New Haven and West Haven Connecticut
Created | Updated May 3, 2006
A pair of small little towns on Interstate 95 in Connecticut (abbreviated as CT), but ones with enough history to warrant an entry. Some highlights, tidbits, and fun parts should be noted. The world must know!!
West Haven
West Haven is a suburb of New Haven, but it is hardly suburban anymore. It is mostly downtown, but there are still plenty of residential areas. Unfortunately they are not the picture of suburbia. But who cares!! West Haven sports a fantastic lack of fantastic things. Its few great attributes include:
1. Notre Dame High School
Light on the Hill, and a beacon of intellectual prowess for those students who desire a less secular education. A private High School that churns out none but the highest quality students instructed in both the facts and the faith. It takes in students from across the state and this private little school graduates around 200 students a year.
2. West Haven High School
The other high school in the city, and home to most of the graduates (over 1000 per year). It was always a bad place to go, riddled with local gangs and the like. Hard to believe, but true.
3. The Beaches
West Haven was once home to the greatness of Savin Rock. It was an amusement park that rivaled Coney Island. It was a great tourist attraction, and the area has been preserved, though the historic amusement park has since been torn down. It was actually the first proposed site for Disney World (remembering kindly that Disneyland was the first park). However, the deal soured, and Disney took their business to the Floridians. The rock and the beach are still there, and it’s still beautiful.
Take care when venturing into the water, however, as the legendary Long Island sound forms the coast of all of Connecticut. It’s a wondrous mix of sewage and high boat traffic, due to the harbor, but most of the coast that is not neighbor to New Haven's port is actually extremely nice beachfront property. The water is clean and better than it has ever been, but it is no where near the Floridian coasts. Long Island Sound is a harsh mistress, but we did manage to make the beaches appealing again.
Every year a Savin Rock Festival is held and a carnival arrives all in honor of the once thriving amusement legend. The beach is home to Jimmie’s Restaurant, Turk’s, and Chick’s, three of the greatest summertime seafood dining establishments.
4. The Mayor
The once (and future?) mayor, Richard Borer, has ruled over this fair city for over a decade. All signs seemed to show that he will continue to reign for years to come, however in the most recent election, Borer was actually voted out of office. The current mayor is a man named Picard, and we wish him well.
5. Notable Businesses
1. Bayer Corporation (BayerAG on the stock market) of Leverkeusen, Germany, has a clinical pharmacology division based in West Haven. Due to recent troubles with the company, however, there is no longer a production warehouse or several other offices. It is a major employer of the town, and the layoffs were quite trying. The company branch still stands, however, but a shell of its former self. Still, they maintain offices and have even recently approved a unique cancer medication. This is one of many American locations of Bayer Corporation facilities. It was once known as Miles and even longer ago as Dome. This plant was the foremost producer of the antibiotic Ciproflocacin or Cipro, which was used heavily in the Gulf War to combat Anthrax threats, and again during recent terrorist displays of anthrax. It is still a vital part of the business community, however dwindling that part may be.
2. Mike's Apizza and Ristorante is also another notable establishment. It is among the world's greatest pizza places, and West Haven should know. Outside of New Haven (which houses Pepe's and Sally's, two warring pizza places who each have staunch supporters claiming that they serve the best pizza in the world) Mike's is as close as it gets to the best. The number of pizza places in and around these two cities is staggering, however the next statistic is even more shocking.
3. Bars. West Haven has more bars per square foot than any other city in the nation. This is a fact, and more seem to open every month. On Campbell Avenue, one of the main roads in West Haven, there is a long-standing challenge. It is known as the Campbell Crawl, and it involves doing a shot of liquor and a glass of beer at every bar or tavern along the street from end to end. A conservative estimate of the number of bars on this road would be twenty, and the number of people to complete the challenge is likely fewer than that. There is, of course, no official recognition for completion save the bragging rights among friends.
Statistics
Population (2003) - 53,004
Land area (sq miles) – 11
Demographics (2000 Census): 74.1% White, 16.3% Black, 9.1%
New Haven
New Haven is a harbor town, and as such attracts that kind of business. New Haven, CT is the home of Yale University. Yale was founded in 1701, a full sixty-five years after the first university on the continent, Harvard, was founded (1636 in Boston, MA, USA just one year after Boston Common, the first elementary school on the continent, was founded). Yale and the folks founding it decided that they had had enough of Boston and were sick of Harvard already. To compete, Yale was founded in 1701, and is still among the Ivy League ranks as one of the best universities in the country, if not the world. It's medical school and hospital in New Haven is top notch, very high end stuff. It is a competitive school, and a great one. It is also the only part of New Haven that has not slumped somewhat into the decrepit and grey city that now resides in what was once a great city. It is still a great city, but far less so than it once was. That's the problem with urbanization which leads to suburbanization which leads to decayed urban centers. Either way, New Haven stands as an historic city and at the very least an important stop on the Amtrak train from Boston to New York City.
