads to the city of Derby, Connecticut, Derby. Other major intracity arteries are Ella Grasso Boulevard (Connecticut Route 10, Route 10) west of downtown, and College Street, Temple Street, Church Street, Elm Street, and Grove Street in the downtown area.
Traffic safety is a major concern for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists in New Haven. In addition to many traffic-related fatalities in the city each year, since 2005, over a dozen Yale students, staff and faculty have been killed or injured in traffic collisions on or near the campus.
Airport
Tweed New Haven Regional Airport is located within the city limits east of the business district. Avelo Airlines flies nonstop to cities across Florida, including Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach. Bus service betweenDowntown New Haven
Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central ...
and Tweed is available via the Connecticut Transit New Haven, CT Transit New Haven Division. Taxi service and rental cars are available at the airport. Travel time from Tweed to downtown takes approximately 15 minutes by car.
Other nearby airports include:
*Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
*Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Seaport
New Haven Harbor
New Haven Harbor is an inlet on the north side of Long Island Sound in the state of Connecticut]. The harbor area is an inlet carved by the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age approximately 13,000 years ago.
The city of New Haven and ...
is home to the Port of New Haven, a deep-water seaport with three berths capable of hosting vessels and barges as well as the facilities required to handle break bulk cargo. The port has the capacity to load 200 trucks a day from the ground or via loading docks. Rail transportation access is available, with a private switch engine for yard movements and private siding for loading and unloading. Approximately of inside storage and of outside storage are available at the site. Five shore cranes with a 250-ton capacity and 26 forklifts, each with a 26-ton capacity, are also available.
On June 17, 2013, the city commissioned the Nathan Hale (fireboat), ''Nathan Hale'', a port security vessel capable of serving search and rescue, firefighting, and constabulary roles.
Infrastructure
Hospitals and medicine
The New Haven area supports several medical facilities that are considered some of the best hospitals in the country. There are two major medical centers downtown:Yale – New Haven Hospital
Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Haven ...
has four pavilions, including the Yale – New Haven Children's Hospital and the Smilow Cancer Hospital; the Hospital of Saint Raphael is several blocks north, and touts its excellent cardiac emergency care program. Smaller downtown health facilities are the Temple Medical Center located downtown on Temple Street, Connecticut Mental Health Center/ across Park Street from Y-NHH, and the Hill Health Center, which serves the working-class Hill neighborhood. A large Veterans Affairs hospital is located in neighboring West Haven. To the west in Milford, Connecticut, Milford is Milford Hospital (Connecticut), Milford Hospital, and to the north in Meriden, Connecticut, Meriden is the MidState Medical Center.
Yale and New Haven are working to build a medical and biotechnology research hub in the city and Greater New Haven region, and are succeeding to some extent. The city, state and Yale together run Science Park, a large site three blocks northwest of Yale's Science Hill (Yale University), Science Hill campus.[citation forthcoming] This multi-block site, approximately bordered by Mansfield Street, Division Street, and Shelton Avenue, is the former home of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, Winchester's and Olin Corporation's 45 large-scale factory buildings. Currently, sections of the site are large-scale parking lots or abandoned structures, but there is also a large remodeled and functioning area of buildings (leased primarily by a private developer) with numerous Yale employees, financial service and biotech companies.
A second biotechnology district is being planned for the median strip on Frontage Road, on land cleared for the never-built Route 34
The following highways are numbered 34: for a list of roads numbered N34 : see list of N34 roads.
International
* AH34, Asian Highway 34
* European route E34
Australia
* Cox Peninsula Road (Northern Territory)
* (Sydney)
* Maroondah Highway (Vi ...
extension. As of late 2009, a Pfizer drug-testing clinic, a medical laboratory building serving Yale – New Haven Hospital, and a mixed-use structure containing parking, housing and office space, have been constructed on this corridor. A former Southern New England Telephone, SNET telephone building at 300 George Street is being converted into lab space, and has been quite successful so far in attracting biotechnology and medical firms.
Power supply facilities
Electricity for New Haven is generated by a 448 MW oil and gas-fired generating station located on the shore at New Haven Harbor. PPL Corporation operates a 220 MW peaking natural gas turbine plant in nearby Wallingford. Near New Haven there is the static inverter plant of the HVDC Cross Sound Cable. There are three PureCell System, PureCell Model 400 fuel cells placed in the city of New Haven—one at the New Haven Public Schools and newly constructed Roberto Clemente School, one at the mixed-use360 State Street
360 State Street is a residential skyscraper completed in 2010 in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the second-tallest building in the city, and the largest apartment building in the state. DeSimone Consulting Engineers were the structural engineer ...
building, and one at New Haven City Hall and County Courthouse, City Hall. According to Giovanni Zinn of the city's Office of Sustainability, each fuel cell may save the city up to $1 million in energy costs over a decade. The fuel cells were provided by ClearEdge Power, formerly UTC Power. Additional fuel cells are located at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and at the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA). IKEA, Ikea's New Haven facility also utilizes a 250 kW fuel cell and 940.8 kW solar array.
