New Haven, Connecticut

"New Haven" redirects here. For other uses, see New Haven (disambiguation).

City of New Haven
City
Official seal of City of New Haven Seal
Nickname:  The Elm City
Location in Connecticut
Country	United States
State	Connecticut
NECTA	New Haven
Region	South Central Region
Settled	1638
Incorporated (city)	1784
Consolidated	1895
Government
• Type	Mayor-board of aldermen
• Mayor	John DeStefano, Jr. (D)
Area
• City	20.31 sq mi (52.6 km2)
• Land	18.9 sq mi (49.0 km2)
• Water	1.4 sq mi (3.6 km2)
• Urban	285.3 sq mi (738.9 km2)
Elevation	59 ft (18 m)
Population  (2006)
• City	124,001
• Density	6,600/sq mi (2,549/km2)
• Urban	569,000
• Metro	846,766
	Metro area refers to New Haven County
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP code	06501-06540
Area code	203
FIPS code	09-52000
GNIS feature ID	0209231
Website	www.cityofnewhaven.com

New Haven is the second-largest municipality in Connecticut, after Bridgeport and just ahead of Hartford, with a core population of about 124,000 people. "New Haven" may also refer to the wider Greater New Haven area, which has nearly 600,000 inhabitants in the immediate area. It is located in New Haven County, on New Haven Harbor, on the northern shore of Long Island Sound.

One year after its founding in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a grid of four streets by four streets creating what is now commonly known as the "Nine Square Plan", which is recognized by the American Institute of Certified Planners as a National Historic Planning Landmark. The central common block is New Haven Green a 16-acre (6 ha) square, now a National Historic Landmark and the center of Downtown New Haven.

New Haven had the first public tree planting program in America, producing a canopy of mature trees (including some large elms) that gave New Haven the nickname "The Elm City".

The city is the home of Yale University. Along with Yale, health care (hospitals, biotechnology), professional services (legal, architectural, marketing, engineering), financial services, and retail trade form the base of the economy. Since the mid-1990s, the city's downtown area has seen extensive revitalization.

History

Pre-colonial and colonial

The historic New Haven Green.

Before European arrival, the New Haven area was the home of the Quinnipiac tribe of Native Americans, who lived in villages around the harbor and subsisted off local fisheries and the farming of maize. The area was briefly visited by Dutch explorer Adriaen Block 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 April 1638, five hundred Puritans who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of the Reverend John Davenport and the London merchant Theophilus Eaton sailed into the harbor. These settlers were hoping to establish a better theological community than the one they left in Massachusetts and sought to take advantage of the excellent port capabilities of the harbor. The Quinnipiacs, who were under attack by neighboring Pequots, sold their land to the settlers in return for protection.

By 1640, the town's theocratic government and nine square grid plan were in place, and the town was renamed Newhaven from Quinnipiac. However, the area north of New Haven remained Quinnipiac until 1678, when it was renamed Hamden. The settlement became the headquarters of the New Haven Colony. At the time, the New Haven Colony was separate from the Connecticut Colony which had been established to the north focusing on Hartford. One of the principal differences between the two colonies was that the New Haven colony was an intolerant theocracy that did not permit other churches to be established while the Connecticut colony permitted the establishment of other churches.

A sign on New Haven Green that details the city history

Economic disaster struck the colony in 1646, however, when the town sent its first fully loaded ship of local goods back to England. This ship never reached the Old World, and its disappearance stymied New Haven's development in the face of the rising trade power of Boston and New Amsterdam. In 1660, founder John Davenport's wishes were fulfilled and Hopkins School was founded in New Haven with money from the estate of Edward Hopkins.

In 1661, the judges who had signed the death warrant of Charles I of England were pursued by Charles II. Two judges, Colonel Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, fled to New Haven to seek refuge from the king's forces. John Davenport arranged for these "Regicides" to hide in the West Rock hills northwest of the town. A third judge, John Dixwell, joined the other regicides at a later time.

New Haven became part of the Connecticut Colony in 1664, when the two colonies were merged under political pressure from England, according to folklore as punishment for harboring the three judges (in reality, done in order to strengthen the case for the takeover of nearby New Amsterdam, which was rapidly losing territory to migrants from Connecticut). Some members of the New Haven Colony seeking to establish a new theocracy elsewhere went on to establish Newark, New Jersey.

It was made co-capital of Connecticut in 1701, a status it retained until 1873. In 1716, the Collegiate School relocated from Old Saybrook to New Haven and established New Haven as a center of learning. In 1718, the name of the Collegiate School was changed to Yale College in response to a large donation from Welsh merchant Elihu Yale.

For over a century, New Haven citizens had fought alongside British forces, as in the French and Indian War. As the American Revolution approached, General David Wooster and other influential residents hoped that the conflict with 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, of New Haven entered the struggle against the British. Under Captain Benedict Arnold, they broke into the powder house to arm themselves and began a three-day march to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Other New Haven militia members were on hand to escort George Washington 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.

British forces under General William Tryon raided the 3,500-person town in July 1779, but did not torch it as they had with Danbury in 1777, or Fairfield and Norwalk a week after the New Haven raid, leaving many of the town's colonial features preserved.

Towns created from the original New Haven Colony
New town	Split from	Incorporated
Wallingford	New Haven	1670
Cheshire	Wallingford	1780
Meriden	Wallingford	1806
Branford	New Haven	1685
North Branford	Branford	1831
Woodbridge	New Haven and Milford	1784
Bethany	Woodbridge	1832
East Haven	New Haven	1785
Hamden	New Haven	1786
North Haven	New Haven	1786
Orange	New Haven and Milford	1822
West Haven	Orange	1921

Towns in the New Haven area

Post-colonial

New Haven was incorporated as a city in 1784, and Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Constitution and author of the "Connecticut Compromise", 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. His factory, along with that of Simeon North, 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 invented the automatic revolver in 1836.

