USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 9
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So the expanded New Haven has today churches which conveniently serve all its residence districts, while its center is still well supplied. It has eighty- two churches in the city proper, with a dozen more which are so closely affiliated with New Haven's interests in general as to properly belong to the city. The single denomination of 1640 has grown to twelve. The Roman Catholic denomi- nation has seventeen churches, doing consecrated service in religion and edu- cation. The Jewish church has its six synagogues, maintaining not only the worship of its faith and order, but serving the whole community in many useful ways.
New Haven has not depended on Yale University for its reputation as an educational center. Independent of Yale, there has been made here a notable reeord among the towns of the state and of New England. New Haven not only has a good system of education ; it has a different one whose difference consists in the faet that it is better. It makes no empty boast of this; it makes no boast at all, for it has, as will be later shown, the substance in evidenee. Aside from Yale University, whose nine departments serve every higher educational need, New Haven has one of the best of the state's training schools for teachers. In the substantial building at the corner of Howe and Oak streets Arthur B. Morrill and a corps of teachers with splendid ideals of the profession to which they have devoted their lives, perhaps the most vitally important of the profes- sions, are annually sending out to the schools of New Haven and of Connecticut a hundred young women whose work is to be for the saving of the state.
New Haven has a high school remarkable in its history, more remarkable in its recent development. Long ago it outgrew the Hillhouse building on Orange Street, and went to its new edifice on York Square-the only private park in New Haven. The rapid development of the city's school requirements made it a question, for several years, whether a single central institution, with its uni-
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formity of result, would not need to be sacrificed to a demand for more room. There was a struggle between those who wanted to keep the high school one and those who would divide in districts. The outcome was not a victory, exactly, for either side, but a compromise by which the central plant is enabled to serve not only the city but a good deal of the suburbs. Here-not to quote figures which constantly change from year to year-is an institution containing more students than the average of American colleges, equipped at present, considering all its departments, as well as any high school in Connecticut and surpassed by few in New England. For it is four schools in one. In the high school building proper the usual work of a high school is carried on. In the Boardman Manual Training School building are the manual and scientific portions of the high school and the whole organization of the apprentice shops (the trade school, itself an institution in respect to which New Haven leads the country). Re- cently, an added building has been erected to house the commercial school, which makes the fourth distinct department of the New Haven secondary education system.
In fifteen wards, New Haven has fifty-two graded schools, where a force of between 600 and 700 teachers instruet the nearly 30,000 children of the city- children, seemingly of every race and origin existent. Yet so excellent is the system that from the "melting pot" is turned out annually, by way of grammar or high or normal or trade or night school, much of the pure gold of satisfactorily trained and understanding citizenship.
It is needful here, in tracing the causes which shape the New Haven that is, to mention only a few of the moral forces of the city aside from its religious and educational systems. Not even a sketch of the development of modern New Haven can omit the associations for the Christian culture, on broad and non- sectarian grounds, of the city's young men and young women. The Young Men's Christian Association, with more than half a century behind it, has had, as have most associations dating as far back as that, its struggles for existence. When it ambitiously assumed responsibility for a modern association building about 1900, it took a burden which staggered it. It suffered from the mistakes of management that are inevitable to such an experience. It was not until 1914 or thereabout that the association came into its own, and was able to give its full attention to the saving of New Haven, without having to worry about what it should eat and wear and burn. Standing today firm in the confidence and support of the substantial people of New Haven, it is performing, as justification for their support, a work of formation of character whose value cannot be deseribed.
A similar experience of struggle has been the lot of the sister organization, the Young Women's Christian Association. The demands of its work, as the city grew, constantly went ahead of its resources. It has long needed an ade- quate building-which it will get some day. Meanwhile, with the facilities it has, it is doing an indispensable work for the young women of New Haven, especially those who need, for a longer or shorter time, what may stand in the place of home life and influenee.
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New Haven has in its modern time many organizations, ambitious to attain many ends. Churches and educational forces maintain societies to the end of the improvement of the religious, the moral or the social life of the city. Not infrequently they have been found duplicating each other's work, getting in each other's way. It was the thought that something might be done toward harnessing and harmonizing all this effort, that was a part of the idea in forming the Civic Federation. Elsewhere the history of this institution and the names of the persons who made it will be told. Let it be mentioned here as a force in the peculiar formation of the modern community we are considering.
There was so much to be done in New Haven when the awakening came. There were evils to be eontended with-moral, social, physical. There was need to build up a harmonious eivie spirit. The town was disjointed, spread in cliques. There was need for a common force to hold together its workers of good will, in which neither race nor seet nor creed should separate them. They should be united in a common task. The Federation would find the task. it would gather the workers, it would set them at work. It would aet as a clearing house, as it were, of the organizations already at work. It would assume the role of guide, counsellor and friend of them all.
