"New Haven was never a boom town. It developed slowly, it grew steadily, not spasmodically. Conservatism became characteristic of it. Conservative it has remained until now. All though the nineteenth century, while steadily growing in strength and substance, it never outwardly startled the beholder. Those who really knew the city came to love it for its 'parts' rather than for ostentatious prosperity. It was a city of traditions and history, a city content to have intensive rather than extensive growth was the New Haven which woke on the mourn of its 264th year when it celebrated with Yale the completed two centuries."