An 1872 engraving showing the Mill River, which provided water power to early New Haven industry

The Farmington Canal, created in the early 1800s, 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 home to one of the important early events in the burgeoning anti-slavery movement when, in 1839, the trial of mutineering Mendi tribesmen being transported as slaves on the Spanish slaveship Amistad was held in New Haven's United States District Court. There is a statue of Joseph Cinqué, the informal leader of the slaves, beside City Hall. See "Museums" below for more information.

The American Civil War boosted the local economy with wartime purchases of industrial goods. After the war, New Haven's population grew and doubled by the start of the 20th century, most notably due to the influx of immigrants from southern Europe, particularly Italy. Today, roughly half the populations of East Haven, West Haven, and North Haven are Italian-American. Jewish immigration to New Haven has left an enduring mark on the city. Westville was the center of Jewish life in New Haven, though today many have fanned out to suburban communities such as Woodbridge and Cheshire.

Modern

File:Newhavenstructure2-clocktower.jpg

Harkness Tower, part of the Yale University campus in downtown New Haven

New Haven's growth continued during the two World Wars, with most new inhabitants being African Americans from the American South and Puerto Ricans. The city reached its peak population after World War II. The area of New Haven is only 17 square miles (44 km²), encouraging further development of new housing after 1950 in adjacent, suburban towns. Moreover, as in other U.S. cities in 1950s, New Haven began to suffer from an exodus of middle-class workers.

In 1954, then-mayor Richard C. Lee began some of the earliest major urban renewal projects in the United States. Certain sections of Downtown New Haven were destroyed and rebuilt with new office towers, a hotel, and large shopping complexes. Other parts of the city were affected by the construction of Interstate 95 along the Long Wharf section, Interstate 91 and the Oak Street Connector. The Oak Street Connector (Route 34), 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.

From the 1960s through the early 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 the mid-1990s New Haven began to stabilize and grow, though poverty in some central neighborhoods remains a problem. Since 2000, Yale's vision of downtown has seen an increasing concentration of new restaurants, nightlife, and small retail stores. Away from downtown, retail corridors exist on lower Whalley Avenue, upper Whalley Avenue in Westvile Center and in the Westvile/Amity areas, on State Street, and along Grand Avenue in Fair Haven.

1970 trial

Main article: New Haven Black Panther trials

New Haven in 1970 witnessed the largest trial in Connecticut history. Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and ten other Party members were tried for murdering an alleged informant. On 1 May 1970, May Day, the pretrial proceedings began for the first of the two New Haven Black Panther trials; it was met with a demonstration by twelve thousand Black Panther supporters, including a large number of college students, who had come to New Haven individually and in organized groups and were housed and fed by community organizations and by Yale students in their dorms.

The demonstrations continued through the Spring. By day protesters assembled on the New Haven Green across the street from the Courthouse to hear speakers including Jean Genet, Benjamin Spock, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and John Froines; afterwards, many taunted the New Haven police, and in return were tear gassed and retreated to their temporary quarters. The police behind them half-heartedly assaulted the dormitories, as was customary for such demonstrations at the time, but on the whole it was peaceful, with very little injury or property damage and only two minor bombings. The National Guard were kept ready on the highways into the city, but police chief Jim Ahern determined that the city police were controlling the situation adequately, and that the presence of the Guard would only inflame the situation; the events at Kent State University a few days later were to prove him prescient.

This coincided with the beginning of the national student strike of May 1970. Yale (and many other colleges) went "on strike" from just before May Day until the end of the term; as at many colleges it was not actually "shut down", but classes were made "voluntarily optional" for the time and students were graded pass/fail for work done up to then.

Politics

Statue of Roman orator Cicero at the New Haven County Courthouse

New Haven is the birthplace of former president George W. Bush, who was born when his father, former president George H. W. Bush, was living in New Haven while a student at Yale. A predominantly Democratic city, New Haven voters overwhelmingly supported Al Gore in the 2000 election and Yale graduate John Kerry in 2004. In addition to being the site of the college educations of both Presidents Bush, New Haven was also a temporary home to former president Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who met while they were students at Yale Law School. New Haven was also the residence of conservative thinker William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1951, when he wrote his influential God and Man at Yale.

Since the mid-1950s and spearheaded by its former long-serving mayor, Richard C. Lee, New Haven has undertaken numerous urban redevelopment projects, but with overall mixed results. The downtown area in particular has been the site of sometimes dubious experiments in urban redesign, with new hotels, retail complexes, parking structures, a sports colosseum, and office towers built under a labyrinth of city, state, federal, and private efforts. Of recent note, as each of these pieces of the redevelopment puzzle transform, become obsolete or again redeveloped, New Haven tends to bear the brunt of a fair share of painful analysis in regard to its ongoing rebuilding efforts, mostly in response to the overhyped claims of success that many similar projects touted over a generation ago.

During the 1950s and 60s, New Haven received more urban renewal funding per capita than any city in the U.S. New Haven became the de facto showcase of the new modern redeveloped city and plans for its downtown development were featured on the cover of Time Magazine in the early 1960s. Some projects, such as the brutalist-styled New Haven Coliseum (demolished in 2007), drew major crowds but were ultimately considered to be victims of modernist over-design and rapid obsolescence. In 2004, the central structure of the mall was converted to luxury apartments, joining a renovated 4-star Omni hotel and new street-level retail. Other numerous smaller projects have in-fill design qualities and are mixed-use.

