60 Fun Facts About New Haven

New Haven sits on the northern shore of which body of water?

New Haven Harbor, fed by three rivers, is a shallow embayment of Long Island Sound, the tidal estuary separating Connecticut from Long Island.

New Haven's nickname, 'The Elm City', traces back to what civic innovation?

New Haven's late-18th-century public tree-planting program, the first in the US, lined its streets with elms; that canopy earned the city the nickname The Elm City.

New Haven's original 1638 street layout is known by what name?

The Nine Square Plan laid out a three-by-three grid of blocks with the central square kept open as the Green; the American Planning Association lists it as a National Planning Landmark.

Roughly how large is the New Haven Green?

The Green covers about 16 acres at the center of the original town grid; legend says the Puritans sized it to hold the 144,000 they believed would be saved at the Second Coming.

Which Native American people lived around New Haven Harbor before the English arrived?

Under attack from neighboring Pequots, they sold their land to the settlers in exchange for a pledge of protection; the town was briefly called Quinnipiac before being renamed.

Which two men led the 500 Puritans who founded New Haven in April 1638?

Minister John Davenport and merchant Theophilus Eaton led the group, seeking a stricter Puritan settlement than Massachusetts; Eaton served as the colony's governor until his death in 1658.

What happened to the 'Great Shippe' New Haven sent fully loaded to England in 1646?

The loss set New Haven back badly against rising rivals Boston and New Amsterdam.

What is the West Rock formation where two of Charles I's regicides hid in 1661 called?

Judges' Cave, a cluster of boulders atop West Rock, hid regicides Edward Whalley and William Goffe from royal agents in 1661; the ridge path is named the Regicides Trail.

Which year's statewide vote chose Hartford over New Haven as Connecticut's sole capital?

Voters chose Hartford in 1873, ending the arrangement that since 1701 had alternated legislative sessions between New Haven and Hartford; the change took effect in 1875.

Yale moved to New Haven in 1716 from which Connecticut town?

The Collegiate School had been seated at Saybrook, today's Old Saybrook, since 1701; it moved to New Haven in 1716 and took Elihu Yale's name in 1718.

Elihu Yale, whose 1718 gift renamed the Collegiate School, made his fortune as governor of which outpost?

Elihu Yale governed the East India Company's Fort St. George at Madras from 1687 to 1692; his nine bales of goods sold for over £560, and Cotton Mather proposed naming the college for him.

Which future traitor led New Haven's Foot Guard to seize the powder house in 1775?

Captain Benedict Arnold demanded the keys to the powder house after news of Lexington arrived, then marched his Foot Guard to Cambridge; New Haven re-enacts the episode each spring as Powder House Day.

Who became New Haven's first mayor when it was incorporated as a city in 1784?

Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration and the Constitution and author of the Connecticut Compromise, served as New Haven's mayor from 1784 until his death in 1793.

Which Yale graduate stayed in New Haven to develop the cotton gin and build a gun factory?

Eli Whitney built his armory on the Mill River in 1798 to make muskets for the federal government; the neighborhood became Whitneyville, and the site houses the Eli Whitney Museum.

Whose statue beside New Haven's City Hall commemorates the Amistad captives jailed in the city?

Ed Hamilton's 1992 Amistad Memorial depicts Joseph Cinqué, also called Sengbe Pieh, leader of the 1839 revolt; it stands on the site of the jail that held the captives during their trial.

Which gunmaker produced firearms in New Haven until 2006?

Winchester Repeating Arms, formed in 1866 from the New Haven Arms Company, made rifles on Winchester Avenue until its successor, U.S. Repeating Arms, closed the plant in 2006.

Which Catholic fraternal organization was founded at St. Mary's Church in New Haven in 1882?

The Knights of Columbus were founded at St. Mary's in 1882 by Father Michael McGivney, beatified in 2020; the order's 23-story headquarters tower stands beside the downtown highway connector.

In 1878, the District Telephone Company of New Haven created the world's first what?

The company opened the world's first commercial telephone exchange, a switchboard serving 21 subscribers, on January 28, 1878; it issued the first telephone directory weeks later and grew into Southern New England Telephone.

Louis' Lunch on Crown Street is credited by the Library of Congress with inventing what in 1900?

Louis Lassen served a hurried customer a ground-steak patty as a sandwich in 1900, and the Library of Congress credits Louis' Lunch with inventing the hamburger.

Louis' Lunch is famous for ejecting customers who ask for which condiment?

Ketchup is banned at Louis' Lunch, which allows only cheese, tomato and onion; the meat is broiled vertically in cast-iron gas stoves dating from 1898.

Louis' Lunch serves its signature sandwich on what instead of a bun?

Each patty goes between two slices of toasted white bread run through a 1929 Savory Radiant Gas Toaster; the only toppings allowed are cheese spread, tomato and onion.

