Three Presentations about City Planning in America

7/29/2019 Three Presentations about City Planning in America

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ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY

Final Presentation

Phase 2

Jonathan Hopkins

12/4/2012



Top-Down & Restrictive Versus Grassroots & Prescriptive:

The Battle for the Future of City Planning in America

Abstract

The process by which American cities have developed since the post-Civil War industrial boom

until now has changed dramatically. This process is exemplified in the cases of New Haven, CT and

Newport, RI – both colonial settlements, like Saratoga, that boomed during New England’s great

maritime era and the Gilded Age.1 Investments in railroads and streetcars encouraged speculative

development in these three cities from the 1870s to the 1920s – enlarging their footprint and giving

them the shape that remains today, for the most part.2 Heavy industry was located for easiest access to

rail and ports, irrespective of residences, which often times ended up being intermingled with factories.3

Also during this era, municipal government was relatively weak and ineffective in terms of governing

ability.4 As a result, any coordinated land use that developed was due to the following of social norms5

1“New Haven was founded, like many New England plantations, both as a Puritan community and a mercantile

enterprise. But under the leadership of two forceful men, Theophilus Eaton and the Reverend John Davenport, it

carried both ideas to their extreme development: in New Haven Puritanism can be seen at its most pure, and a

merchant adventure at its most adventurous. Founded as the capital of an independent colony, the town began

with dreams of empire and of a fortune to be made in the beaver-skin trade […] As New England entered its great

maritime era, New Haven shared in the increase in trade. The port came back to life, and by the time of the

Revolution signs of prosperity were beginning to appear, heralding the boom that was to follow. The Federal

period is the beginning of the city’s golden age, a rising curve that would last until the Civil War. Chartered as a city

in 1784, New Haven was made joint capital with Hartford of the State of Connecticut, and with an explosion of

energy it rushed into the new century. With the best port in western New England, it was soon a major port. At the

same time, tanning and shoemaking flourished, and small shops making carriages and hardware began to appear.



and public art was often the result of private donation from wealthy individuals or special interest

groups.6

Zoning began to spread throughout the country in the 1920s as a way to identify industrial,

commercial and residential areas of cities and towns so as to provide a more predicable investment

market and protect the residential character of neighborhoods.7 At the same time that residences were

being protected from industrial development, labor unions became a strong force for workers’ rights

inside those factories. Zoning gave municipalities some leverage over individual property rights8 –

setting the stage for a dramatic growth in government power that enabled cities like New Haven and

Newport to funnel federal tax dollars into large scale urban redevelopment projects in the post-WorldWar 2 period.9 This dynamic was eventually reformed by the culture of the 1960s and 70s, which was

able to turn disparate opposition into coordinated protests.10

neighborhood displays striking uniformity in lot size, building coverage, height, and land use. One author attributes

this paradoxical phenomenon to ‘factors outside of the legal regime,’ including ‘social custom’.”

Valerie Jaffee. Private Law or Social Norms? The Use of Restrictive Covenants in Beaver Hills “The Yale Law Journal”Vol. 116, No. 6 (Apr., 2007) p. 13276

“Monitor Square is a handsome, fences-in bit of green at the point where Derby Avenue leaves Chapel Street, the

triangle between these two streets and Winthrop Avenue. It is adorned by, and in fact was erected to shelter, the

distinguished Bushnell-Ericsson memorial, erected to commemorate the service of Cornelius S. Bushnell, a son of

Madison and New Haven, in making financially possible the building of the historic ‘Monitor’.”

Everett Gleason Hill. “A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County” (The S. J. Clarke Publishing

Company; 1918) p. 987“Zoning […] initially arose out of reaction against the negative environmental and health effects of industrial

production in the major cities, and also as a device for promoting the interests of central business districts.”

Rae. “City” p. 261

“New Haven adopted its first zoning ordinance in 1926.”