Current plans for downtown include developing the sites of the Coliseum and Macy's and Malley's department stores and relocating Gateway Community College, Long Wharf Theatre and a mixed-use development there. A major focus has been the "Ninth Square", named from the original nine square layout of New Haven center. This area has experienced an influx of hundreds of new and renovated apartment and condominium units, plus a significant number of upscale restaurants and nightclubs have opened.

John DeStefano, Jr., the current mayor of New Haven, has served eight consecutive terms and was re-elected for a record ninth term in November 2009. Mayor DeStefano has focused his tenure on improving education and public safety, as well as on economic development. Notable initiatives include the Livable City Initiative, begun in 1996, which promotes homeownership and removes blight, and the Citywide Youth Initiative. In 1995, DeStefano launched a 15-year, $1.5 billion School Construction Program, already half finished, to replace or renovate every New Haven public school.

In April 2009 the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination 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 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.

Geography

Aerial view of downtown New Haven, looking toward East Rock

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 20.2 square miles (52.4 km²), of which, 18.9 square miles (48.8 km²) is land and 1.4 square miles (3.6 km²) of it (6.91%) is water.

New Haven's best-known geographic features are its large deep harbor, and two reddish basalt trap rocks which rise to the northeast and northwest of the city core. These trap rocks are known respectively as East Rock and West Rock, 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 only highway tunnel through a natural obstacle in Connecticut), and once served as the hideout of the "Regicides" (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, Mill, and Quinnipiac, named in order from west to east. The West River discharges into the West Haven Harbor, while the Mill and Quinnipiac Rivers discharge into the 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

New Haven experiences a warm summer-type Humid continental climate, typical of southern New England. Summers are warm to moderately hot, with high levels of humidity and frequent afternoon thunderstorms. Spring and Fall bring pleasantly cool temperatures with moderate precipitation. Winters are cold and humid, with frequent snowfalls. The weather patterns that affect New Haven result from a primarily offshore direction, thus minimizing the marine influence of the Atlantic Ocean that would otherwise moderate summer and winter temperatures—though, like other marine areas, differences in temperature between areas right along the coastline and areas a mile or two inland can be very significant at times.

Climate data for New Haven, Connecticut
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Source:

Streetscape

Aerial photograph of New Haven

New Haven has a long tradition of urban planning and a purposeful design of 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 elms that gave New Haven the nickname "Elm City" perished in the mid-20th century due to Dutch Elm disease, although many have since been replanted. The New Haven Green 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 in 1970.

Downtown New Haven, occupied by nearly 7,000 residents, has a more residential character than most downtowns. 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, several of which have garnered national praise (such as Ibiza, recognized by Esquire and Wine Spectator magazines as well as the New York Times as the best Spanish food in the country), in addition to shops and thousands of apartments and condominium units which subsequently help overall growth of the city.

The Dwight Street Historic District, one of several official historic districts in New Haven

Neighborhoods

Main article: Neighborhoods of New Haven, Connecticut

The city has many distinct neighborhoods. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the Green, 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 Edgewood, West River, Westville, Amity, and West Rock-Westhills; East Rock, Cedar Hill, Prospect Hill, and Newhallville in the northern side of town; the east central neighborhoods of Mill River and Wooster Square, 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 and East Shore (or Morris Cove).

Economy and demographics

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1790	4,487		—
1800	4,049		−9.8%
1810	5,772		42.6%
1820	7,147		23.8%
1830	10,180		42.4%
1840	12,960		27.3%
1850	20,345		57.0%
1860	39,267		93.0%
1870	50,840		29.5%
1880	62,882		23.7%
1890	86,045		36.8%
1900	108,027		25.5%
1910	133,605		23.7%
1920	162,537		21.7%
1930	162,665		0.1%
1940	160,605		−1.3%
1950	164,443		2.4%
1960	152,048		−7.5%
1970	137,707		−9.4%
1980	126,021		−8.5%
1990	130,474		3.5%
2000	123,626		−5.2%
2007 (est.)	123,932

Data from City-Data.com

New Haven's economy originally was based in manufacturing, but the postwar period brought rapid industrial decline and factories were shuttered; 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 further effected the economic shift. Over half (56%) of the city's economy is now made up of services, in particular education and healthcare; Yale is the city's largest employer, followed by Yale-New Haven Hospital. Other large employers include St. Raphael Hospital, Smilow Cancer Hospital, Southern Connecticut State University, ASSA ABLOY Manufacturing, Knights of Columbus headquarters, Higher One, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and United Illuminating. Yale and Yale-New Haven are also among the largest employers in the state, and provide more $100,000+-salaried positions than any other employer in Connecticut.

The US Census Bureau estimates a 2006 population of 124,001; the 2000 census lists 47,094 households and 25,854 families within the central municipality, the City of New Haven. The population density is 6,558.4 people per square mile (2,532.2/km²). There are 52,941 housing units at an average density of 2,808.5/sq mi (1,084.4/km²). The racial makeup of the city is 63.46% White, 37.36% African American, 0.43% Native American, 1.90% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 10.89% from other races, and 3.91% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 9.39% of the population. Non-Hispanic whites made 75.57% of the population. The city's demography is shifting rapidly: New Haven has always been a city of immigrants and currently the Latino population is growing rapidly. Previous influxes among ethnic groups have been: African-American's in the postwar era, and Irish, Italian and (to a lesser degree) Slavic peoples in the prewar period.

As of the 2000 census, of the 47,094 households, 29.3% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.5% include married couples living together, 22.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 45.1% are non-families. 36.1% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.5% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.40 and the average family size 3.19.