Something of all this has been accomplished. But the federation never found a rope quite long enough to hitch its wagon to that star. It was able, nevertheless, to do a lot of good, to exert a positive and lasting influence on the whole community in some of the directions it sought. It has found tasks enough ; it has found many workers. It has done not a little in getting them together. But, to repeat a common exeuse, "New Haven is peculiar." It was a good while set in its ways. The federation did not find all of the organizations, espe- eially some of the old ones, ready to follow. It found, for instance. that the Chamber of Commerce assumed much credit for its age and standing, little ac- eomplishment as it was able to show for its years. And it may live to confess that what stirred it up and set it out on a new career that accomplished something for the city, was the activity of the Civic Federation. It is worth mentioning here that, finding that in many departments of activity they were following the same paths, the committees of the chamber and of the federation joined hands, and met in joint session.
The result to New Haven was substantial, though not always tangible. It was, in general, an awakening. In more directions than in the chamber okl and dormant forces were set to work. The city government itself saw where it eould improve. The charter which New Haven put into operation in 1900 was a distinet advanee, and some sixteen years later another attempt was made to seeure, this time, a truly modern charter by the standards of today. That attempt has not yet arrived at suceess, but it is on its way, and it knows whither it is going.
So in many forms the result has come. New Haven has better government, better streets, more regular building lines, better forms of eentral arehiteeture, better theaters and eleaner forms of amusement, with some of the objectionable features of the old eliminated ; it has better living conditions, it has fewer flies and mosquitoes, it has fewer temptations to young men and young girls, it has
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greater safeguards around its juvenile and other delinquents, it has a better jail, it has better conditions in a hundred ways, because of the Civic Federation.
To mention at present but one other modern moving force in New Haven, the Chamber of Commerce's day has been in this awakening time. Founded in 1794, it slumbered longer than did Rip Van Winkle, but its awakening was more to the purpose. Perhaps it is just as well not to assign a date, but it was about 1906. It went after the people first. From a membership of 200 or thereabont it went to 800 in 1909, and to 1,200 five years later. It is still moving on. The Business Men's Association had then been founded for some time, to perform the well known and stereotyped functions of such organizations elsewhere. The Publicity Club was founded in 1910, with the avowed intention to "boost New Haven." It did its work so well that the chamber a few years later saw the virtue of a triple entente, and the three organizations were merged in one, each, however, retaining in large measure its distinet membership. The chamber has had some notable banquets since its awakening, and at least two of the Presidents of the United States have at different times addressed gatherings of more than 1,000 of the leading men of the city in the great dining room of Woolsey HIall, but it has done a lot "between meals." It has boomed New Haven in every legitimate way, largely by quietly but insistently emphasizing the good points existing here, largely omitting those merely hoped for. It has been discovering the good points of New Haven, and advertising them. It has missed no opportunity of "putting the best foot forward" of the town, diplomatically and courteously serving as host to all bodies of visitors, financing, through eom- mittees of its members, many conventions which wonld bring large assemblages here, enabling New Haven in every way to make the best of itself.
Such are a few of the high lights of the New Haven that is, as the twentieth century grows toward the close of its second decade. It is not the complete New Haven. There are many details in the picture, some of which are to be filled in later. New Haven is not ideal; it longs to be. It has men of vision, with ambitions for it. Some of them achieved, in the first decade of the century, what is too important as prophecy, even though yet unfulfilled, to be omitted from a modern history of the community. What that is it will be the attempt of the following chapter to tell. It is a story of the "City Beautiful." the New Haven that would be if it were to be made over from the viewpoint of this century.
CHAPTER X
THE IDEAL NEW HAVEN
A REVIEW OF THE RESPECTS IN WHICH THE REPORT OF THE CIVIC IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE SUGGESTED THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CITY
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George Dudley Seymour has been known as the father of the "City Beauti- ful" as applied to New Haven. It will appear that he deserves a somewhat more exaet definition of the work he has done in pointing the way for New Haven toward the ideal in municipal development. He was not the first, per- haps, of New Haveners who wandered in the beautiful paths of the Old World, to desire that his own city might be developed somewhat in proportion to its possibilities as those cities have been. He was not the first, it may be, of the New Ilaven observers of what American cities much younger than this have achieved in the direction of municipal beauty, to wish that this pioneer eity of America might be developed in harmony with its traditions and historical importance.
