Everything about The New Haven Green totally explained
The
New Haven Green is a 16-acre public park and recreation area located in the
downtown district of the city of
New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine square settlement plan of the original
Puritan colonists, and was designed and surveyed by colonist John Brockett. Today the Green is bordered by the modern paved roads of College, Chapel, Church, and Elm streets. Temple Street bisects the Green into upper (northwest) and lower (southeast) halves. The green is host to numerous public events, such as the
Festival of Arts and Ideas, summer jazz and classical music concerts that can draw hundreds of thousands of people, as well as typical daily park activities. It became a National Historic District on December 30, 1970.. The upper Green also once held the First Methodist Church. The church was removed from the Green in 1848 with a new church built across Elm Street (designed by
Henry Austin). The Green also held a succession of statehouses, dating from the time when New Haven was joint capital of Connecticut with
Hartford. The most recent state house was erected in 1837, designed by
Ithiel Town in a
Greek revival style. Ultimately, Hartford was declared the sole capital and the building was demolished in 1889 .
The Green was used as the main burial grounds for the residents of New Haven during its first 150 years, but by 1821 the practice was abolished and many of the headstones were moved to the
Grove Street Cemetery. However, the remains of the dead were not moved, and thus still remain below the soil of the Green. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 people remain buried there, including
Benedict Arnold's first wife,
Reverend James Pierpont (founder of
Yale University), members of President
Rutherford B. Hayes' family, and
Theophilus Eaton.
Although the Green is now owned and maintained by the city of New Haven, descendants of the city's original settlers maintained ownership until 1805, when they nominated five of their number to form a committee to oversee the property. Today's committee members — called proprietors — are drawn from the ranks of prominent city residents. Members are appointed for life, and when one dies the four remaining members convene in private to select a replacement.
On the Green
Located on the upper Green are three historic early
19th century churches which reflect the city's theocratic roots:
In the lower Green are the Bennett Fountain (built in 1907 and designed after the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens) and the flagpole with granite
World War I memorial (designed by
Douglas Orr in 1928) and fountain (added in 2003).
While once the edges of the Green were covered with a glorious canopy of
elms, planted originally by
James Hillhouse, most died of
dutch elm disease. In the 1980's, disease-resistant elms were planted in an effort to memorialize the legacy of the trees that gave New Haven the nickname "Elm City".
Around the Green
Bordering the Green are municipal, commercial and university structures. On the northwest side of the Green, across College Street, stand Phelps Gate and the
Yale University buildings bordering
Old Campus. Before the Old Campus was built, the buildings of Yale's Old Brick Row bordered the Green here. On the southwest side along Chapel Street are stores, bars, and other commercial properties. On the southeast side of the green, across Church Street is The Exchange Building (1832, restored in 1990) and the Federal Courthouse (
James Gamble Rogers, 1913). This was once the site of the Tontine Hotel, built by David Hoadley. New Haven's Victorian City Hall (by
Henry Austin in 1861; restored and added to by Herbert S. Newman and Partners) and the
Amistad Memorial are also at this end of the Green. The memorial stands on the site of the jail that held the Amistad captives during their time in New Haven. Spectators came to see them when they were brought out to exercise on the Green and paid 12 and a half cents to view them in the jail.
Opposite the eastern corner of the lower green is the Union and New Haven Trust Building (now
Wachovia Bank) designed by
Cross and Cross in
colonial revival style in 1927. The design is a tribute to the federal churches on the green and even borrows the cupola from the United Church. On the northeast side along Elm Street by the lower Green is the
New Haven Free Public Library (
Cass Gilbert, 1908). The library was once the site of the Bristol House, also designed by David Hoadley, whose doorway is now at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Next to the library is the
Beaux-Arts neoclassical New Haven County Courthouse. The courthouse was designed by New Haven architects William Allen and Richard Williams, modeled after
St. George's Hall in
Liverpool, England. The statuary in front of the courthouse is by the sculptor
J. Massey Rhind and murals and lunettes inside the courthouse are by the painter T. Thomas Gilbert.
The upper Green on Elm is bordered by "Quality Row", containing some of the oldest structures in New Haven: the
federal style white clapboard Nicholas Callahan house, once a tavern (now the
Yale Elihu Senior Society), the federal Eli W. Blake House (now the Graduate Club), the federal John Pierpont house (now the
Yale University Visitor Center) built in 1767 and the brick
Greek revival Governor Ralph Isaacs Ingersoll House, designed in 1829 by
Town and Davis (future home of Dwight Hall, the student community service organization at Yale).
Further Information
Get more info on 'New Haven Green'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://new_haven_green.totallyexplained.com">New Haven Green Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