The ages of New Haven's residents are: 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 is 29 years, which is statistically very young. There are 91.8 males per 100 females. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 87.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $29,604, and the median income for a family is $35,950. Median income for males is $33,605, compared with $28,424 for females. The per capita income for the city is $16,393. About 20.5% of families and 24.4% of the population live below the poverty line, including 32.2% of those under age 18 and 17.9% of those age 65 or over.

As of 2001, the New Haven metropolitan area has the third-highest per capita income in the country, behind San Francisco and Silicon Valley, California. Yet a 2006 analysis of a slightly differently-defined urban area showed New Haven to have the 32nd-highest per capita income; while a significantly lower figure, this still placed New Haven in the top 10% highest per-capita income metropolitan areas in the country.

It is estimated that 14% of New Haven residents are pedestrian commuters, ranking it at number four by highest percentage in the United States This is primary due to New Havens' small size (geographically) and the presence of Yale University.

Today New Haven is a predominantly Roman Catholic city, as the city's Dominican, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Puerto Rican populations are overwhelmingly Catholic. Jews also make up a considerable portion of the population, as do Black Baptists. There is a growing number of (mostly Puerto Rican) Pentacostals as well. Catholic New Haven is part of the Archdiocese of Hartford. There are churches for all major branches of Christianity within the city, several Jewish synagogues, multiple store-front churches, ministries (especially in working-class Latino and Black neighborhoods) and other places of worship; the level of religious diversity in the city is high.

Government

New Haven is governed via the mayor-council system. The city council, called the Board of Aldermen, consists of thirty members, each elected from single member wards. The mayor is elected by the entire city. The first mayor of New Haven was Roger Sherman. The current mayor is John DeStefano, who is the city's longest-serving mayor.

Fire Department

The City of New Haven is protected 24/7 by the professional firefighters of the City of New Haven Fire Department(NHFD). The Department operates out of ten fire stations, located throughout the city, and operates a frontline fire apparatus fleet of ten engines, four trucks, two squad engines, one haz-mat. unit, and two ambulances out of two battalions, the East Battalion, and the West Battalion. One well-known characteristic of the NHFD is how all of the city's fire apparatus are and have been painted white since the early 1940s. The NHFD responds to around 20,000 emergency calls annually.

Fire Station Locations and Apparatus

• Fire Headquarters - Central Station - Downtown/Wooster Square - Grand Avenue
  • Engine 4
  • Tower 1
  • Deputy Chief
• Woodward Station - Woodward - Woodward Avenue
  • Engine 5(Quint)
  • EMS 1(Ambulance)
• Dixwell Station - Dixwell/Newhall - Goffe Street
  • Engine 6
  • Truck 4
• Whitney Station - Whitney - Whitney Avenue
  • Engine 8
  • Squad 1
  • Haz-Mat. 1
• West Battalion Headquarters - Ellsworth - Ellsworth Avenue
  • Engine 9
  • Squad 2
  • West Battalion Chief
• East Battalion Headquarters - Lombard - Lombard Street
  • Engine 10
  • Truck 3
  • East Battalion Chief
• Hill Station - Hill - Howard Avenue
  • Engine 11
  • Truck 2
  • EMS 2(Ambulance)
• Westville Station - Westville - Fountain Street
  • Engine 15
• Lighthouse Station - Lighthouse/Cove - Lighthouse Road
  • Engine 16
• Fair Haven Heights Station - Fair Haven Heights - East Grand Avenue
  • Engine 17

Education

Colleges and universities

Yale University, at the heart of downtown, is one of the city's best known features and its largest employer. New Haven is also home to other centers of higher education, including Southern Connecticut State University and Albertus Magnus College. Gateway Community College has a campus in New Haven, located in the Long Wharf district.

There are 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.

Primary and secondary schools

Wilbur Cross High School and Hillhouse High School are New Haven's two largest public secondary schools. Hopkins School, 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 High School in the Community, Hill Regional Career High School, Co-op High School, ACES Educational Center for the Arts, 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. It is also home to Common Ground, an environmental charter school.

The school district is called New Haven Public Schools. Almost all have been renovated under a 15-year, $1.5 billion School Construction Program; the immense effort to improve city public schools is slowly erasing the bad reputation that New Haven public schools had acquired in past decades, though it will yet take years to see if the program has truly been a success.

Culture and notable features

Architecture

A view of the buildings around Yale University in New Haven, with its distinctive 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 also left their mark on the city including Ithiel Town and 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 school, designed New Haven's Union Station 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 C. Johnson, Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, James Gamble Rogers, Frank Gehry, Charles Moore, Stefan Behnisch, James Polshek, 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.

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, Hillhouse Avenue and other residential sections close to Downtown New Haven. 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:

1. Connecticut Financial Center 383 ft (117 m) 26 Floors
2. Knights of Columbus Building (New Haven, Connecticut) 321 ft (98 m) 23 Floors
3. 360 State Street 300 ft (91.44 m) 31 Floors
4. Kline Biology Tower 250 ft (76 m) 16 Floors
5. Crown Towers 233 ft (71 m) 22 Floors

Cuisine

New Haven boasts an overwhelming array of restaurants, surprisingly many for a city its size. Though choices are extremely varied, eateries serving pizza, hamburgers, and Southeast Asian foods are especially abundant.

New-Haven-style pizza, called apizza (pronounced ah-BEETS in the local dialect), made its debut in 1925. It 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 (garlic and olive oil), and pies ordered "plain" are made without the otherwise customary mozzarella cheese (pronounced sca-MOTZ, as it was originally smoked mozzarella, known as "scamorza" in Italian). A white clam pie is a well known specialty of the restaurants on Wooster Street in the Little Italy section of New Haven, including Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana.