The trend in recent years has been to continue to plan from a top-down approach with the

addition of public meetings and information sessions that are designed to inform the public about

ongoing projects and allow them to make, at best, cosmetic changes to a given project.11 Zoning - little

changed since the 1960s – has, in many instances, become plagued by arbitrary rulings and corrupt

decision-making.12 While New Haven and Newport are case studies in these practices,13 hope remains

for the future of city planning in America.14 Public design charrettes at the beginning of a process to

discover what special projects a city should develop followed by a design competition based on public

input and overseen by a hybrid elected and appointed panel would improve the public process by

structurally and fundamentally developing projects from the ground up, then allowing design

professionals who have won the competition to apply their expertise.15 For more typical development, a

more prescriptive zoning tool is required to replace the restrictive Euclidean-based zoning and use-

11

“[…] it is instructive to review the public process for Route 34/Downtown Crossing in New Haven. The City of

New Haven commenced public workshops in 2009. After 55 meetings with constituency groups and the general

public in two years, where community groups have consistently beat the drum for safe streets, improved

transportation options, reduced vehicular traffic, clean air, sustainable land use, mixed uses, public spaces and a

human scale project – neither the lead developer or the City of New Haven have moved from the original car-centric conception of the project.”

New Haven Urban Design League. “Downtown Crossing: A Summary of Concerns Regarding Project Planning and

Performance, and Compliance with TIGER II Criteria” (February 2012) p. 412

“[The New Haven Board of Zoning Appeals] gave Nica’s the OK to expand the first-floor grocery area from 2,446

to 4,366 square feet where 1,500 square feet are permitted; to build out to 40 percent lot coverage where 30

percent is permitted; to permit 24 outdoor seats where 15 are permitted to add a non-conforming addition to the

building, which is in a residential area; and continue to run a convenience store in a residential area with 18

parking spots and outdoor seating. An initial report prepared by Tom Talbot, deputy director of the City Plan

Department, recommended that the proposal be denied. In the lawsuit, neighbors argue that advice should have

been followed. They argue that Nica’s showed no legal hardship to justify expansion, as required by law.”

Melissa Bailey. Appeal Stalls Nica’s Expansion “New Haven Independent” (August 18, 2011)



based codes that dominate municipal zoning ordinances, which is best found today in the transect-

based zoning and form-based codes of the planning reform movement.

Planning that is responsive to rigid regulations administered in a top-down fashion is less

equipped to agilely respond to economic and community needs in the way that a grassroots,

incremental process does.16 Saratoga would benefit from adopting the planning model of grassroots

project generation, hybrid elected and appointed design competition panelists and prescriptive zoning

to replace the top-down, ineffective public engagement and restrictive zoning practices that dominate

city planning today.



Works Cited

Besley, Timothy and Stephen Coate. Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence “Journal of the

European Economic Association” Vol. 1, No. 5 (Sep., 2003) pp. 1176-1206

Boyle, Maureen E., "The Failure of America’s First City Plan: Why New Haven, the Colonies’ First Planned City,

Would Have Been Better Left Unplanned" (2010). Student Prize Papers. Paper 57.

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylsspps_papers/57 accessed 12/2/12

Brown, Elizabeth Mills. “New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design” (Yale University Press, 1976)

Cappel, Andrew J. A Walk along Willow: Patterns of Land Use Coordination in Pre-Zoning New Haven (1870-1926)

“The Yale Law Journal” Vol. 101, No. 3 (Dec., 1991) pp. 617-642

Clowney, Stephen. A Revised Look at Land Use Coordination in Pre-Zoning New Haven “The Yale Law Journal” Vol.

115, No. 1 (Oct., 2005) pp. 116-184

Fenster, Mark. “A Remedy on Paper”: The Role of Law in the Failure of City Planning in New Haven, 1907-1913 “The

Yale Law Journal” Vol. 107, No. 4 (Jan., 1998) pp. 1093-1123

“Hartford Courant” (Hartford, CT)

Hill, Everett Gleason. “A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County” (The S. J. Clarke Publishing

Company; 1918)

Jaffee, Valerie. Private Law or Social Norms? The Use of Restrictive Covenants in Beaver Hills “The Yale Law Journal”

Vol. 116, No. 6 (Apr., 2007) pp. 1302-1342

Jefferys, C.P.B. “Newport: A Concise History” (Newport Historical Society, 2008)

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylsspps_papers/57%20accessed%2012/2/12





Assignment #2: Revitalizing an Archive

Gilbert in New Haven: A Mutually Benecial Experience

Final Presentation

Jonathan Hopkins

HP 524L Archival Research Lab

Nancy Austin, PH.D.

