Arson is among the most dangerous and destructive crimes. On Christmas Day 2019, an arsonist set fire to the historic Walter Camp house on Chapel Street, destroying its third floor and damaging the rest. Earlier that year, a fire set at the Diyanet Mosque on Middletown Avenue was also determined to have been set intentionally. […]
Tag Archives: history
Camp Ground
It’s hard to imagine the game of football without yard lines and fourth downs and organized teams of 11. But before New Havener Walter Camp, the sport was missing all of those elements and more. (more…)
Town and City
The character of the New Haven Green, and therefore New Haven itself, owes much to Ithiel Town, by some accounts the city’s first professional architect. (more…)
Door Handle
New Haven has better reason than most to get a handle on its doors. This dates back at least as far as the Revolutionary War, when British soldiers spent the first week of July 1779 raiding towns on the Connecticut coast. In Fairfield and Norwalk, the raiders disembarked from their ships, skirmished with local militias, […]
Magic Bond
Seven years ago, magician Nelson Nicholson guided me through his Orange estate. The puzzle box of a home, the result of 13 separate additions, was filled with artifacts from the golden age of magic—between 1890ish and 1920ish, before film captured America’s collective imagination—and beyond. Dozens of handcuffs that had tried (and failed) to trap the […]
Object Permanence
Organized by Puritan settlers in 1639, Center Church on the Green is New Haven’s founding congregation. It served as the city’s established, tax-funded church until disestablishment came to Connecticut in 1818—not long after its current building, designed after St Martin-in-the-Fields by celebrated local architect Ithiel Town, was completed in 1814. Also known as the First […]
Face Value
A photo essay. Published in 1902, my copy of Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven, County, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens, and of Many of the Early Settled Families is nearly five inches and 2,000 pages thick (more…)
Uncapitalized
There’s a certain level of risk to being a state capital. If, despite your advantages, another state city surpasses you in measures like population, economy or culture, it can lead to perpetual snubbing (more…)
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