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.
"The new Roger Sherman Theatre cost approximately $1,280,000 and is of old Spanish mission style architecture. The decorative scheme is in keeping with the old Spanish style, with rude construction, rough cross beams, rough plaster, tinted and outlining marine figures. The outer lobby is of black marble while from the inner lobby is a broad, sweeping stairway to the balcony and mezzanine floor. Behind the balcony is a spacious lounge, covered by a dimly lighted sky blue arch."
"Thomas P. Merwin, then one of the young dry goods merchants of the city, occupying the double store on Chapel street, adjoining the New Haven National bank, was married to Harriett A. Warner, daughter of Gaius F. Warner, the malleable iron manufacturer, by the Rev. William T. Eustis, pastor of that church, who was then one of the most popular preachers in the city. Four children have blessed that union, all of whom are living in this city to congratulate this couple upon fifty years of their happy married life. Mr. and Mrs. Merwin established their home on College street, enlarging the same from time to time as the growing family necessitated, where they still reside."
"THE DECISION by Loews Theaters, New York, to shut down the College Theater in downtown New Haven for the umpteenth time while determining the movie theater's future, points up the markedly winnowing away of what was once a firmly entrenched element in Connecticut entertainment — downtown motion picture theaters. With the closing of the College — its beginnings, as the then Hyperion Theater, go back to the late 19th century — downtown New Haven has only one motion picture theater playing conventional Hollywood product."
"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."
"Available: The Union League, New Haven, Conn. Price $165,000. First floor: beautifully panelled Club Room with fireplace. Two private dining rooms and bar / office area. Second floor: banquet hall, private dining areas, game room, bar, modern kitchen and dining room equipment. Third and fourth floor: fourteen rooms for downtown bachelor living. Basement: 2 bowling alleys."
"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."
"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."
"In the 1991 book 'Ticket to Paradise: American Movie Theaters and How We Had Fun' (Bullfinch Press/Little Brown and Co., $29.95), writers John Margolies and Emily Gwathmey rhapsodize about the lost era of the movie palaces. (The first, they write, was New York's Regent, built in 1913.) 'The buildings were ceremonial structures in which we… Continue reading An Acre of Seats in a Garden of Dreams
Roger Sherman house 