Louis' Lunch, located in a small brick building on Crown Street, has been serving fast food since 1895. Louis' Lunch broils hamburgers, steak sandwiches and hot dogs vertically in original antique 1898 cast iron stoves using gridirons, patented by local resident Luigi Pieragostini in 1939, that hold the meat in place while it cooks. Though fiercely debated, Louis Lassen is credited by the Library of Congress with inventing the hamburger and steak sandwich.

The tradition of immigration in New Haven has continued to a significant extent, particularly in the late 1990s and 2000s, and as a result there are now hundreds of ethnic restaurants and small markets specializing in various foreign foods. Represented cuisines include: Malaysian (Bentara), Ethiopian (Lalibela), Spanish (Barcelona, Ibiza), Latino (Pacifico, Sabor), Thai (Bangkok Gardens, Thai Taste, Rice Pot), Chinese (Royal Palace), Japanese (Akasaka, Miya's[1], Miso), Vietnamese (Pot-au-Pho), Korean (Seoul), Indian (Tandoor, Thali, Thali Too, Sitar), Jamaican, Cuban (Soul De Cuba), Peruvian (Macchu Picchu), Syrian/Lebanese, (Mamoun's Falafel), and Turkish (Istanbul Cafe).

There are 61 top Zagat-rated restaurants, more than anywhere in Connecticut save Stamford, including new additions such as upmarket downtown restaurants Bentara, Foster's, Geronimo, Pacifico, Zinc, and Ibiza. Over 120 restaurants are located within two blocks of the New Haven Green. Claire's Corner Copia at Chapel and College Streets is one of the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the country having opened in September 1975. Also of note are "The Carts", about 20-something lunch carts from neighborhood restaurants that cater to different student populations throughout the university's campus during weekday lunchtime in three main points: by Yale-New Haven Hospital 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 set up shop weekly in several neighborhoods including Westville/Edgewood Park, Fair Haven, Upper State Street, Wooster Square, and Downtown/New Haven Green.

Miya's Sushi on Howe Street was opened by Yoshiko Lai in 1982[2]. Miya's offers an original fifty page sushi menu designed by Bun Lai, which includes the world's largest vegetarian sushi menu. Casson Trenor, one of Time magazine's "Heroes of the Environment 2009," has repeatedly praised Miya's for having the East Coast's only sustainable sushi menu.

Theatre and film

The city hosts numerous theatres and production houses including the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Long Wharf Theatre, and the 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 hosts the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. The shuttered Palace Theatre (oppostite the Shubert Theater) was rumored to being re-opened in 2008, but new development there is on hold. Smaller theaters include the Little Theater on Lincoln Street and the soon to open Co-op High School Theater on College Street.

The Shubert Theater once premiered many major theatrical productions before their Broadway debuts. Productions that premiered at the Shubert include Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, as well as the Tennessee Williams' 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. The Criterion has 7 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 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 nation's oldest college art museum. New Haven is also home to the New Haven Museum and Historical Society on Whitney Avenue, which also has a library of many primary source treasures dating from Colonial times to the present.

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, 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 also the home port of a life-size replica of the historical 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 in July, and the New Haven Jazz Festival in August. The Jazz Festival, which began in 1982, was 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 has been revived for 2008 and 2009 under the sponsorship of Jazz Haven.[3]

New Haven is also home to the concert venue Toad's Place. The city has retained an alternative art and music underground that has helped to influence post-punk era music movements such as indie, college rock and underground hip-hop. Other local venues include Cafe Nine, BAR, Firehouse 12, and Rudy's.

The Yale School of Music also contributes to the city's music scene by offering hundreds of free concerts throughout the year at venues in and around the Yale campus.

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 also has a number of restaurants and bars popular with local residents and weekend visitors.

Business Headquarters

Audubon Strings, LLC, Full-Service Violin Shop website

Knights of Columbus, The world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization

United Illuminating, Electricity Distributor for Southern Connecticut

YouRenew, An Electronic Recycling Company website

Newspapers and media

New Haven is served by the daily New Haven Register, the weekly "alternative" (which is corporate run by Tribune, the company owning The Hartford Courant) New Haven Advocate, the online daily New Haven Independent, and the monthly Grand News Community Newspaper. The city's Spanish-speaking community is served by Registro, a Spanish-language twice-weekly operated by The New Haven Register's parent company. Downtown New Haven is covered by an in-depth civic news forum, Design New Haven. The Register also backs PLAY magazine, a weekly entertainment publication. It 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 ABC affiliate for Connecticut, WCTX Channel 59, the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the state, and Connecticut Public Television station WEDY channel 65, a PBS affiliate, broadcast from New Haven. All New York City news and sports team stations broadcast to New Haven County

Though both WTNH and WCTX are located in New Haven, CT, their Master Control, and Traffic departments are located in Springfield, Massachusetts in a former section of the city called Chicopee.

Sports and athletics

Hockey

Much like other mid-sized Northeastern industrial cities, New Haven has historically supported its minor league hockey teams enthusiastically, having had a hockey team for 76 years. The New Haven Eagles were founding members of the American Hockey League in 1936, playing at the old New Haven Arena on Grove Street. The New Haven Blades of the Eastern Hockey League played from 1954 to 1972 before being succeeded by the New Haven Nighthawks of the AHL, which played at the then-new New Haven Coliseum.

