Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, to the east of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. The name refers to a park square (named for the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel Street and Academy Street in the center of the neighborhood. Wooster Square is also known as Little Italy: a bastion of

Italian American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

culture and cuisine, and is home to some of New Haven's (and the country's), best-known

pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

(specifically, apizza) eateries, including Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza. The square and much of the neighborhood are included in the Wooster Square Historic District, which was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1971. An annua
Cherry Blossom Festival
in Wooster Square Park commemorates the planting of 72 Yoshino Japanese cherry blossom trees in 1973 by the New Haven Historic Commission in collaboration with the New Haven Parks Department and neighborhood residents. The festival, founded and organized by the Historic Wooster Square Association, has grown from a modest event in the early 1970s with a local band entertaining a handful of neighbors under lighted trees to a major New Haven event that in 2016 attracted over 10,000 visitors.

Geography

The Wooster Square neighborhood consists of the area between the

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

railroad tracks (serving as the boundary with Downtown New Haven) and

Interstate 91 Interstate 91 (I-91) is an Interstate Highway in the New England region of the United States. It is the primary north–south thoroughfare in the western part of the region. Its southern terminus is in New Haven, Connecticut, at I-95, whi ...

(between Exits 1 and 3), bounded on the south by the Oak Street Connector. It is bordered on the west by

Downtown New Haven Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut, 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 imme ...

, on the south by Long Wharf, on the east by the neighborhood of Mill River, and on the north by East Rock.

History

Wooster Square takes its name from Revolutionary War General David Wooster, who had a

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...

near Water Street. In 1825 the land was purchased by the city of New Haven and incorporated into the city. At that time, the area was close to the city's waterfront (it is now farther inland due to

harbor A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be moored. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is ...

filling), and by the 1840s it had become a residential area where ship captains and wholesale grocers built large houses near the port.Sara E. Thomas (2008)
My Maps, My Neighborhood
Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Curriculum Unit 08.03.07 As a result, Wooster Square now includes a concentrated collection of distinctive 19th-century residential architecture, including several buildings by New Haven architect Henry Austin. Included are examples of the Federal,

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

, Islamic Revival, and Italian Villa styles, Late Victorian

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

row houses, and Second Empire and Queen Anne homes.Wooster Square Historic District
The New Haven Preservation Trust website By the late 19th century, increased industrial activity in the vicinity made Wooster Square less desirable as a residential neighborhood, and Italian

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

families began to move in and operate small stores out of their homes. This commercial activity damaged the neighborhood's reputation, and the area was targeted for demolition and redevelopment as early as the 1930s. In the mid-1950s, plans called for building

through Wooster Square Park, but the Wooster Square Project, which started in 1958, began a neighborhood revival and resulted in re-routing of the highway. Wooster Square made headlines on June 24, 2020, when its Christopher Columbus statue was removed by a city-hired crew in the aftermath of the

George Floyd Protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...

. City officials later announced the commission of a new statue to replace the Columbus statue. The new statue, which was installed in May 2024, depicts an Italian family.

Culture and commerce

Wooster Square is home to restaurants and bakeries known for their pizza and Italian pastries, local businesses, and a weekly

farmer's market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...

, City Seed. Its walkable proximity to

, its architecture, and its neighborhood feel, make it one of the most sought-after New Haven neighborhoods in which to live. It also has a thriving art scene. A

sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the Ancient Greek () meaning . Species of otherwise unrelated trees known as sycamore: * ''Acer pseudoplatanus'', a ...

tree on the west side of Wooster Square Park has been said by some observers to resemble an outline image of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

List of streets

*Academy Street *Artizan Street *Bradley Street *Bridge Street *Brown Street *Chapel Street *Chestnut Street *Court Street *Depalma Court *East Street *Fair Street *Forbes Avenue *Franklin Street *Grand Avenue *Greene Street *Hamilton Street *Hughes Place *Ives Place *Jefferson *Lyon Street *New Street *Olive Street *Osborn Street *Saint John Street *Union Street *Wallace Street *Warren Street *Water Street *William Street *Wooster Place *Wooster Street (named for Revolutionary War hero David Wooster)

Notable People

* Hunter Biden (former resident) - lawyer, second son of President

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

* Rosa DeLauro (born and raised) - U.S. Congresswoman

References

General sources

* Harrison's Illustrated Guide: Greater New Haven * Michael Sletcher, ''New Haven: From Puritanism to the Age of Terrorism'', (Charleston, 2004)

Notes

External links

Wooster Square Historic District
New Haven Preservation Trust website (text excerpt from NRHP nomination, plus gallery of 9 photos)
Wooster Square photo

Historic Wooster Square Association
{{Authority control Tourist attractions in New Haven, Connecticut Neighborhoods in New Haven, Connecticut Italian-American culture in Connecticut Little Italys in the United States Populated places in New Haven County, Connecticut Historic districts in New Haven, Connecticut Restaurant districts and streets in the United States National Register of Historic Places in New Haven, Connecticut