New Haven recently installed solar panels at 11 city schools with a combined power generation capacity of 1.8 MW. Owned and maintained by Greenskies, the panels allow New Haven to purchase electricity at a discounted rate through a power-purchasing agreement. The panels bring New Haven's solar capacity to 2.8 MW and will help New Haven meet its commitment to powering 100% of its municipal operations through clean energy, which it made in Summer 2017 and reaffirmed in the 2018 New Haven Climate and Sustainability Framework.
In popular culture
Several recent movies have been filmed in New Haven, including ''Mona Lisa Smile'' (2003), with Julia Roberts, ''The Life Before Her Eyes'' (2007), with Uma Thurman, and ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' (2008) directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf. The filming of ''Crystal Skull'' involved an extensive chase sequence through the streets of New Haven. Several downtown streets were closed to traffic and received a "makeover" to look like streets of 1957, when the film is set. 500 locals were cast as extras for the film. In ''Everybody's Fine (2009 film), Everybody's Fine'' (2009), Robert De Niro has a close encounter in what is supposed to be the Denver train station; the scene was filmed in New Haven's Union Station. New Haven is mentioned in the song Peace Frog by The Doors, referencing a 1967 incident where Morrison was arrested for "attempting to incite a riot" in the middle of a concert at the New Haven Arena.
Notable people
Sister cities
New Haven's Sister city, sister cities are: * Afula, Israel * Amalfi, Italy * Avignon, France * Changsha, China * Freetown, Sierra Leone * Huế, Vietnam * León, Nicaragua, Nicaragua * San Francisco Tetlanohcan Municipality, San Francisco Tetlanohcan, Mexico Some of these were selected because of historical connection—Freetown because of the ''Amistad'' trial. Others, such as Amalfi and Afula, reflect ethnic groups in New Haven. In 1990, the United Nations named New Haven a "United Nations Peace Messenger Cities, Peace Messenger City".See also
* National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut * New Haven Fire Department *New Haven Police Department
The New Haven Police Department is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of New Haven, Connecticut.
History
Founding and early years
The NHPD was formed with the signing of a bill on July 27, 1861. Its first elected Chief was J ...
* Coast Guard Station New Haven
* Human coronavirus NL63, New Haven Coronavirus
References
Further reading
* Leonard Bacon, ''Thirteen Historical Discourses'' (New Haven, 1839) * C. H. Hoadley (editor), ''Records of the Colony of New Haven, 1638–1665'' (two volumes, Hartford, 1857–58) * J. W. Barber, ''History and Antiquities of New Haven'' (third edition, New Haven, 1870) * C. H. Levermore, ''Town and City Government of New Haven'' (Baltimore, 1886) * C. H. Levermore, ''Republic of New Haven: A History of Municipal Evolution'' (Baltimore, 1886) * E. S. Bartlett, ''Historical Sketches of New Haven'' (New Haven, 1897) * F. H. Cogswell, "New Haven" in L. P. Powell (editor), ''Historic Towns of New England'' (New York, 1898) * H. T. Blake, ''Chronicles of New Haven Green'' (New Haven, 1898) * E. E. Atwater, ''History of the Colony of New Haven'' (New edition, New Haven, 1902) * *Robert A. Dahl
Robert Alan Dahl (; December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are ...
, ''Who Governs?, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in An American City'' (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1961)
* William Lee Miller, ''The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society'' (Houghton Mifflin/Riverside, 1966)
* Douglas W. Rae, ''City: Urbanism and Its End'' (New Haven, 2003)
* ''New Haven City Yearbooks''
* Michael Sletcher, ''New Haven: From Puritanism to the Age of Terrorism'' (Charleston, 2004)
* Preston C. Maynard and Majorey B. Noyes, (editors), "Carriages and Clocks, Corsets and Locks: the Rise and Fall of an Industrial City—New Haven, Connecticut" (University Press of New England, 2005)
* Mandi Isaacs Jackson, ''Model City Blues: Urban Space and Organized Resistance in New Haven'' (Temple University Press, 2008)
* James Cersonsky, "Whose New Haven? Reversing the Slant of the Knowledge Economy" (''Dissent'', February 15, 2011)
* Paul Bass, "New Hope for New Haven, Connecticut" (''Nation'', January 25, 2012)
External links
* {{Authority control New Haven, Connecticut, Cities in Connecticut Cities in New Haven County, Connecticut Cities in the New York metropolitan area Former state capitals in the United States, Connecticut Populated coastal places in Connecticut Populated places established in 1638 Port cities and towns of the United States Atlantic coast 1638 establishments in Connecticut Hispanic and Latino American culture in Connecticut