RWU SAAHP Fall 2012

Due: 12/4/12



Digital Photograph

“Cass Gilbert Society”

(Carol M. Highsmith, 2007)

Minnesota State Capitol

Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota

Design & Construction: 1895-1905

Style: Beaux Arts

1. Gilbert’s Legacy



Digital Photograph


(Carol M. Highsmith, 2007)

U.S. Custom House

Location: New York City, New York


Style: Beaux Arts




Photograph


(Marjorie Pearson)

Woolworth Building



Style: Commercial Gothic Skyscraper




Cass Gilbert Rendered Drawings

“Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert”

(Columbia University Press, 2000)




2. Gilbert in New Haven

Digital Photograph

“New Haven Independent”(Thomas MacMillan, 2010)




Cass Gilbert Rendered Drawing

“Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert”

(Columbia University Press, 2000)


“Report of the New Haven Civic Improvement Commission”(New Haven Civic Improvement Committee, 1910) pp. 59-60




Digital Photograph


(Nick Marucci, 2007)


“Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert”(Columbia University Press, 2000)

New Haven Free Public Library

Location: New Haven, CT


Style: Beaux Arts-Georgian/Federal

Institutional Building




New Haven Green, 1919 “Souvenir Picture”

Elm Street, New Haven Green “Flickr.com” (Digital Photograph)

New Haven Green, 1910 “Postcard”

New Haven Green, 1908 “Postcard”

Free Public Library, post-1911 “Cass Gilbert Society” (postcard)



New Haven Free Public Library “Flikr.com” (Digital Photograph)


New Haven Green “Library of Congress” (Photograph)




New Haven Railroad Station


Design: 1907-1911


Railroad Station

Cass Gilbert Sketches “Inventing the Skyline”

Cass Gilbert Rendered Drawings “Report”




New Haven Railroad Station



Style: 2nd Renaissance Revival

Colonialized Beaux-Arts

Railroad Station

Kamaria Greeneld. Digital Photograph “Yale Daily News”

New Haven Railroad Station Ceiling “Flickr.com” (Digital Photograph)

New Haven Railroad Station Ceiling “takeninbyamerica.com”




“Thus did Cass Gilbert congradulate New Haveners on having inherited something as beautiful as the original Green, and

warn about the old city having been ‘encroached upon in recent years by so called “modern improvements” and buildings

[...] erected regardless of the environment and without harmony of style’.”1

“Gilbert thought New Haven was one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and he was especially gratied to design a

building (the New Haven Public Library) that faced the green, where he could be sure of how it would be perceived across

the open space.”2

“With an interest in Colonial architecture and history”3 and in preferring “the formal languages of the past”4, Gilbert “sought

to utilize the historic core of the community for maximum effect while also respecting the traditions of past projects and

ideas”5.

Gilbert did so by designing his buildings for the New Haven Green to be “Georgian in style and designed to be in harmony

with the United Church, as well as other buildings in the historic core of the city”.6

For instance, his design of the New Haven Public Library sought to “make ‘the building distinctive and monumental and atthe same time to preserve the proportions and spirit’ of the colonial architecture of New Haven.”7

Gilbert’s interest in New Haven’s character, in particular, and colonial architecture, in general, is again displayed in his

later design for the New Haven Railroad Station, which “shows Gilbert’s effort to create a specically New Haven idiom,

mixing Colonial motifs with the new grandeur of the Beaux-Arts movement.”8

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Douglas W. Rae. Fabric of Enterprise “City: Urbanism and Its End” (Yale University Press, 2003) pp. 80-812 Barbara S. Christen. The Architect as Planner: Cass Gilbert’s Responses to Historic Open Space

“Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert“ (Columbia University Press, 2000) p. 206

3 Christen. “Inventing the Skyline” p. 186

4 Robert A.M. Stern. Introduction “Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architecture of the Public Domain” (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; 2001)

p. 183



7 Ibid.

8 Elizabeth Mills Brown. The Milford Turnpike and Boston Post Road: Columbus Avenue, Water Street, Forbes Avenue

“New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design” (Yale University Press, 1976) p. 95

