USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 2
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The Old New Haven Depot by Henry Austin, architect ; built 1848-49 725
The Old Yale College Library; designed and built, 1842-47, by Henry Austin 726
The nave forming the main reading room of the Old College Library as it appeared in the old days to generations of Yale undergraduates 728
One of the reversed arches which form footings for the piers of the nave of the Old College Library 729
The College Yard, looking north; about 1876 730
The College Yard, looking south, with a fine view of the old chapel 731
Yale College in "Consule Planco" 732 "Bright College Years" in the lang syne 734 The Old Union Street market 735
The Pavilion Hotel erected on the harbor-front near the steamboat landing; New Haven's first pretentious cara- vansary 736
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NEW HAVEN :
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Scene on the water-front in the Eighteen-Thirties (artist unknown) 738
Brewster's carriage factory at the foot of Wooster Street .. 738 Who shall identify this view of New Haven in the last cen- tury? 739
Savin Rock; from Lambert's "History of the Colony of New Haven" 739
Colonel John Trumbull (1756-1843) the painter; from the portrait by Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783-1861) 740
"Quality Row"; Elm Street, facing the Old Green. The houses (left to right) are: The Henry Trowbridge House, The Nathan Smith House, and The De Forest House 74I
The New Haven City Hall; built 1861 742
The New Haven City Hall shown with the Old County Court House to the left; built 1871 743
Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925) ; Commandeur du Legion d' Honneur ; a native of New Haven 744
Equestrian statue of Lafayette; Paul Wayland Bartlett, sculptor 745
Book-plate of the Donald G. Mitchell Memorial Library ; by Frederick Spencerly 746
Book-plate of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut by Edwin Davis French 747
Book-plate of The Edward Tompkins Mclaughlin Memorial Prize in English Composition; by Edwin Davis French 748
The author's book-plate, showing his great-great-grand- father's house to suggest his interest in old houses and architecture. The plate, which he designed, was etched by his friend, William F. Hopson (1849-1935) 749
Donald Grant Mitchell (1822-1908, Yale College 184I) 750
"Rosebank," once occupied by Donald G. Mitchell 75I
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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The Portrait of Chief-Justice Taft Frontispiece and 752 Group, including former President Taft, William Whitman Farnam, the Reverend Dr. Oscar E. Maurer and the author, assembled on the Green on April 25, 1913 . . .. 754
Former President Taft and his soldier son, Private Charles Phelps Taft II; taken in a training camp near Alex- andria, Virginia 756
The Reverend Dr. Ezra Stiles (1727-1795, Yale College 1746) ; President of Yale College, 1778-1795 758
The Right-Reverend Samuel Seabury (1729-1796, Yale College 1748) ; Primus Episcopus Americanus 760
The Right-Reverend John Williams (1817-1899) ; Fourth Bishop of Connecticut 762
The Glebe House, Woodbury; the Mecca of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America 763
Former President Theodore Roosevelt and the author; a snapshot taken when Mr. Roosevelt was in New Haven
for the funeral of Professor Thomas R. Lounsbury .. 764 John Ferguson Weir, N.A .; painted in 1912 by John White Alexander, N.A. 765
Dr. Eneas Munson, Sr. (1734-1826) ; friend and corre- spondent of Nathan Hale 766
Home of Dr. Eneas Munson, Sr. 768
"Eagle's Wing Chair" of Dr. Eneas Munson, Sr. 770 New Haven and Fort Hale about 1831 772 Another View of Fort Hale 773 The Abraham Bradley House on State Street; built 1808 .. 774 The Ralph Isaacs House on Water Street; built 1771 . 776
. Colonel John Montresor (1736-1799), who befriended Nathan Hale in Hale's last hours 779
Nathan Hale; a photograph of Bela Lyon Pratt's statue when in the clay 780
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The Dr. Theodore Thornton Munger Tablet 782
Cenotaph at Coventry erected about 1794 by Deacon Rich- ard Hale, Nathan Hale's father 784
Tablet erected in Battell Chapel by the Author to the mem- ory of Nathan Hale (Yale College 1773) 786
Hale statue in front of Connecticut Hall, in which he roomed as an undergraduate 788
Hale Homestead in South Coventry, as it appears today 790
The Hale House; the dining room as it appears today 791
The Hale House; the cellar, showing the great corbelled chimney piers 791
The Hale House; the parlor as it appears today 792
The Hale House; the northwest bed-chamber, showing Hale's army trunk 792
The Hale House on Washington's birthday, 1920 793
John André's self-portrait, made the day before his execu- tion; now owned by Yale College 794
Souvenirs of André at Yale 795
Street scene in Guildford, County Surrey, in Old England, for which our Guilford was named 796
Henry Whitfield House, Guilford; built by him in 1639 797
Colonel Samuel Belcher (1779-1849) 798
William Noyes Mansion in Old Lyme; built 1818; designed by Colonel Belcher 799
The Famous Old Lyme Meetinghouse ; designed by Colonel Samuel Belcher 800
The Silliman House; the first house built on Hillhouse Avenue 802
The first New Haven Lighthouse; built 1804-5 803
Gateway of the Grove Street Cemetery; designed by Henry Austin 804
THE TRUE FUNCTION OF A CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
"The New Haven adventurers were the most opulent company which came into New-England, and they designed to plant a capital colony. They laid out their town plot in squares, designing it for a great and elegant city. In the center was a large, beautiful square." History of Connecticut by Benjamin Trumbull, D.D. 1818. Vol. I, p. 74.