New Haven-style pizza is known locally by what name?

Apizza, pronounced 'ah-BEETS', is baked in coal-fired brick ovens with a thin, charred crust; a 'plain' pizza comes with tomato sauce and grated pecorino but no mozzarella.

Which seafood tops the signature 'white pie' of Wooster Street's pizzerias?

Pepe's white clam pizza tops a garlic-and-olive-oil base with freshly shucked littleneck clams; the original 1925 menu offered only tomato pizza, with or without anchovies.

Frank Pepe emigrated to New Haven as a teenager from which Italian town?

Pepe left Maiori, on the Amalfi Coast, in 1909 at age 16; before opening his pizzeria in 1925 he peddled tomato pizzas around Wooster Square, balancing them on his head and later from a wagon.

Sally's, Pepe's great rival on Wooster Street, was bought in 1938 for $500 by whom?

Frank Pepe's sister Filomena Consiglio bought the Wooster Street property for $500 in 1938; her son Salvatore 'Sally' Consiglio ran the pizzeria until his death in 1989.

Modern, the third of New Haven's famous pizzerias, opened in 1934 on which downtown thoroughfare?

Modern opened on State Street in 1934, nine years after Pepe's and four before Sally's; unlike its coal-fired rivals it bakes in an oil-fired brick oven.

The Frisbee takes its name from which product's tins, tossed by Yale students?

Bridgeport's Frisbie Pie Company baked pies whose empty tins Yale students flung; Wham-O renamed its Pluto Platter the Frisbee after hearing students call the disc a 'Frisbie'.

Confectioner George Smith of New Haven named his stick-mounted candy after what?

Smith said he named the candy after Lolly Pop, a racehorse of the day; he began making the sticks in 1908 and trademarked the 'lollipop' name in 1931.

Which construction toy was invented in New Haven by A. C. Gilbert in 1911?

Gilbert's Erector Set, sold from 1913, was inspired by the steel girders he saw going up for the New Haven Railroad's electrification; he was also a 1908 Olympic pole-vault champion and a working magician.

A. C. Gilbert earned the nickname 'The man who saved Christmas' for doing what in 1918?

The Council of National Defense was weighing a wartime ban on toys; Gilbert argued successfully against it.

Which US president was born in New Haven while his father was a Yale student?

George W. Bush was born at Grace-New Haven Hospital on July 6, 1946, while his father, George H. W. Bush, was a Yale undergraduate; Taft, Ford and Bill Clinton lived in the city only temporarily.

Whose 1970 trial in New Haven drew 12,000 protesters to the Green on May Day?

Bobby Seale and eight other Black Panthers were tried over the 1969 killing of Alex Rackley; the May Day 1970 rally drew Jean Genet, Benjamin Spock and Abbie Hoffman, and Seale's case ended in a hung jury.

Which Yale professor's influential 1961 political-science book, Who Governs?, is a study of New Haven?

Robert A. Dahl, a Yale political scientist, argued in Who Governs? (1961) from New Haven's politics that power was pluralist rather than held by a single elite, rebutting C. Wright Mills's power-elite thesis.

Which musical had its first public performance, as 'Away We Go!', at New Haven's Shubert Theatre?

Oklahoma! opened at the Shubert on March 11, 1943 under the title Away We Go!; Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music also tried out there first.

Roughly how many out-of-town Broadway tryouts has the Shubert Theatre hosted?

The Shubert counts more than 600 pre-Broadway tryouts since opening in 1914, including more than 300 world premieres; the tryout era faded after the 1970s as shows began arriving after their Broadway runs.

Which New Haven museum holds the largest collection of UK art outside the United Kingdom?

The Yale Center for British Art, opened in 1977 in Louis Kahn's last building, holds Paul Mellon's gift of British paintings, drawings and books, the largest such collection outside the UK.

Which nephew, an early paleontologist, urged George Peabody to found the Peabody Museum in 1866?

Marsh's Bone Wars expeditions brought back Triceratops, Brontosaurus and Hesperornis; the museum's Great Hall is famous for its 110-foot Age of Reptiles mural.

Which dinosaur stands as a life-size bronze outside the Peabody Museum's entrance?

The bronze Torosaurus, a horned relative of Triceratops, was unveiled in 2005; it is 21 feet long and was the first life-size reproduction of the animal erected anywhere.

Grove Street Cemetery's Egyptian Revival gateway carries which inscription?

The Egyptian Revival gateway, designed by Henry Austin in 1845, bears 'The Dead Shall Be Raised' from 1 Corinthians; a Yale figure supposedly quipped, 'They certainly will be, if Yale needs the property.'

Grove Street Cemetery, organized in 1796, claims to be the first what in the world?

Organized in 1796 and chartered in 1797, Grove Street was the first private nonprofit burial ground, selling family plots in perpetuity; it holds 14 Yale presidents, Constitution signers and Noah Webster.

