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 prices may have been slashed in half, but the new Union League Café, which replaces New Haven's former Robert Henry's restaurant on Chapel street, has lost none of its pomp, splendor and old boy mystique. Admittedly my dinner companions and I, misled by the word café, might have arrived a little under-dressed. When we… Continue reading Union League Café Serves Up Elegant Fare, by Rebecca Howland
"I first recall being introduced to Jacques Pépin in late 1992. He came for dinner at the elegant Robert Henry’s restaurant in New Haven, where I was maître d’. Robert Henry’s was from a bygone era, owned by the matriarch Jo McKenzie; a white glove establishment with porcelain-dome service and very haute French cuisine that… Continue reading The creative genius of Jacques Pépin, by Robert Rabine
"She has been in the thick of it for years. Her battle scars, which she wears very well, were collected in the rabbit-punch, scrape-for-contribution wars of Connecticut Republican politics. She was the party's first woman state chairman, its first woman finance chairman. And now, even as she sits resplendent in her fine black suit and… Continue reading Jo McKenzie, Restaurateur, by David Fink
"Temptation is not a word in the vocabulary of the pure. To submit to pleasure implies a certain weakness of spirit, of flesh, of willpower. To avoid such submission when the dessert course rolls around is asking almost too much, even from the most devout calorie-watcher. That is why the tug-of-war conversation between a tempted… Continue reading Desserts that Sin Not, by Carla Van Kampen
"Who owns downtown commercial properties in Connecticut's cities? This week, Business Weekly looks at a block in New Haven. The block, shown in the map, is bounded by Chapel, College, Crown and High streets. Information is from city records. -Image courtesy of the Hartford Courant, "Who Owns the Block?" by Diane Richards, May 18, 1987… Continue reading Who Owns the Block?