"In our efforts to secure new enterprises, we have in a measure, I believe, been pursuing the wrong policy and have been working from the wrong standpoint. While we should continue unabated our efforts to secure new industrial enter- prises to locate in New Haven, and should seek to have people come here to reside, we should, in order to more easily accom- plish this, endeavor to make the city of New Haven so attract- ive, both as a residential and as a manufacturing center, that its very attractiveness will invite the manufacturer and the citizen of other communities to come among us and become a part of our industrial and social life.
"This attractiveness can be secured if we see to it that this city has a most excellent school system; that it has well-paved and well-lighted streets; that it has a capable and efficient health board, with the necessary powers and facilities to enable such board to protect and to conserve the health of our citizens ; that our beautiful trees are preserved, so that our city may continue to be known in the future, as it has ever been in the past, as the 'City of Elms'; and withal, a rate of taxation as low as is consistent with the needs of a live and progressive community. In short, we should try to make it, as nearly as we can, a 'City Beautiful' in fact.
"This, gentlemen, I believe, should be our first concern; and if we can accomplish this, as I feel sure we can if we all do our part in the work, many who are now strangers to our community will soon become our neighbors; the manufacturer
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will more readily come and locate his establishment with us, and we shall witness a growth of our city which will be as gratifying as it is necessary, if we hope to retain our prestige as a community."-Inaugural address of Colonel Isaac M. Ullman in assuming the Presidency of the New Haven Cham- ber of Commerce, March 31, 1909.
"The New Haven adventurers were the most opulent company which had come into New England. Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins had been eminent merchants in London, and they and others, intending to follow the same pursuits, designed New Haven for a great commercial city. They accordingly laid it out in a regular plan, the streets crossing at right angles, and divided it into nine squares. The center one they reserved for a public green," Lambert's "History of the Colony of New Haven." New Haven, 1838, p. 52.
"The entire plain, from river to river, and from the harbor to the guardian mountains, may be crowded with the city's growth and wealth; the number of inhabitants may be doubled and redoubled in successive generations; surrounding towns and villages may be enriched and beau- tified by the overflowing prosperity of the city; but, till New Haven shall have lost its identity, this Public Square will be its heart, the center of its life. Call it a park, and it is too diminutive to be respectable; but as a Forum, an Athenian Agora, a central place of concourse, its capabil- ities are magnificent." "Civic Oration," May 30, 1879, Dr. Bacon.
"As to the plan which was adopted for streets, for a public square, convenient access to the harbor, and communication with the surrounding country, the sound judgment exercised is everywhere visible; nor do I suppose that any important change, in these respects, would be made, if, after the experience of two centuries, we could direct what the original design should have been." "Kingsley's Historical Discourse," 1838, p. 22.
The New Haven plan of 1638 would have satisfied modern requirements fairly well had the four corners of the Central Square or Green been intersected by radiating thoroughfares. G. D. S.
"In the stress and strain of city life, let us dare to make fittingly splendid the hope we have for cities and let us have the courage and the patience to transform hope to fact." Charles Mulford Robinson in "The Call of the City."