3 G D dl S



3. George Dudley Seymour

Photograph of George Dudley Seymour, c. 1890

“Yale University Manuscripts & Archives: Digital Images Database”




George Dudley Seymour

Born: Bristol, CT, October 6, 1859

Heritage: Descendent of Settlers of Hartford, CT

Education: Hartford High School Graduate, Class of 1878

LL. B. degree from Columbian (George Washington) University, 1880

Master of Law degree, 1881

Honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale University, 1913

Life’s Work: Member of the rm of Seymour & Earle in New Haven, 1883

Founder and Member of the New Haven Civic Improvement Committee, 1907

Secretary of the New Haven City Plan Commission

Corresponding member of the AIA

Member of the State Commission on Sculpture in Connecticut

Director of the American Federation of Arts

Director of the Donald Grant Mitchell Memorial Library in Westville, New Haven, CT

Interests: Trustee of the Henry Whiteld House museum in Guilford, CT

Collecting Colonial (Georgian) and Federal Era Furnishings and Buildings

Colonial and Federal Architecture

Owner of Nathan Hale House, 1914

Writing: George Dudley Seymour. “New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over

many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into

its storied past and many illustrations” (The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company; 1942)

“George Dudley Seymour’s Furniture Collection in the Connecticut Historical Society” (Connecticut Historical Society; 1958)

George Dudley Seymour. “New Haven” (The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company; 1942)

Everett Gleason Hill. “A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County” (The S. J. Clarke publishing company; 1918)

Nathan Hale Homestead “CTLandmarks.org”




Cass Gilbert

Born: Zainesville, Ohio, November 24, 1859

Training: Abraham M. Radcliffe ofce, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1877

McKim, Mead & White

Education: MIT, 1878

Career: Small Midwestern rm to Nationally-renowned New

York-based Master Architect

Important Minnesota State Capital (St. Paul, 1895)

Commissions: Brazer Building (Boston, 1896)

New Haven City Plan (New Haven, 1907)Woolworth Building (New York, 1910)

Connection Met at a Conference in 1906

to Seymour: Letter Correspondence (1906-1918)

Commissioned by Seymour in 1907

Interest in Colonial and Federal design

Proponents of the City Beautiful Movement

Progressive Republicans

Cannonball House, Ridgeeld, CT “duchessfare.com”

Rear Garden House of Cannonball House


Barbara S. Christen. “Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain”

(W. W. Norton & Company; 2011)

Margaret Heilbrun, ed. “Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert”

(Columbia University Press; 2004)

Sharon Irish. “Cass Gilbert, Architect: Modern Traditionalist”

(The Monacelli Press, 1999)

Vincent Scully, et al. “Yale in New Haven: Architecture and Urbanism”

(Yale University Press, 2004)




George Dudley Seymour. “An Open Letter” New Haven Register

(June 2, 1907)

3 Conversation



Digital Photograph


(Jerry Dougherty, 2005)

Waterbury City Hall

Location: Waterbury, CT



Government Building

3. Conversation



Photograph


(Marjorie Pearson)

U.S. Federal Courthouse



Style: Classical Commercial and Government

Skyscraper

4. Conversation



Contemporary View of Boston’s Old State House (Tony Ang)

Brazer Building

Location: Boston, Massachuesettes


Style: Commercial Ofce Highrise

Cass Gilbert Rendered Drawing “Cass Gilbert Society”

(Burnham Library Architecture Club Catalog, 1897)

4. Conversation



Period view of Boston’s Old State House

“1st-art-gallery.com”

(Historic Painting, 1801)

Period view of New Haven’s Union Trust Building, c. 1930

“Tichnor Brothers Collection”(Historic Postcard)

Contemporary View of Union Trust Building & United Church

“wikipedia.org”

(Digital Photograph)

4. Conversation



Resources:

Cass Gilbert Collection “New-York Historical Society Museum & Library”

George Dudley Seymour Papers “Yale Manuscripts & Archives at Sterling Memorial Library”

City Plan Department “City of New Haven at the New Haven City Hall”

New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)

Gilbert, Cass and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. “Report of the New Haven Civic Improvement Commission” (New Haven Civic Improvement Commit -

tee; December, 1910)

