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.
"The students of today are little different from their fathers and grandfathers of many years ago. Boys will be boys whether they represent the stirring sixties, the elegant eighties, or the trotting twenties, and the annals of the town and gown affairs in the Elm City show that while times and conditions change, the spirit of youth as depicted by the average student goes on as of yore."
"The key was widening the sidewalk at the corner by providing flexible space for a variety of activities like outdoor seating, displays and other retail activity. This was accomplished by narrowing vehicle lanes on the street to 9 1/2 feet while still accommodating parking, and significantly slowing down the traffic. It also created the defacto entrance to Yale from the downtown."
"When I was at Yale, I had a lot of inferiority and insecurity. Growing up meant getting out all those anxieties. You'll find most people who work hard -- make a lot of money -- have a psychological drive that forces them onward and up. I'm no different than anyone else."
"Voted, That the streets in the City of New Haven be named as follows, viz.: The street from Captain Samuel Munson's corner to Thomas Howell, Esq.'s shop, State Street. The street from Cooper's corner to Captain Robert Brown's corner, Church Street. The street from Dixwell's corner to Dunbar's corner, College Street. The street from Tench's corner to Andrus' corner, York Street. The street from Captain Samuel Munson's corner to Tench's corner, Grove Street. The street from Bishop's corner to Darling's corner, Elm Street. The street from Rhode's corner to Mr. Isaac Doolittle's corner, Chapel Street..."
"The east wall of the Mix house, according to measurements of the various maps, stood about 250 feet from the corner of College street, or upon the spot where Warner hall now stands, the premises occupying on this side a space of about one-half the driveway between the present Union league house and Warner hall."
"Schiavone is thinking up new projects, in the atmosphere for meditation that he has created at his offices on Chapel Street in the old Union League building. The Union League, a private, exclusive men's club formed at the turn of the century, once would not have admitted anyone named Joel Schiavone. 'It was for WASPs.' He has taken the former hangout of the very privileged and created offices that bear the unmistakable stamp of Joel Schiavone."
"A culture that is primarily visual leaves no trace of its passage. It is unrecordable. Knowing this, it's still possible to get fragments of narratives, to imagine a grander architecture from the imprints of a crumbling building, and to reconstruct a small look at the past -- albeit inevitably colored by the present, by nostalgia and television and regret."
"CHAPEL STREET in New Haven is at the center of a booming downtown. Some people say that the economic vibrancy is being driven by nearby Yale University, but city officials say that energy is coming from other sources, such as new offices and apartments."
"Piano rags filled the air as waiters and waitresses bedecked in Gay Nineties clothing served the libations. A woman in a bear costume mingled with the crowd; a mime 'sang' songs of the era. Outside, a horse hitched to a carriage whinnied in the crisp, winter night. And who was in the carriage, trotting dignitaries up and down the street? Who else but Joel Schiavone, New Haven's flashiest developer, a flamboyant 46-year-old who believes -- and proves -- that showmanship is as much an ingredient of success as business sense."
-Image courtesy of the Internet Archive, Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, “History of the city of New Haven to the present time,” by Edward Elias Atwater, 1887 "General George H. Ford has in this week's Chronicle an illustrated article on 'Roger Sherman and His New Haven Home,' which is extremely interesting, as well as… Continue reading Number of houses 157.