Outside experts and special commissions may be valuable to arouse or educate public opinion, or to stimulate and inform local officials, or to con- firm or correct the judgment of the latter; but the real work of getting the results, toward which any paper plan is but a step, depends mainly upon the right sort of unremitting, never-ending work by the proper administrative officials. Frederick Law Olmsted, Address at Rochester, May 2d, 1910.
I.
A LETTER TO THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE AP- POINTED FROM THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN TO CON- SIDER THE PETITION PRESENTED BY THE DIRECTORS OF THE NEW HAVEN PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR A SITE ON THE GREEN FOR A NEW LIBRARY BUILDING.1
"The town-plot itself was also a witness to New Haven's inheritance. The New England village, indeed, was usually clustered around a church standing upon its bit of green. But New Haven here again showed the city idea modifying the rustic village-common. The skillful precision with which New Haven was laid out around its central market-place elicited at that time universal admiration. What common-squares of old London, and country-borough greens, were there represented! It can hardly be estimated how many towns from that day to this have reproduced the New Haven square with its central green." Levermore's "Republic of New Haven," 1886, p. 155.
Gentlemen :- I avail myself of the permission given me at the public hearing Friday evening, March 23, to submit some considerations on the question before you-a question which involves more than the preservation of the integrity of the old Green2 in that it embraces the question of the architectural development of the central portion of the city.
1 Published in the New Haven Register of August 1, 1906.
" The Green, laid out in June or July, 1638, by John Brockett, "Surveyor," embraces a fraction over sixteen acres and was known as the "Market Place" until about 1759, when it began to be called the "Green." "In two cases connected with the public proclamation of Royal accessions," says Blake, "it is dignified as the 'Great Square.'" For nearly two hundred and seventy-five years this great open square has ministered in many ways to the community, with the history of which it is inseparably connected. As
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It is certain that ultimately, and probably within the next half century, the land facing the Green will be built up solidly with public and semi-public buildings, to the exclusion of any residences. If a wise plan is followed and the build- ings put up from time to time are designed with an eye to architectural harmony, the effect will be almost unrivaled anywhere in the country, provided the great square they enclose is left open and unbroken.
It does not require the gift of prophecy to foretell that the New Haven of the future, with a larger civic pride in all of its beauties and institutions, will rank the Green before every- thing else, if it is preserved and handed on as it stands to-day.
As to the lower end of the Green, I cannot reconcile my mind to an invasion of it for any possible purpose except, per- haps, for memorials to John Davenport, Theophilus Eaton and James Hillhouse. Nor am I sure that I should be willing even to grant a place on the Green for a memorial to any one of these three "worthies."
The upper end of the Green stands, I am free to grant, on a somewhat different footing, but its invasion by a library building I should regard in the light of a great sacrifice-the sacrifice of the old Green as the distinctive feature of New Haven and famous the world over.
The Green, with the Center Church3 and the "Old North Meeting-house,"# is unrivaled in any New England city as time goes on and New Haven grows in size and density of population, the Green will play a larger and larger part in the life of the City. The Green is to-day, beyond any question, the chief municipal asset of New Haven and daily growing in value as such. Our citizens, to whom it belongs, should resist any invasion of it for any purpose whatever. No problem can arise that cannot be solved without taking the Green or any part of it away from the people whose heritage it is. No American city has any public square to compare with it in location, size, dignity and historic association. (Written May Ist, 1910, on hearing that the project to put a waiting station on the Green had been beaten.)
3 Built 1813-1814; Ithiel Town, architect. The fourth house of worship of the First Ecclesiastical Society. Dedicated December 27th, 1814. Cost about $34,000.
4 Built 1814-1815; David Hoadley, architect and builder. The third house of worship of this Society and the second on the present site. Cost about $28,000.
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
preserving a picture of old New England, of which it is a sort of concentration. Of course, many New England villages with their white meeting houses still retain the air and flavor of the old time, but no city, that I can recall, has any open space with two buildings of quite the same quality. Hartford has nothing to compare with them for a moment. Its First Church is inferior to either the Center or North churches in design, and, by being abutted on Main Street, produces no effect of the same sort. Our two meeting-houses, located as they are in a great open green space, give New Haven a distinction which it would be deplorable to lose or have impaired. No one who comes to New Haven for the first time and from the corner of Church and Chapel streets sees the old Green, with its three churches, spread out before him, can fail to be charmed by the sight-can fail to be impressed by the simplicity and the dignity and the beauty of the spa- cious unornamented square. Nor can he fail to thank in his heart the people of a city who have reverenced the old time enough to preserve its memorials.