Seymour, George Dudley. “New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare

of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations” (The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor

Company; 1942)

Christen, Barbara S. and Steven Flanders, eds. “Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architecture of the Public Domain” (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.;

2001)

Heilbrun, Margaret, ed. “Inventing the Skyline: The Architecture of Cass Gilbert” (Columbia University Press, 2000)

Hill, Everett Gleason. “A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County” (The S. J. Clarke publishing company; 1918)

Irish, Sharon. “Cass Gilbert, Architect: Modern Traditionalist” (The Monacelli Press, Inc.; 1999)

Rae, Douglas W. “City: Urbanism and Its End” (Yale University Press, 2003)

Scully, Vincent and Catherine Lynn, Erik Vogt and Paul Goldberger, eds. “Yale in New Haven: Architecture & Urbanism Design” (Yale University

Press, 2004)

1st-Art-Gallery website “http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/” (assessed 11/30/12)

Cass Gilbert Society website “http://www.cassgilbertsociety.org/” (accessed 11/30/12)

Library of Congress website “http://www.loc.gov/index.html” (accessed 11/30/12)

Tichnor Brothers Collection website “http://ickr.com/” (accessed 11/30/12)



Assignment #3: Curating a Narrative through a Typological and Sequential Structure

The Row House Predicament:

How Following a Typology through Time Exemplies

Urban Redevelopment in New Haven

Final PresentationJonathan Hopkins

HP 524L Archival Research LabNancy Austin, PH.D.

RWU SAAHP Fall 2012Due: 12/4/12



Archives:

1) Connecticut State Library Digital Collection

2) Historical New Haven Digital Collection

3) Library of Congress Digital Collection

4) Magrisso Forte Collection

5) New Haven Museum and Historical Society



Court Street Row Houses

Built: 1869-70

Location: Wooster Square, Newtownship Neighborhood

Rehabilitated: 1961

Howard Avenue Row Houses

Built: c.1877

Location: Upper Hill, Oak Street Neighborhood

Demolished: c. 1965

Pre-19611956



Howard Avenue Row Houses

By the early 19th Century, a pocket of poverty had settledto the southwest of the original town across the West

Creek in an area known as Sodom Hill.

Early on the West Creek became a site for tanning, shoe-making, and with the construction of the FarmingtonCanal, the Hill also became home to newly arrived Irish

immigrants.

Built soon after the West Creek was lled in the 1870sas a series of low-price row developments, the Howard

Avenue row houses were part of the “burgeoning slum” of Oak Street.1

Prior to World War 1, these row houses marked a pivotpoint between the working class areas of Oak Street to thesoutheast and northwest, and the “Wooster Square of the

West Village” that was Dwight Place to the northeast.2

___________________________________

1 Brown. “New Haven” p. 762 Ibid.


During New Haven’s maritime rise in the second half of the 18th Century, development moved eastward along the

water from the original settlement.

By the 1830s, development had extended northward fromthe water and a new satellite village was emerging.

The Newtownship contained its own industries, socialpyramid, institutions and, with Wooster Square at its cen-

ter, a posh rival to the Green of the old town center.

Also built as a low-price row development, the Court Streetrow houses mark “a turning point in the social history of

the [Wooster Square] neighborhood”.1

In the late 19th Century, Wooster Square was increasinglybecoming home to immigrant laborers, who were often

recruited from Italy to work in nearby factories. ____________________________________

1 Brown. “New Haven” p. 189

1962

c.1870

1879 Birds Eye Aerial Map of New Haven



1886 Sanborn Insurance Map of New Haven

1879 Birds Eye Aerial Map of New Haven

Court StreetHoward Avenue

Survey of Precentage of Foreign Born by Ward 1930 Map of “Negro New Haven” 1930



Survey of Precentage of Foreign Born by Ward, 1930

Source: Historical New Haven Digital Collection

Map of Negro New Haven , 1930

HOLC’s 1937 rejected neighborhoods (grade C and D) projected over 1913 upscale neighborhoods



HOLC s 1937 rejected neighborhoods (grade C and D) projected over 1913 upscale neighborhoods.