Here in New Haven, at Louis's Lunch on 263 Crown Street, the hamburger was invented. That's right, in 1900 the unique upright grills of Louis' Lunch served up the very first hamburger for a customer in too much of a hurry to stay for his meal. The proprietor allegedly took the hamburger steak he had prepared and put it between two slices of toast to expediate the customer's lunch. Thus, the hamburger was born. It is also the home of the best burger you will ever eat, period. They still cook in the antique, upright grills, and still serve up burgers on toasted bread with onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese or any combination thereof. However, they will refuse you the condiment of ketchup if you ask as a matter of policy. They want you to taste the burger. You won't need it.
Another event of importance for New Haven was that its harbor was the very same port that the Amistad slave ship landed. The debacle that ensued took place in New Haven courthouses, and today there is a memorial replica of the ship in the harbor.
The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names. It was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February, 1878.
Church Historian Section:
1. Local Ghost Stories
The Haunted Skyscraper2. Secrets of New Haven Green
It’s a bit odd that there aren’t any ghost stories associated with New Haven Green—especially when you consider that beneath all of that grass lie over 5,000 of New Haven’s earliest residents, unmarked in their final repose.
The Green was used as a burying ground from the earliest days of the New Haven Colony. After severe yellow fever epidemics in 1794 and 1795, it was decided that the Green was simply too crowded to continue as the principal burying ground. In 1796, a new cemetery site was chosen, at what was then the edge of town. This became the Grove Street Cemetery, and its first burial took place in 1797.
Meanwhile the burial ground on the green continued to be used sporadically until 1812. At that time, the gravestones were moved from the Green to the perimeter of Grove Street Cemetery—but those New Haveners buried beneath them were never moved. It must be remembered that this was in a time before concrete burial vaults, and that which had been buried generally could not be wholly recovered and moved elsewhere—so there the remains remain—to this day!
Old maps and paintings of New Haven Green indicate the existence of a large columned building located behind Center Church. That building was the State House. That’s right, Connecticut was the only state ever to have two state capitols from 1703 to 1875, those being New Haven and Hartford.
We should recall that New Haven had always been fiercely independent and self-sufficient; a charter from King Charles II in 1662 united New Haven—albeit uncomfortably--with the Connecticut Colony, otherwise known as Hartford. Unwilling to play second fiddle, New Haven insisted on being the state capitol, as did Hartford. Somehow, both got what they wanted, and that arrangement lasted for 172 years.
Today as you walk around on New Haven Green, you cannot find a single trace of the old State House or the old burying ground; it seems they belong to another time, and that is where they will remain.
One final noteworthy aspect of the New Haven Green is the appearance of the image of Christ on the Cross on a tree at the center of the green. The tree, if viewed at the appropriate angle, clearly harbors an image resembling Jesus Christ on the Cross. Another portion of the tree contains a knot which eerily looks like the praying hands of the Virgin Mary or the Madonna. These images are hardly miracles or some sort of Christian message, and the inclusion of this information is not meant in any political or religious way. It is simpy a neat thing to look at if you ever get the chance to view the New Haven Green on a nice, clear, moonlit night.
3. Our Congregational Roots: The New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony, settled in 1638, was the strictest of the colonies in its adherence to Puritanism; indeed, New Haven clung to the Puritan way of life long after it had disappeared elsewhere.
New Haven’s 500 original settlers were the followers of the powerful and dynamic minister John Davenport, and his friend Theophilius Eaton; together they had come to this area by way of Boston. Finding Boston too liberal-thinking for their ultra-conservative tastes, the group traveled again by ship to the place known as Quinnipiac, and settled there, renaming it New Haven.
It was the dream of this group to escape English persecution and establish a church-run, theocratic, model community that would set an example for the other colonies and for England. In the words of Puritan minister John Winthrop, “We shall be as a city on a hill, and the eyes of the world will be upon us.”
Built around nine square blocks, New Haven was the first “planned community” in the colonies. With its natural harbor, New Haven was predestined to one day become a thriving commercial center.
For 28 years, New Haven existed as an independent colony, until it was annexed by the Connecticut Colony in 1665. This change was not at all popular with the Puritans, but by now they were no longer alone in the colony that they had founded.