The Nighthawks were replaced by the short-lived Senators in 1993. After a hiatus, hockey returned in 1997, with the Beast of New Haven. Playing in a newly refurbished Coliseum, this team lasted only two seasons, ending AHL hockey in New Haven. The New Haven Knights of the United Hockey League then took up residence in the Coliseum, playing there until the Coliseum closed in 2002.

After, the Coliseum was closed (thus ending any chance of minor league hockey returning to New Haven), fans' allegiances shifted to the United Hockey League's Danbury Trashers, owned by James Galante, who attempted to purchase and save the New Haven Coliseum and the New Haven Knights. The Trashers have since been disbanded and Galante is currently incarcerated for alleged mob ties. The AHL's Sound Tigers, which play in Bridgeport, provide minor league hockey for the area.

New Haven had been known for its blue collar fans who favor rough play, especially the "Crazies" who sat in "The Jungle" — Section 14 at the Coliseum, behind and adjacent to the opposing team's bench. These fans were renowned for being extremely tough on opposing teams, relentlessly screaming obscenities and taunts at opposing players (and sometimes at hometown players), making New Haven an intimidating place to play even though outright physical violence in the stands was rare. Section 14ers maintain a website called "Section 14 Online" which can be found at Section14.com.

The Yale Bulldogs men's and women's hockey teams, which play at Ingalls Rink, and the Quinnipiac Bobcats men's and women's hockey teams, which play at TD Bank Sports Center to the north of New Haven in Hamden, both compete in ECAC Division I Hockey.

The NHL's Hartford Whalers played some preseason games in New Haven during their last few years in Connecticut in an effort to gain support in Greater New Haven.

Baseball

Greater New Haven's first minor league baseball team was the West Haven Yankees of the AA Eastern League, which played at both Quigley Stadium and Yale Field in neighboring West Haven from 1972 to 1979. Many future New York Yankees made their way though the West Haven team, including Ron Guidry. The West Haven Yankees finished first five times in their eight years, winning the Eastern League championship four times (in '72, '76, '78, and '79).

In 1980, the New York Yankees moved their farm team elsewhere and the Oakland A's fielded a team for three years in West Haven. Known as the Whitecaps for their first year and the West Haven A's for their last two, the A's brought home a championship to Greater New Haven in 1982, before the team moved to Albany the following year.

Minor league baseball returned to New Haven in 1994 with the arrival of the New Haven Ravens, an Eastern League AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. the Ravens played in neighboring West Haven at Yale Field, just across the town line. Playing at Yale Field, which was renovated for the team, the team was very successful in its first few seasons before losing support. New Haven and the Ravens hosted the Double-A All-Star game in 1998. The Ravens won the Eastern League championship in 2000, giving New Haven proper its first professional championship since the New Haven Blades' championship in 1956. The Ravens moved to Manchester, New Hampshire in 2003, becoming the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Following the Ravens' departure, the New Haven County Cutters baseball team began play at Yale Field in 2004, in the independent Northeast (now Can-Am) League. The Cutters suspended operation after the 2007 season, and New Haven has been without minor league baseball since.

In 1974, a little league team from New Haven placed sixth in the Little League World Series.

Football

New Haven and Yale Bowl were the home of the New York Giants of the National Football League for the 1973 and 1974 NFL seasons, while Giants Stadium was under construction. The Giants had previously played in New Haven at the Bowl in 1956, for an exhibition game against the Baltimore Colts--the first time professional football was played in the city. The New York Jets played exhibition games in the Bowl throughout the 1970s.

New Haven was without professional football again until 2002, when it became home to an af2 minor-league arena football franchise called the New Haven Ninjas, who played at the New Haven Coliseum. The Ninjas were successful but were forced to leave when the Coliseum was closed the following year.

With a capacity of 64,269, Yale Bowl is the second-largest stadium in New England (after Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts). Home to the Yale Bulldogs football team, the neogothic stadium is the biannual host of "The Game" between rivals Yale and Harvard. Yale Bowl was made a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and received an extensive renovation in 2007.

Basketball

New Haven has hosted a couple of minor league basketball teams. The city briefly was the home of an American Basketball League team named the New Haven Jewels in 1937, before the team moved to New York. New Haven gained an Eastern Professional Basketball League (the forerunner to the Continental Basketball Association) team in 1965, named the New Haven Elms, which played in New Haven Arena. In 1967, the Elms left New Haven, and split their season in Bridgeport and Binghampton, NY, as the "Flyers." For the 1968-69 season, the team returned to New Haven, again calling itself the Elms. However, under the sponsorship of the Bic Pen Corporation of Milford, CT, the team moved north to Hamden the following season, now calling itself the Hamden Bics. The Bics played in the gym of Hamden High School for two seasons, before folding in 1971.

Division I college basketball is represented in Greater New Haven by the Yale Bulldogs, who play at the Gothic Payne Whitney Gym, and the Quinnipiac Bobcats, who play at the TD Bank Sports Center in Hamden.

Other

The New Haven Road Race has hosted the USA 20K Championship every year since its inception in 1978. The race, which featured 1,200 runners in its inaugural year, has grown to include over 5,000 participants. Other annual road races which take place in New Haven include the WPLR ShamRock & Roll 5K, held close to Saint Patrick's Day every March, and The Christopher Martins Christmas Run for Children 5K, held every December.

New Haven is home to both rugby union and rugby league teams, the New Haven Old Black RFC and the New Haven Warriors, respectively. Both teams play at 'The Boulevard" on route 34. The rugby union team won the US DII National title in 2002. The last few years they have regularly qualified for the Sweet 16 in DI national championships. The rugby league team plays in the top level championship of the USA. They are the reigning 2008 champions.

