A photo essay. To view all 16 images, check out the email edition.
The courtyard off College just south of South Frontage is a midcity mirage. Mere steps from two of our busier streets, the manicured space feels secluded and private, its peace protected by leafy guards and brick walls laced with latticed windows and painted wrought iron. Its footpaths drift through meticulous grass, leading to benches and tables where you can savor a quiet moment.
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While enjoying that moment, you might notice a strange ribbed box sticking out of the ground or a large metal grate covering a 20-foot drop to concrete. Maybe the lawn feels odd, harder than regular earth. You certainly can’t have missed the huge silvery pipes rising into the sky at the lower end of the yard.
And as the dots begin to connect—and after your phone connects the rest—you realize it’s Yale’s Sterling Power Plant that’s been recharging your batteries, a surreality worth pondering before recovering your zen.
Yale Medical Campus Courtyard
Located in New Haven, west of College St and south of S. Frontage St, between Sterling Power Plant, Sterling Hall of Medicine and the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. This updated story was originally published on
