On Chapel Street, in New Haven, Connecticut, opposite the Old Campus: from the time of glaciation, cultivated by the Quinnipiac; in 1614, charted by a Dutch explorer; in 1638, colonized by the Puritans; throughout the American Revolution, home of the signer, Roger Sherman, his second wife Rebecca Prescott-Sherman, their fifteen children, and the family store; in 1860, industrialist Gaius Fenn Warner's Italianate villa, by Henry Austin; in 1880, Marshal Peter R. Carll's Opera House; in 1884, the Republican League; in 1887, the Hyperion; in 1903, the Union League addition, by Richard Williams; in 1926, the Roger Sherman Theater; beginning in 1976, a tradition of French fine dining, that continues today. While the Roger Sherman house is no longer standing, it holds up all right.
"'This garage is the inside of my brain,' said Mundy Hepburn, gliding his arm through the air. Standing in the bed of a Chevy pickup, his frame backlighted by one of his neon sculptures, 'The Wave,' he described with reverence the 'mystical beauty' of neon."
"Let us not stop defending our city’s history. Let us not stop boasting of Eli Whitney and his cotton gin, of A. C. Gilbert and his Erector Set, or of how Buffalo Bill Cody carried a Winchester rifle, built with pride in New Haven. Let us not even stop boasting about how New Haven native Charles Goodyear invented the rubber tire, even though it was by accident."
"The Hotel Taft contains about three hundred guest bedrooms, each connected with a bath, arranged singly or in suites of three to five rooms. The building has extensive public accommodations, including regular dining rooms, private dining rooms, a banquet hall, roof garden and accommodation for small society dinners."
"We found that the ideal way to spend the evening in New Haven was to sit out on the Green. There were other things to do, of course, and we noted that moving pictures appeared to be patronized here as elsewhere. But it was the Green for us, and for many more. The fragrant June night had collected a few early fireflies, and was tossing them idly about over the grass, as an Egyptian queen might play with diamonds. The chimes from Trinity sounded, very sweet. Young lovers passed, arm linked close in arm, head to head. A buzzing of motor cars gave the emphasis of a city to the country vision of shadowy trees and open grassy spaces."
"The College/Chapel District today is a well-used, mixed-use area that includes housing, retail stores, restaurants and commercial tenants in upper-level offices. Over 100 restaurants draw people from outside the neighborhood for a variety of dining experiences and for pre-theater dinners on the weekend. Several theaters have been completely rehabilitated. The Shubert stages Broadway shows, opera, dance, musical concerts and family entertainment. The Palace stages a full range of concerts and special events. A number of bars and nightclubs adds to the area’s liveliness on weekend nights."
"The Road for the greater part, indeed the whole way, was very rough and stoney, but the Land strong... The City of New Haven occupies a good deal of ground, but is thinly, though regularly laid out and built. The number of Souls in it are said to be about 4000. There is an Episcopal Church, three Congregational Meeting Houses, and a College, in which are at this time about 120 Students under Auspices of Doctor Styles [Ezra Stiles]."
"The 'Spirit of 76.' It has endured for two hundred years. It was there — unformed and unnamed — the night disguised patriots threw chests of British-taxed tea into Boston Harbor. It became a fearful reality as rebel drum beats summoned Minutemen to Lexington Green. It was proudly declared in that summer of 1776, when men signed their names to a document that began,'When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...' It was formally conceded by the British five years later, on the fields of Yorktown, as the American, General Lincoln, received the sword of defeated Cornwallis. Many fought to keep that spirit alive. Young, old, famous, unknown. Benjamin Franklin was 70 the year he signed the Declaration of Independence."
"The Yale man, from the primeval days of the College up to the present time... has waxed so much more important, so much more interesting in these last few years... Yea, verily, he is a creature of fads and fancies, yet not, as a rule, feminine... He is not, however, the absolutely independent creature he was in the good old days of life-at-Yale."
"The primary cause of the first regular engraving being performed in New Haven appears to have been the battle or action at Lexington. When the news of this affair reached New Haven, Arnold, as has been stated, started with about forty volunteers. Among this number were Mr. Amos Doolittle, and a Mr. Earl, a portrait painter. These young men were, no doubt, powerfully excited by what they saw and heard at the scene of action, and on their return to New Haven endeavored to show to their excited countrymen pictorially the opening scenes of the great contest which had now fully begun."
"Very early the next morning, General George Washington reviewed the local troops on the Green and set out to continue their journey, escorted as far as the historic 'Neck Bridge' by the Second Company of the Governor's Guard, another uniformed company and the company that had been recruited from the students of Yale College, and accompanied by a great number of the inhabitants of the town. Noah Webster, heading the procession with his fife, or to use his own words, 'It fell to my humble lot to lead this company with music.'"