New Haven has a very large cycling community, represented by the advocacy and community group ElmCityCycling. Group rides are held several times per week.

Tournaments and Championships Hosted

The Connecticut Tennis Center hosts the Pilot Pen International, a professional men's and women's tennis event, every August. Recent winners have included the likes of tennis stars Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, and Steffi Graf. The 15,000 seat Tennis Center Stadium at the Connecticut Tennis Center is tied as the fourth largest tennis venue in the world by capacity.

On March 20, 1914, the first United States Figure Skating Championships were held in New Haven. The city also hosted the event in 1923, 1928, 1933, and 1935.

From July 1 – July 9, 1995, New Haven hosted the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games.

Five Mile Point Lighthouse (2005)

Five Mile Point Lighthouse (1991)

Historic points of interest

See also: National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut

Many historical sites exist throughout the city, including 59 properties listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and nine National Historic Landmarks. The New Haven Green, one of the National Historic Landmarks, was formed in 1638, and is home to three 19th century churches. Below one of the churches (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 is located next to the Green, and includes Connecticut Hall, Yale's oldest building and a National Historic Landmark. Hillhouse Avenue, which is listed on the National Registry 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 it "the most beautiful street in America" when visiting the city in 1868.

In 1660, Edward Whalley (a cousin and friend of Oliver Cromwell) and William Goffe, two English Civil War generals who signed the death warrant of King Charles I, hid in a rock formation in New Haven after having fled England upon the restoration of Charles II to the English throne. They were later joined by a third regicide, John Dixwell. 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 Regicides Trail.

After the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, the Connecticut colonial government ordered the construction of 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 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 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, a second Fort Hale was built next to the original, complete with bomb-resistant bunkers and a moat, to defend the city should a 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 Registry 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, Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Charles Goodyear and Walter Camp, among other notable burials. The cemetery is also known for its grand Egyptian Revival gateway. The Union League Club of New Haven building, located on Chapel Street, is notable for not only being a historic Beaux-Arts building, but also is built on the site where Roger Sherman's home once stood; George Washington 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 William Howard Taft 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 both the Five Mile Point Lighthouse, constructed in 1847, and the Lighthouse Point Carousel, constructed in 1916. Five Mile Point 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, which stands at the summit of East Rock, the Marsh Botanical Garden, Wooster Square, Dwight Street, and the Farmington Canal, all of which date back to the 19th century. Other historic parks besides the Green include Edgerton Park, Edgewood Park, and East Rock Park, each of which is included on the National Registry of Historic Places.

Miscellaneous

The Knights of Columbus was founded on October 2, 1881 by Fr. Michael J. McGivney in New Haven.

In 1892, local confectioner George C. Smith of the Bradley Smith Candy Co. invented the first lollipops.

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 which were tossed around by students on the New Haven Green.

New Haven serves as the world headquarters of the Knights of Columbus organization, which maintains its headquarters and nearby museum downtown. The organization was founded in the city in 1882.

New Haven hosted the first Bell PSTN (telephone) switch office. The District Telephone Company of New Haven created the world's first telephone exchange and first telephone directory (1878) and installed the first public phone (1880). The company expanded and became the Connecticut Telephone Company, then the Southern New England Telephone Company (now part of ATT).

The Erector Set, the popular and culturally important construction toy, was invented in New Haven by A.C. Gilbert in 1911, and was manufactured by the A. C. Gilbert Company at the Erector Square factory in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1913 until the company's bankruptcy in 1967.

The first memorial to victims of the Holocaust on public land in America stands in New Haven's Edgewood Park at the corner of Whalley and West Park Avenues; it was built in 1977 with funds collected from the community and is maintained by Greater New Haven Holocaust Memory, Inc. The ashes of victims killed and cremated at Auschwitz are buried under the memorial.

New Haven was the location of one of Jim Morrison's infamous arrests while he fronted the rock group The Doors. The near-riotous concert and arrest in 1967 at the New Haven Arena was commemorated by Morrison in the lyrics to "Peace Frog" which include the line "...blood in the streets in the town of New Haven..." This was also the first time a rock star had ever been arrested in concert.

New Haven serves as the home city of the annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas.

Doonesbury comic-strip creator Garry Trudeau attended Yale University. There he met fellow student and later Green Party candidate for senator Charlie 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".

Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf in 2007 filming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

New Haven has been depicted in a number of movies. Scenes in the film All About Eve (1950) are set at the Taft Hotel on the corner of College and Chapel Streets. The hotel was since converted into apartments. New Haven was fictionalized in the movie The Skulls, which focused on conspiracy theories surrounding the real-life Skull and Bones secret society which is located in New Haven. The city was also fictionally portrayed in the movie Amistad concerning the events around the mutiny trial of that ship's rebelling captives.

Several recent movies have been filmed in New Haven, including The Life Before Her Eyes, with Uma Thurman, Mona Lisa Smile, with Julia Roberts, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf. The TV show Gilmore Girls is set (but not filmed) in New Haven and at Yale University.

In 2008, the country of Ecuador opened a consulate 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.

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 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 nearby in West Haven. To the west in Milford is Milford Hospital and to the north in Meriden is the MidState Medical Center.

Yale and New Haven are working to build a medical and biotechnology research mecca 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 north-west of Yale's Science Hill campus area. This multi-block site, approximately bordered by Mansfield Street, Division Street, and Shelton Avenue is the former home of 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 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 SNET telephone building at 300 George Street is being converted into lab space, and has been so far quite successful in attracting biotechnology and medical firms.

