Friends of Hillhouse win latest round with Yale

JULIA TIERNAN/YH HARD KNOX: Friends President Bruce Knox disputes the University's stance on the historical importance of Maple Cottage.

Yale's viewbook brags about Charles Dickens' description of Hillhouse Avenue as "the most beautiful street in America." But according to the Friends of Hillhouse Avenue, a historical preservation society, Dickens would reconsider if he could see Hillhouse today. The group is currently mired in a legal battle with Yale over the proposed demolition of historic Maple Cottage. The Herald sat down with several of the group's members to discuss the recent death of a controversial Yale-proposed preservation amendment in the Connecticut Legislature.

On Fri., Mar. 5, Yale proposed an amendment to the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), which would have prevented private citizens and groups like the Friends from suing educational institutions over the preservation of historic buildings. According to Friends founder Anstress Farwell, GRD '78, the University was so quiet in proposing the amendment that the society heard about it only one day before it was to be discussed in court, giving it just a few hours to create a counterproposal.

The amendment did not pass review in the Connecticut Legislature's Planning and Development Committee last week--but that offers the Friends little comfort. "Yale could introduce it as an amendment to another bill, so until June we have to watch every bill going through. In their last public statements they made it clear that they're still going to try to get it through, so we're on alert," Farwell said. "Yale refers to us as the Energizer Bunny. If they meant to be mean, we consider it a great compliment. It's our nom de guerre."

According to Farwell, the amendment would violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law. "Yale doesn't make a reasoned argument for their position--their testimony is first an assertion of their importance, and then a complaint about having to respond to a public process." The Friends believe the amendment would give the University a dangerous amount of power. "Yale has the means not only to demolish Maple Cottage, but to change the rules by which the rest of us play, and I think that's incredible," Friends Secretary Scott Healy, TC '96, said.

Why is the society so adamant about saving Maple Cottage? "The house is of national importance," Friends President Bruce Knox explained. "It's architecturally important, and it's historically important because of Lillie Devereux Blake and the Ingersoll family." Blake was a 19th century feminist, novelist, and civil war correspondent who lived in the house. Knox believes Yale has dismissed the importance of Blake by claiming that the only significant thing she accomplished while living in the house was an affair with a Yale student, although historians have proven that the allegations were false. In fact, the student was expelled from Yale during his senior year for "sullying" her reputation.

Knox believes that Yale is unfairly minimizing Blake's intellectual and political accomplishments by highlighting the sex scandal. "I think that the way in which she's been rather dismissively addressed in contemporary times really does injustice to her importance," he said.

Knox explained that Maple Cottage has further historical significance because it was also home to Colin Ingersoll, a vocal abolitionist during the Civil War. The house also has historical connections to the Amistad incident. "Maple Cottage looks over where the Farmington Canal would have been originally, and people on the second floor of Maple Cottage would have seen the Amistad captives being transferred back and forth from Farmington down to New Haven for the trial," he said.

The Friends are generally concerned about Yale's rate of expansion. Yale wants to build a structure three to four times the size of Maple Cottage in its place, following a trend towards bigger buildings. Most of the 19th century houses that used to be on Hillhouse Avenue have been demolished and replaced by what Knox calls "architecturally insignificant buildings, most of them so large as to dwarf the smaller, historical houses." Although they approve of certain expansion projects, such as the development of Science Park, they're concerned that rapid expansion in historic districts will destroy much of New Haven's distinct character. Former New Haven Alder and Friends member Olivia Martson said, "The University is trying to expand too quickly. They need to step back and ask, `How can we connect with the city better?' instead of this bulldozer-expansion movement."

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