Fearing the secularization and religious dilution that they expected would evolve in the settlement, the Puritans migrated once again, and established what today is known as Newark, New Jersey. It is noted that historically, this repeated migration was normal behavior among Puritans in the Colonies, who often moved again and again.
The community that the Puritans had established here did not crumble when they moved on; instead it grew and flourished. In New Haven, where once Puritanism had prevailed, Congregationalism now began to take root.
4. Notable Locals: Nathan Hale
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” Gen. Douglas MacArthur
September 22, 1776 was another grim, depressing day for General Washington’s army. Defeated in battle again and again by the British, they had finally been chased to a corner of upper Manhattan, while their foes fired the town. Whole companies of the Continental Army were deserting, and it appeared that soon the Patriot force would collapse.
Meanwhile, across town and behind the British lines, the Redcoats were preparing to execute a rebel spy. Nathan Hale was to be hanged; this was the worst possible form of execution, reserved only for spies and other such despicable types.
How? Why? When we imagine a young man with everything going for him, the figure which fills our imagination is every bit the likeness of our Connecticut State Hero, Nathan Hale; for here was a young man with every prospect for a happy and fulfilling life; and yet that life, with all its promise, was cut short by a noose on that September day.
Hale’s contemporaries described him as kind, gentle, religious, athletic, intelligent, good looking, and in the words of one friend, “the idol of all his acquaintances.” It is said that all the girls of New Haven were in love with this tall and fair young man; they were impressed by his athletic ways, his good looks and his strong Christian ideals.
So how did Nathan Hale, with such a promising young life, come to risk everything, including life itself, for a nation that at the time was nothing more than an abstract idea—and how did it happen that his young life came to such a bitter end when his very cause was at its lowest point?
Born in 1755, Nathan Hale was the sixth of ten surviving children of the landed Deacon Richard Hale, of Coventry, in north-central Connecticut. By the time he was fourteen, young Nathan and his brother Enoch had enrolled at Yale College; he would graduate with honors at the age of eighteen.
The cosmopolitan atmosphere of New Haven agreed with Nathan much more than the perceived boredom of pastoral life in Coventry; here he was exposed to many new, progressive ideas which were hotly debated by his contemporaries: astronomy, mathematics, literature, the ethics of slavery, and the questioned value of educating young women. Meetings were held in New College, the only dormitory at Yale that Nathan Hale frequented which is still standing. Today, it is called Connecticut Hall, and a statue of Nathan Hale stands in front of it.
Today, if you visit Nathan Hale’s homestead in Coventry, you will find that the red farmhouse and the surrounding grounds, lined with ancient stone walls, are almost exactly as he would have known them. The only sound you’ll hear is that of the wind rustling the leaves on the old trees surrounding his father’s farmhouse. Hale last visited home while on leave in 1776; he was bound for New York, a trip from which he would not return.
At that time, General Washington had been driven by the British up the island of New York, and was holding his position with the utmost difficulty. On September 6th he wrote, “We have not been able to obtain the least information as to the enemy’s plans.”
In sheer despair at the need of better information than he had would give him, the commander consulted his council, and at their direction summoned General Knowlton to ask for some volunteer of intelligence, who would find his way into the English lines, and bring back some news that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned a number of his officers, and stated to them the wishes of their Chief. The appeal was received with dead silence. It is said that Knowlton personally addressed a non-commissioned officer, a Frenchman, who was an old solider. He did so only to receive the natural reply, “I am willing to be shot, but not to be hung.” At this point, Knowlton felt that he must report his failure to Washington; but just then, Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. “I will undertake it,” he said. He had come late to the meeting; he was pale from a recent sickness. But Hale saw an opportunity to serve, and he freely did the duty which came next at hand.
While returning from his intelligence mission, Hale was captured, identified as a spy, and sentenced to death by General William Howe. At his execution, Nathan Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched out by a guard and hanged upon an apple tree in a place called Rutgers’s Orchard; that place was near the present New York City intersection of East Broadway and Market Streets. At the hanging, the British commander asked him to make his dying “speech and confession.” “I only regret,” Hale said, “that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Nathan Hale’s young voice, so impassioned and so long stilled, has spoken to the hearts of patriotic Americans for generations since. Indeed, his very sentiments have inspired and propelled those who have upheld and defended American ideals, even centuries after his passing from this life.
Statistics
Population (2003) - 124,512
Land area (sq miles) – 19
Demographics (2000 Census): 43.5% White, 37.4% Black, 21.4% Hispanic
References and Links:
US Census Bureau Statistics:
a) New Haven: New Haven Census Data
b) West Haven: West Haven Census Data
