From Revolution to urban revitalization

New Haven has been the backdrop for a whole lotta history. Here's a quick rundown of the past 260 years.

COURTESY WINDSOR PUBLICATIONS New Haven: America's first gridded city.

By Brian Levinson

On April 24, 1638, John Davenport and 500 of his followers landed on the shores of the Long Island Sound. Davenport, a Puritan minister, believed that God was on the verge of punishing England for its "manifold and persistent wickedness." He hoped to found a new Zion on the banks of the Quinnipiac River, a Utopia where his group of predestined saints could prepare for the second coming of Christ and the final Day of Judgment. With Davenport came the wealthiest group of merchants to arrive in any New England settlement before 1660, a group which was supposed to found a commercial empire that stretched from the Sound all the way to the Delaware Bay.

Things started well. The settlers negotiated with the local Quinnipiac tribe, securing a huge amount of land in exchange for "twelve coats of English trucking cloath, twelve alcumy spoons, twelve hatchetts, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives" as well as promises of protection from the neighboring Mohawks. They built a town on a grid of eight squares arranged around a large public green, and named it New Haven. They were good Puritans, banning all Sabbath activity, from cooking to shaving to kissing one's own children, and giving the death penalty to anyone who questioned their ideology. And they kept slaves--Davenport himself was a slave owner.

But the settlers' grand plans didn't quite work out. The Day of Judgment didn't arrive as scheduled, the presence of Dutch settlers to the south and west prevented the establishment of a commercial empire, and the growth of commerce in Boston and New Amsterdam (New York City) turned New Haven into a satellite town. New Haven would never be as big as Boston or New York, nor would it ever have a subway or a unique comical accent. But, over the years, New Haven has proved to be as diverse and distinctive a metropolis as any on the Eastern seaboard, with a surprisingly rich history.

During the 1770s, New Haven was a bastion of revolutionary activity. "The Stamp Act is unconstitutional and therefore not binding on the Conscience," wrote Samuel Bishop in the Town Record. "We have already bravely gone too far to retreat: If we are fit for anything but the Chains of Slavery, if we have the Spirit of a Free People, the most threatening Danger cannot shake us." During the war itself, Yale president Ezra Stiles was able to watch the British troops land in the harbor with his telescope; but despite his efforts, New Haven's militia was defeated and the Elm City was plundered by the Redcoats.

COURTESY WINDSOR PUBLICATIONS New Haven residents watch the Second Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers march off to fight in the Civil War.

In the 19th century, New Haven's economy shifted from an agricultural to an industrial one, and the city began to send its small arms, garment, tools, and other products to the markets of the world. Due in part to waves of immigration from Europe, the population exploded, jumping from 10,678 in 1830 to 40,000 between 1850 and 1860. The structure of the city was also changing; Wooster Square became New Haven's manufacturing center, as cramped, congested tenement dwellings began to spring up. Meanwhile, the other, bluer, side of town had been beautified by the work of James Hillhouse, the man whose tree-lined streets earned New Haven the nickname The Elm City. According to Charles Dickens, who visited in the 1860s, the elms along Hillhouse Avenue seemed "to bring a kind of compromise between town and country; as if each had met the other halfway and shaken hands upon it."

The 19th century also brought the Amistad affair, dramatized in Steven Spielberg's recent film, to New Haven. A group of Africans held captive on the Spanish slave ship were detained in the County Jail on Church Street, and their daily exercise periods on the Green drew curious and admiring crowds. Abolitionist Yalies and New Havenites alike supplied the Africans' legal defense fund and provided for the Africans' physical well-being and education.

Town-gown relations, though, were not always as peaceful. In 1854, a mob followed a group of students from a concert back to the Yale campus. When the students broke into a traditional student song after reaching the upper Green, the mob started throwing bricks, and the students reacted by firing their pistols into the crowd. In the confusion, the mob leader was stabbed to death, and the students had to hide in a dorm and wait for the police to come and save them from a cannon attack. In 1858, another group of students had a violent confrontation with the local fire department, in which a fireman was fatally shot. The result: Yalies were, from then on, forbidden to carry weapons.

Most of today's New Haven was built between the 1890s and 1920s as the city completed its transformation into an industrial metropolis. The city's population reached 162,537 by 1920, thanks to an influx of immigrants from southern Italy and Eastern Europe, as well as African Americans from the American South.

COURTESY WINDSOR PUBLICATIONS Chapel Street in the 1950's: the place for woman's apparel.

In the 1950s, however, things began to change as middle and upper income families moved out of cities and into the suburbs. The city's population held steady in an era when the population of the outlying areas was exploding. As business and industry followed the upper classes out of New Haven, the city's tax base began to erode. The result was a disastrous urban renewal plan, initiated by eight-term Democratic mayor Richard C. Lee. Neighborhoods were razed to build the six-lane Oak Street Connector--6,500 housing units were torn down, and only 951 were built in their place. Struggling businesses were displaced by the Chapel Square Mall. And the results did nothing to help New Haven's economy. The department stores in the Mall soon closed, the Oak Street Connector was never finished, and, by the late 1970s, New Haven teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, unable to pay the electric bills for its own street lights.

But, during the '80s and '90s, the city has worked to bring life back to downtown. The Broadway and Chapel Street areas were given facelifts, and new stores and businesses have sprung up along their brick sidewalks. The city also pumped money into the Ninth Square area near the New Haven Coliseum, leading clubs and restaurants to open their doors. In January, the Omni Hotel, a four-star, 270-room hotel catering to Yale parents, area industries, and tourists opened on Temple St. In addition, the city is moving forward with plans for a mega-mall along the waterfront.

New Haven today is changing at a rapid pace. Chances are that the city you leave in 2002 will be significantly different than the city you will enter this fall. And when you arrive in August, the Elm City will undoubtably offer you multiple opportunities to get involved with the affairs and the people of your new home.

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