But he was the first, it seems, to match his hopes and faith with works. No one knew better than he how hard it was to "start New Haven." But never- theless, he boldly attacked the task. It was in 1907 that Mr. Seymour embodied, in a series of thoughtful and most earefully elaborated articles in one of the New Haven newspapers, somewhat in detail, with some illustrative views of the city as it was, his "City Beautiful" plan. The phrase eanght, but the people did not take it very seriously. It would cost money to change New Haven over in that way. Just then, let it be explained, New Haven was drawing near the close of a disastrous-as it proved-period of attempt to see how low the tax rate could be kept, to the utter disregard of things that needed to be done in the city. Schools and streets and especially New Haven's wonderfully potential but undeveloped park system, had suffered. But the people had conceived the notion that it was a great thing to refrain from spending money. They politely laughed at Mr. Seymour's expensive tastes in making over a city. "City Beautiful," repeated by those who but partly sensed what it meant, caught up by others who knew nothing at all about it, became something very like a joke.
Mr. Seymour took it good naturedly, but he did not in the least lose his grip on the thought. He had accomplished, for the time being, what he desired. He had got the people to talking about a better New Haven. At least it had dawned upon some of them that somebody thought the city could be improved. Ile published, in the New Haven newspapers of June 5, 1907, an "open letter,"
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proposing certain very definite things, the first of which was a mass meeting of the citizens to consider proceeding on a city improvement plan. As a result of that letter, or at least following its publication, Mayor John P. Studley called a mass meeting in Colonial Hall on the evening of June 19. It was largely attended, and the discussion showed encouraging interest in the subject dis- cussed in the letter. This resolution, offered by Henry C. White, attorney, and seconded by Burton Mansfield, attorney, was approved by several prominent citizens in appreciative speeches, and then passed unanimously :
"Voted :-- That a committee be appointed by the Mayor, of which he shall be a member ex officio, to include one member of the Board of Aldermen, one member of the Board of Park Commissioners, and nine other citizens, to employ experts to prepare a plan for the improvement of the city of New Haven, if after consideration they deem this course advisable: to proeure, by appropriation or otherwise, the money necessary to pay the charges and expenses of such experts, if employed ; and to bring any plan which may be made to the attention of the government and people of the eity, with the committee's recommendations in regard to sueh plan ; said committee to have power to add to and fill vacancies in its membership."
Within a few days, pursuant to this resolution, Mayor Studley appointed this "New Haven Civic Improvement Committee" of twelve members:
Hon. Rollin S. Woodruff, Hon. John P. Studley, George Dudley Seymour, George D. Watrous, William W. Farnam, Frederick D. Grave, Max Adler, James T. Moran, Frederick F. Brewster, Harry G. Day, Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., Harry H. Townshend.
Meanwhile, as a further part of the work of preparing the mind of New Haven for the plan, this course of lectures was given, open to the public without charge. in the Trumbull gallery of the Yale Art School. It had been suggested and was partly arranged by Prof. John F. Weir:
December 3, 1908, Mr. Frank Miles Day, president of the American Institute of Architects, "Civic Improvement in the United States:" December 10, 1908. Mr. Cass Gilbert, A. I. A., S. A. R., "Grouping of Public Buildings ;" December 17, 1908. Mr. John M. Carriere, A. I. A. (of Carriere & Hastings), "Civic Im- provement as to Parks, Streets and Buildings;" January 21, 1909, Mr. Walter Cook, trustee of the American Institute of Architects, "Some Considerations in Civic Improvement ;" January 28, 1909, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., A. S. L. A., "Parks and Civie Improvements;" February 4, 1909, Mr. Charles Howard Walker, A. I. A., "Embellishment of Cities."
The discriminating and the true seekers after progress improved this opportunity, and had their reward, but they were not discomforted by much erowding. Meanwhile, the work had been finaneed, according to the terms of the resolution, by ninety-five citizens, and New Haven waited for the appearance of the report.
It came on September 26, 1910, in the shape of a handsome. finely printed, attractively illustrated oetavo volume of 136 pages. And all of its press matter was good meat. One wonders how many of the people of New Haven have ever
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read it, how many of them do not even yet know of its existence. Yet it is the law and the gospel of the "City Beautiful," the code of rules on which, as fast as New Haven advances in real civic improvement, it must proceed. As such, the report itself is legitimate history. An attempt will be made to condense here the essence of the recommendations of the report.
Il
As a basis for the recommendations there was a statement of the present con- ditions and tendencies. By a diagram it was shown that not only has New Haven been growing at a steadily increasing rate, but that many of those now living will see the completion of the process by which it is being transformed from the pleasant little New England college town of the middle nineteenth century, with a population of relatively independent, individualistie and self- sufficing householders, into the widespread urban metropolis of the twentieth century, the citizens of which will be wholly dependent upon joint action for a very large proportion of the good things of eivie life.
The accompanying diagram showed the population growth of New Haven from 1850 to 1910, with parallel growth-curves of certain larger cities. The elimax of the showing was that if New Haven follows the experience of the other cities similarly situated, it will have a population of some 400,000 in the year 1950. And the end of the twentieth century, we were somewhat sensation- ally told, might see a population of a million and a half eentering in the New Haven Green. It was desirable, therefore, to remodel, to build, to plan with that possibility in view.