This effect would be sacrificed if the upper end of the Green were used for a library. A building there would almost neces- sarily dominate the "meeting-houses" and take away the present character of the Green. A building designed to avoid this dominating effect could only avoid it in part, and would then itself appear to be, as it were, in the "backyard," and no one can wish the library placed in such a subordinate position.
Moreover, a library placed on the upper end of the Green would break the view of the College Street front of the old Campus, and destroy the most interesting architectural effect made anywhere by any of the college buildings, dominated and tied together as the buildings on the College Street front of the Campus are by the fine four-square mass of the Phelps Gateway,5 for no one who pays any attention to architectural effect can fail to have seen how masterfully this heavy tower has saved that heterogeneous line.
5 Built 1895; Charles Coolidge Haight, of New York, architect.
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NEW HAVEN :
To my claim that a library building on the upper end of the Green would dominate the churches, it may be said in reply that the old State House6 did not dominate the churches, and that therefore a new library building would not do so. What the old State House was on that spot affords no gauge of what a new library building would be in the same place. The old State House, as it is now remembered, was quiet and unobtrusive in tone and had about it the charm which decay and old associations bestow. A new building, larger, lighter in color, and of solid masonry, would inevitably be more insistent and dominating and produce a wholly different effect. Let no one be deceived by the claim that a new library building on the Green would be no more obtrusive than the old State House was. The reproduction of the old State House for a library building, as has been proposed, is entirely out of the question.
Has anyone forgotten how much the Green gained in appearance by the removal of the old State House? Many of the bitterest opponents of that project were won over when the shabby old building came down. It cannot be gainsaid that its removal brought to many citizens a sense of satisfac- tion and relief. Accustomed as we now are to the present aspect of the Green, we have actually lost our means of meas- uring the gain that was made by taking the old State House away.
Do not think that I do not appreciate the value to the com- munity of ample library facilities. On the contrary, I look forward to the time when New Haven will willingly increase its appropriation for library purposes. The present library building is inadequate in size and defective in arrangement. It would not be wise to remodel it or to build a new building on the same site. A new and better site should be secured. A new building on the present site would not be seen on com- ing up Church Street, and would be overpowered and over- shadowed by the towering building which is sure to replace,
6 Built 1824; demolished 1889; Ithiel Town, architect.
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
before long,7 the present Exchange building. The site of the Tontine Hotel™ª would be better, being on the corner, but it, too, faces the wrong way and would be better utilized for some other public or semi-public structure.
Ideal sites for the public library are to be found, it seems to me, on Elm Street between Church and Temple streets. A building anywhere along there would be in full view of everyone coming up Church Street, and if built in the classical style would splendidly carry on and repeat the note struck by the Center Church and the "Old North Church," with their pil- lared frontispieces. I venture to suggest, then, that a library building in the classical style, with a marble colonnade, facing south and placed on Elm Street between the corner of Church and Temple streets, would meet more of the ideal requirements than anything else to be thought of. A site in the location suggested may not be at present available, but if that location offers the best solution of the site problem, everything else considered, it would be a mistake not to postpone the building until a site there can be secured. A building there could easily be made to satisfy every requirement of size, light, air and safety from fire, and would be quiet and convenient of access.
If. the Trowbridges and Sargent9 houses, either or both, were painted white, they would help to visualize the idea I have in mind-the idea of repeating the fine columns of the Center Church and the North Church, and the general style of those churches, in buildings facing the square. Whether
" The height of buildings on sites facing the Green should be limited by an ordinance, following the lead of Boston and Baltimore. (Such power was given to a Municipal Art Commission created by an amendment to the city charter, approved May 13, 1913.)
Ta Built 1828; Ithiel Town, architect; David Hoadley, builder.
