Opposite the Old Campus, on Chapel Street, in New Haven, Connecticut: from when the glaciers melted, stewarded by the Quinnipiac people; in 1614, charted by a Dutch explorer; in 1638, colonized by Puritans; before, during, and after the American Revolution, home of the Founding Father, Roger Sherman, his wife Rebekah, their fifteen children, and the Sherman family store; in 1860, Gaius F. Warner's Italianate villa, by Henry Austin; in 1880, Carll's Opera House; in 1884, the Republican League; in 1887, the Hyperion; in 1903, the Union League Club, by Richard Williams; in 1926, the Roger Sherman Theater; beginning in 1977, a tradition of French fine dining, which continues today. While the Roger Sherman house is no longer standing, it holds up all right.
"In October 2007, while dining in the Clubroom at the Union League Café, John Kiley took an impromptu photograph of his wife, Sandra Kiley, with the British new wave group, Duran Duran. The band played two warm-up performances at the Chevrolet Theatre, in Wallingford, Connecticut, before debuting their latest album with a string of shows on Broadway."
"I meet Jan Cunningham, appropriately, in the Bistro des Artistes of the Union League Café on Chapel Street, where several of her recent paintings are on view through the end of September. She is serious and intense as she recalls leaving her native Texas to study painting at Rhode Island School of Design in the 1970s, and her subsequent move to New Haven in the early '80s."
"A strong cold front brought brief snow squalls, strong wind gusts and dropping temperatures to Connecticut on Saturday afternoon, February 19, 2022. Whiteout conditions were reported as the line moved through. A quick coating to an inch came down statewide."
"'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 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."
"On September 23, 1779, Captain John Paul Jones fought a battle without parallel in naval history. Hitherto the contest upon the sea had been mainly a predatory warfare of privateers, aimed at the destruction of commerce and the plunder of merchant vessels. The young republic was without a navy proper. Called 'Pirate Jones' by the English, for retaliating on the coast of England for the atrocities committed on the coast of America, the captain of the Bon Homme Richard gallantly refused the sword of the surrending captain of the Serapis — but did take his ship."
"Jean-Michel's paintings contain spiraling active forces, and these forces are a constant. One force is script. Nothing makes him more righteously angry than to get this question, 'Tell me about your graffiti.' What Jean-Michel did was not graffiti. There were statements, there were epigrams, and he wanted you to see them so he wrote it out always in capital letters. That is one current always flowing."
"'One night, it was almost closing time and a dude grabbed the conga then started chanting: ‘Aguacero de mayo [‘May showers’].’ I wrote: ‘Perhaps this has reference to the religions in Cuba.’ Cut thirty years to 1985: I’ve been assigned to interview Toni Morrison, who said, ‘My mama said you should jump out in the first showers in May’—and I froze. Lydia Cabrera, the queen of Afro-Cuban anthropology, wrote: When you prepare the prenda, the Kongo charm, one ingredient may be rain from the first showers in May; it comes direct from God.'"
"Parts of these chapters were written on the tables of Jean Michel Gamme and Jean-Pierre Vuillermet's Union League Cafe in New Haven. I was equally welcome to write at Caffe Adulis, where the three Eritrean brother-owners — Sahle, Fiere, and Gideon Ghebreyesus — even went so far as to twist dials to cast extra light on my table. Similar courtesies were extended by Jeff Horton at Scoozie's Restaurant and John Clark at Zinc. All of these restaurants are in New Haven."
Roger Sherman house 