Wooster Square's annual festival celebrates 72 trees of what kind, planted in 1973?

The 72 Yoshino cherry trees were planted in 1973 by the New Haven Historic Commission with neighborhood volunteers; the Cherry Blossom Festival fills the square each April when they bloom.

Wooster Square is named for David Wooster. Who was he?

He once owned a warehouse near the southern end of the area; the city bought the land in 1825.

What kind of rock forms East Rock and West Rock, the reddish ridges that frame the city?

East Rock and West Rock are basalt in its intrusive form, iron-rich diabase or trap rock, emplaced as molten sills about 200 million years ago; the Wilbur Cross Parkway tunnels straight through West Rock.

What stands on the summit of East Rock, visible for miles?

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, dedicated in 1887, is a 112-foot column topped by an Angel of Peace honoring New Haveners who died in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War.

Which NFL team played its home games at the Yale Bowl in 1973 and 1974?

Yankee Stadium was being renovated and Giants Stadium was not finished; the pros hated the 200-yard walk from the locker rooms.

What did designer Charles A. Ferry leave out of the 1914 Yale Bowl, for reasons nobody knows?

The Yale Bowl has no locker rooms; teams dress in the Smilow Field Center and walk 200 yards to the field as the band plays, the 'Bulldog Walk', and the bowl inspired the Rose Bowl's design and name.

Which New Havener is known as the 'father of American football'?

Walter Camp, raised in New Haven and a Yale player and coach, devised the line of scrimmage and the system of downs in the 1880s; he is buried in Grove Street Cemetery.

Which band played a surprise warm-up club show at Toad's Place on August 12, 1989?

The Rolling Stones played a surprise show for about 700 fans at Toad's Place on August 12, 1989, warming up for the Steel Wheels tour that opened in Philadelphia that month.

Which Doors song references Jim Morrison's 1967 on-stage arrest at the New Haven Arena?

'Peace Frog', from 1970's Morrison Hotel, sings of 'blood in the streets in the town of New Haven'; Morrison was arrested on stage on December 9, 1967 and charged with inciting a riot.

Which 2008 blockbuster closed downtown streets and dressed them as 1957 for a chase scene?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shot its motorcycle chase on Chapel Street and the Green in summer 2007, with about 500 locals as 1957-dressed extras; Union Station later stood in for Denver in Everybody's Fine.

Which Beaux-Arts architect designed New Haven's Union Station and its Free Public Library?

Cass Gilbert designed the Ives Memorial Library (1911) and Union Station (1920), and with Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. wrote New Haven's 1910 City Beautiful plan; his Woolworth Building and US Supreme Court are better known.

Charles Dickens supposedly called which New Haven street 'the most beautiful street in America' in 1868?

Hillhouse Avenue, laid out by James Hillhouse in 1792, is lined with 19th-century mansions mostly owned by Yale; the whole avenue is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Which church on the Green is the Gothic Revival one, completed in 1816?

Trinity Church, designed by Ithiel Town and completed in 1816, is one of America's earliest Gothic Revival churches; beneath neighboring Center Church a crypt holds more than 1,000 colonial burials.

Which airline made Tweed New Haven Airport its first East Coast base in 2021?

Avelo Airlines opened its first East Coast base at Tweed in November 2021 with Boeing 737 flights to Florida; the airport sits three miles east of downtown, straddling the East Haven line.

Which two clothing brands were founded in New Haven?

Gant was founded in New Haven in 1949 by Bernard Gantmacher, whose shirts sold through the Yale Co-op, and Ann Taylor opened its first store in the city in 1954.

New Haven's Saint Patrick's Day parade, dating to 1842, holds what distinction?

First held in 1842, the parade is New England's oldest St. Patrick's Day parade and among the oldest in the US; it draws Connecticut's largest crowd for a one-day spectator event.

Unhappy New Haven Colony members left after the 1664 Connecticut merger to found which New Jersey city?

Robert Treat led settlers from Branford and other New Haven Colony towns to found Newark in 1666, seeking a stricter Puritan community after the 1662 charter absorbed them into Connecticut.

Roughly what was New Haven's population at the 2020 census?

The 2020 census counted 134,023 residents, making New Haven Connecticut's third-most populous city after Bridgeport and Stamford; the surrounding county is home to roughly 865,000.

Which New Haven mayor launched some of America's earliest major urban renewal projects in 1954?

Richard C. Lee, mayor from 1954 to 1970, drew more federal renewal money per capita than any other city, clearing the Oak Street slum and rebuilding downtown; the federal courthouse bears his name.

The Farmington Canal, a short-lived 19th-century waterway, linked New Haven with which Massachusetts city?

Completed in 1835 and abandoned by 1848, the canal ran from New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts; a railroad took over its bed, and the route became the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.