8 Built 1851-2 for Thomas Trowbridge, Esq .; Sidney Mason Stone, architect.
9 Built 1820-21 for David Curtis DeForest; David Hoadley, the archi- tect and builder, followed the exterior design of "Hoppin's Folly" in Providence, built about 1816 from plans by John Holden Greene. Remodeled and nearly doubled in size 1878-9 by the late Mayor James Bradford Sargent; Brown and Stilson, architects. Demolished 1910 to provide a site for the new New Haven County Court House; Allen & Williams, architects.
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NEW HAVEN :
Mr. Haight had this idea in mind, I cannot say, but his use of a very finely scaled pillared portico in rebuilding the First Methodist Church10 is a step toward securing the effect which I have in mind. The Second National Bank11 building also shows the beauty and propriety of columns for buildings fac- ing an open square, but in this instance the building and the columns are too small in scale to achieve the desired effect. The great beauty of such an architectural scheme is notably shown in the buildings of the University of Virginia at Char- lottesville.
I now hope I have made my point clear; namely, that a building in the classical style, facing south, would satisfy the architectural proprieties and be such an ornament to the center of New Haven as could not be secured in any other way.
Then if, as time goes on, other buildings facing the Green could be built in the same general style, we should gradually work up to an architectural effect not only beautiful in itself and distinctive, but also having the force of a fine and noble tradition, preserving and reinforcing the note struck so long ago in the Center Church, in the North Church, in the Sargent house, and in the beautiful Renaissance front of the Edwards house.12 If a start were made by the city, private owners would be compelled, by public opinion, to follow the architectural scheme indicated, in building on sites facing the Green.
I have not spoken of "Trinity Church,"13 interesting in many ways as it is, because this building, on account of its
10 Built 1849; architect not ascertained; remodeled 1904 by Charles Coolidge Haight.
11 Built 1903-4; Henry Bacon of New York, architect; Hoggson Bros., builders. Demolished 1913. Present building designed by Goldwin, Star- rett & Van Vleck; Hoggson Bros., builders.
12 Built about 1818 by Hon. Nathan Smith; David Hoadley, architect ; demolished March-April, 1910. Lafayette reviewed the troops from the steps of this house on the occasion of the great demonstration in his honor when he visited New Haven in 1824.
13 Built 1814-1815; Ithiel Town, architect. Cost about $30,000.
As designed by Town the church had a low tower which was orna- mented with pinnacles executed, of course, in wood. The roof was sur-
.
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THREATENED INVASION OF NEW HAVEN GREEN.
location with reference to the main axis of vision from the corner of Church and Chapel streets, and on account of the quietness of its color, does not enter prominently into the problem.
At the risk of appearing discursive, I wish to ask your con- sideration of another phase of the same question-the same question, because the site of the new library will largely determine its architectural character, and because the style chosen will very powerfully affect all future public and semi- public buildings that may be built, not only directly about the Green, but also in the central portion of the city.
What American cities need more than anything else, is architectural harmony produced by the repetition of the same architectural forms. The two churches on the Green are the city's most distinctive and precious architectural treasures. The note struck by them has been repeated, as I have already said, by the portico of the First Methodist Church, by the pillared porticoes of the Trowbridge and Sargent houses, and by the Second National Bank. Presently we are to have
rounded by a wooden parapet, as the old pictures show. When first built the structure was extravagantly admired. See "The Gothic Church, New Haven," by N. P. Willis, in American Scenery, pp. 225-6. But as time went on the parapet became rickety, pieces of it blew off, and Dr. Har- wood quite lost his patience with it. At a vestry meeting held Feb. 16, 1870, a committee consisting of Messrs. Boardman, Charnley and Tuttle were authorized to secure plans for a "bell tower" to cost not over $18,500. Emil Littell of New York was the architect employed. On Sept. 8, 1870, a meeting was held in the "tower-room." The "bell-tower" must, therefore, have been built between these dates. At the same time, the church was "restored" by the removal of the wooden parapet from the roof. The chimes were presented in 1886 by Andrew L. Kidston and hung in the "bell-tower" in 1887. The interior of the church was recon- structed and redecorated by Charles Coolidge Haight in 1908. The church would, in the opinion of many, be improved by removing the stunted pyramidal slate-covered spire with which Littell capped the new tower, which he thus brought into competition with the spire of Center Church and the belfry of the North Church. The removal of this stunted spire would restore the church to something like its original appearance as designed by Town, though to no measure of its original beauty as a design.
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