Transportation

Railroad

Amtrak railroad service at New Haven

New Haven is connected to New York City by both commuter rail, regional rail and intercity rail, provided by Metro-North Railroad (commuter rail) and Amtrak (regional and intercity rail) respectively, allowing New Haven residents to commute to work in New York City (just under two hours by train).

The city's main railroad station is the historic beaux-arts Union Station, which serves Metro-North trains to New York and Shore Line East commuter trains to New London. An additional station was opened in 2002, named State Street Station, to provide Shore Line East and a few peak-hour Metro-North passengers easier access to and from Downtown.

Union Station is further served by four Amtrak lines: the Northeast Regional and the high-speed rail Acela Express provide service to Washington DC and Boston, and rank as the first and second busiest routes in the country; the New Haven-Springfield Line provides service to Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts; and the Vermonter provides service to both Washington and upstate Vermont, 15 miles from the Canadian border.

Metro-North has the third highest daily ridership among commuter rails in the country, with an average weekday ridership of 276,000 in 2009. Of the 276,000 Metro-North riders, 112,000 rode the New Haven Line each day, making the New Haven Line alone seventh in the country in daily ridership. Shore Line East ranked nineteenth in the country, with an average daily ridership of 2,000.

A new commuter rail line to run along the existing Amtrak line from New Haven through Hartford to Springfield, MA has been proposed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT). Currently called the New Haven–Hartford–Springfield Commuter Rail Line, it is in the planning phase and would not begin service until 2019, at the earliest.

The City of New Haven is in the very early stages of considering restoring streetcar (light-rail) service, which has been absent since the immediate postwar period.

See also: New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad

Bus

The 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, making it the central transfer hub of the city. Service is provided to 19 different municipalities throughout Greater New Haven. Peter Pan and Greyhound Lines bus lines have scheduled stops at Union Station and connections downtown can be made by the CT Transit bus service.

The New Haven Division buses follow routes that had originally been covered by trolley service. Horse-drawn steetcars 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 restoring streetcar (light-rail) service, which has been absent since the postwar period.

See also: Connecticut Company

Major highways

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, and eastern Massachusetts - and Interstate 91, which leads northward to the interior of Massachusetts and Vermont and the Canadian 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", 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 (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 (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 also the site of the only highway tunnel in the state (officially designated as Heroes' Tunnel), running through West Rock, home to West Rock Park and the Three Judges Cave.

In addition to these expressways, the city also has several major surface arteries. U.S. Route 1 (Columbus Avenue, Union Avenue, Water Street, Forbes Avenue) runs in an east-west direction south of downtown serving Union Station and leading out of the city to Milford, West Haven, East Haven and Branford. The main road from downtown heading northwest is Whalley Avenue (partly signed as Route 10 and Route 63) leading to Westville and Woodbridge. Heading north towards Hamden, there are two major thoroughfares, Dixwell Avenue and Whitney Avenue. To the northeast are Middletown Avenue (Route 17), which leads to the Montowese section of North Haven, and Foxon Boulevard (Route 80, which leads to the Foxon section of East Haven and to the town of North Branford. To the west is Route 34, which leads to the city of Derby. Other major intracity arteries are Ella Grasso Boulevard (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, located three miles (5 km) east of the city, provides daily service through US Airways. While CT Transit has bus service from downtown to Tweed, a taxi or car ride takes less than 15 minutes.

Seaport

New Haven Harbor 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. There is approximately 400,000 square feet (40,000 m²) of inside storage and 50 acres (200,000 m²) of outside storage available at the site. Five shore cranes with a 250-ton capacity and 26 forklifts, each with a 26-ton capacity, are also available.

Power supply facilities

Electricity for New Haven is generated by 448 MW oil and gas-fired generating station located on the shore at New Haven Harbor. In addition, Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL) Inc. 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.

New construction

Current construction includes the 31 story, 500 unit apartment/retail building called 360 State which is rising downtown at Chapel and State streets. The medical district near Route 34 is experiencing a building boom centering on the new Smilow Cancer Center, a 14 story facility scheduled to open in October, 2009, along with several related medical buildings under construction in late, 2009. Foundation and ramp work to widen I-95 to create a new harbor crossing for New Haven, with an extradosed bridge to replace the Q-bridge has started with a completion date as beyond 2012. Work on the bridge structure itself has now begun. A new campus for Gateway Community College has now began to be constructed downtown on the site of the former Macy's. Other discussed projects include a streetcar connecting New Havens neighborhoods and a major revitalization in New Haven's Long Wharf neighborhood.

Sister cities

New Haven has seven sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International:

• Afula-Gilboa, Israel
• Amalfi, Italy
• Avignon, France
• Freetown, Sierra Leone
• Hue, Vietnam
• León, Nicaragua
• Taichung (City), Republic of China on the island of Taiwan

Some of these were selected because of historical connection — Freetown because of the Amistad trial. Others, such as Amalfi and Afula-Gilboa, reflect ethnic groups in New Haven.

In 1990, the United Nations named New Haven a "Peace Messenger City".

Notable people

Main article: List of New Haven, Connecticut natives and long-term residents

Yale alumni and faculty

Main article: List of Yale University people

Hopkins School alumni and faculty

Main article: List of Hopkins School people

Literature

• 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, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in An American City (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1961)
• 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)
• William Lee Miller, The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society, (Houghton Mifflin/Riverside, 1966)
• 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.)

See also

• Other articles about people and places in New Haven, CT.
• New Haven Police Department

External links

• City of New Haven official website
• New Haven Free Public Library
• New Haven CT Guide
• Template:Dmoz
• Template:Wikitravel
• Historical New Haven Digital Collection
• Tweed New Haven Regional Airport