There was a second diagram, less theoretical, eharting the composition of New Haven's population in 1910. It showed that the city had obtained about one-third of its inerease in population through immigration. That the Irish, though still predominating among the foreign born of 1900, were actually de- creasing in numbers, while the more recent immigrants from southern and east- ern Europe bade fair soon to overtake the older sources of foreign population and probably to increase materially the total percentage of foreign horn in the city. Moreover, the birth rate of the Italians and Russians was strikingly higher than that of the earlier immigrants, that of all the immigrants was higher than that of the native born, and that of the native born of foreign parents was greater than the rate of births among native parents. Therefore it was clearly evident that the percentage of old New England stock in the population was progressively diminishing. People of the old New England stock still to a large extent controlled the city, and if they wanted New Haven to be a fit and worthy place for their deseendants, it behooved them to establish conditions about the lives of all the people that would make the best fellow citizens of them and of their children.
New Haven was summarized as a town of many industries, a local distrib- uting center, a loeal coastwise shipping port, an educational center of national importance. Its conditions were such that "people here ean work hard and
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enjoy life." The inference was that New Haven could afford to do what was recommended.
In the lifetime of the present generation, the city has changed from a New England country town, in which one eould in a short walk, and under com- fortable elms, cover the space from eenter to suburb. It is now a widely spread city, said the report, becoming centrally congested, yet so spread as to furnish the street railway company with 31,599,453 fares a year. Yet not only have the old streets been left unwidened, but new ones show no plan to matel changed and prospective conditions. For the people themselves, especially the young, there had been provided no recreation facilities.
These were but hints of what the distinguished planners (the names signed to the report were Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Ohnsted) were going to propose. As to New Haven's financial ability to adopt their conelusions, they said further :
"So far as appears on the face of the figures, there seems to be no reason why New Haven shoud hesitate, on the seore of financial difficulties, to undertake a bold and farsighted policy in needful publie improvements, provided the work is done without extravagance, waste or corruption."
The report then proceeded with mention of the kinds of improvement most needed. It is worth knowing that the first of these was, in the opinion of the distinguished experts, a new railroad station. The railroad should have a better system of freight yards, on filled land seaward, to give New Haven more room. It should provide more sidings for the factories. On the marshes to the east of the Quinnipiac seemed the best place for those.
New Haven Harbor, instead of oeeupying a minor position, should be brought up more nearly to its possibilities. New Haven should control more of its shore properties (a suggestion then and sinee woefully disregarded). New IIaven should have wider main thoroughfares, because of the inereasing traffic on them. This was something to which to look forward and plan. But two things were to he looked after at onee: The widening of Chapel Street; the building of a proper approach to the station.
The faet that two principal arteries of street ear traffic cross each other at grade, making serious hazard and delay, suggests the need of a subway some- where from the northern approach on Whitney Avenue near Grove Street, passing under the center of the eity and emerging south of George Street.
There was an extended diseussion of street and building lines. with many general suggestions. The proper width of sidewalks to roadways was defined. The required width of streets when trees are to be preserved was set. The standard width in various European eities was given. The eity was advised to conserve its trees, bury its wires and suppress its advertising signs. There was some very impressive figuring as to the eash value of well nourished shade trees.
As to sewage disposal, while the report did not go deeply into the matter, some practical suggestions were made, one of which was that New Haven have one channel for its large but harmless flow of surface water, which might be
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open, and other covered channels for its sewage. For the rest, the report sug- gested that the city study hard on a problem that is peculiarly its own.
New Haven thought it had a fine system of parks in 1910, though it admitted a shortage of developed playgrounds. With the kindness of a wounding friend, Messrs. Gilbert and Olmsted proceeded to treat these parks as if they were only «rude beginnings. Great stress was laid on the fact that parks and playgrounds. to be good for anything, must be brought to the people; the people who need them most will never go to them, at least not far. "Within easy walking distance of every home in the city," is the rule. This refers to what the report called "local parks." The fine mountain and landscape gardened parks are for driving and long-distance pedestrians and show. The local parks are for the people. New Haven needed more of them, and of playgrounds. Chicago's plan of a park within a half mile of every house was mentioned. A map of New Haven showing great black areas unenlightened by parks in the far western, eastern and southwestern sections, was shown. There were unkind remarks about the ridiculous microscopie "playgrounds" of our schools.
The report then proceeded to tell what might be done about it. something like this. First, to decide upon the general locality within which the local park is needed, to examine carefully the assessed valuations of property within the locality, and to select (tentatively) one or more sites which seem promising as to location and cheapness. Then, second, to obtain options on such of the land as it seems possible to obtain reasonably. Third, to ask publicly for the tender of lands for park purposes in the locality, and to hold publie hearings thereon. And finally, guided by the information secured, to take steps for the securing of the land needed by condemnation proceedings.
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