Source: Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Mortgage Security Survey, 1937.Reprinted in: Rae. “City” p. 270



The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation was created under the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933 as part of President Franklin Roos-evelt’s New Deal.

“The government established a presence in each state, set up 208 branch ofces, and had appraisers available to work in each of the nation’s 3,000-plus counties [...] Something like twenty thousand staff members were hired to address this [...] task [...] some of these were doubtless ill-equipped for the work: ‘Political pressure was at times effective in getting appointments for men with slightcompetence and insufcient objectivity.”1

“The Oak Street neighborhood [...] won a D rating. Here was a neighborhood consisting mostly of frame tenements and multifamilyhomes in poor repair, inhabited in the main (80 percent) by mixed nationality foreign stock, with a 20 percent ‘inltration’ of blacks.Incomes averaged $1,200, according to the report, and the ‘area is given over to the laboring classes and is rapidly lling up withNegros [sic.]. Vandalism may be expected.”2

“HOLC’s area D-5 [...] contains all of Wooster Square (including the ne homes surrounding the square itself) [...] Here was theheartland of Sargent Hardware’s Italian workforce, and here were the homes of roughly thirty thousand New Haveners, easily thedensest part of the city and one of the densest parts of Connecticut. Here too, true to stereotype were hundreds of foreign-stock mar-riages producing large numbers of children. [...] According to the HOLC panel, this was ‘an area given over to the working classes.Dwellings include everything from singles to multi-family. There is a scattering of manufacturing plants. Homes are built very closelytogether and a large portion of the area is highly congested. Pride of ownership is entirely lacking. Absense of market plus vandalismhas resulted in some demolition.’ Here again we have the government issuing a decisive signal to banks and their loan ofces: this isbeyond the range of acceptable risk.”3

In HOLC’s evaluation of residential security, the United States of America is advising lenders against investing in traditional cityneighborhoods and is advising against investing even in newer neighborhoods if they were ‘inltrated’ by the wrong people.”4

“94.7 percent of the people living in evaluated areas were being signaled that they lived in dubious or substandard neighborhoods,

and their bankers were getting the same signal. This doubtless made it more difcult, and more expensive, to borrow money for repairs or renovations: a loan at 4 percent in an A neighborhood might cost 7 percent in a C or 9 percent in a D area, if it could beobtained at all. Often, it was downright impossible to obtain money at any price for homes in D-level neighborhoods. As a result - thedistance between D and C, C and B, even B and A would grow. [...] HOLC’s certication of neighborhood inferiority [...] further de-pressed markets in the negatively evaluated portions of the city.”5

______________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Rae. “City” p. 2632 Rae. “City” p. 2713 Rae. “City” pp. 271-2724 Rae. “City” p. 2665 Rae. “City” p. 274

Twelve-hour daytime trafc ows around nine-square grid, Dec. 1935 - July, 1936



Twelve hour daytime trafc ows around nine square grid, Dec. 1935 July, 1936

Source: Arnold Guyot Dana. “New Haven’s Problems: Whither the City? All Cities” (New Haven: N.p., 1937)Reprinted in: Rae. “City” p. 226

Maurice Rotival Master Plan for City Plan Department of New Haven, 1943



Maurice Rotival Master Plan for City Plan Department of New Haven, 1943


Aerial Survey of Connecticut, 1934 Maurice Rotival Plan for the Southwest Area, 1943



Source: Historical New Haven Digital CollectionSource: Connecticut State Library Digital Collection

Map of General Conditions of Housing, 1944



p g,

Source: Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, Connecticut, 1944Digital Image: Historical New Haven Digital Collection

Oak Street Area, c.1945 Oak Street Area, 1950




Development Plan City of New Haven, 1955



p y ,

Source: City of New Haven Redevelopment Agency, 1955Digital Image: Historical New Haven Digital Collection

Oak Street Redevelopment Area

Wooster Square Renewal Plan



Howard Avenue Row Houses, c.1956

Source: New Haven Museum and Historical Society

Oak Street Redevelopment Area, c.1957



p ,


Aerial Survey of Connecticut, 1965



Source: Connecticut State Library

Court Street Row Houses, pre-1961







Before Rehabilitation 1961

& After Rehabilitation 1962

“In 1961 Court Street, which by then had become gloomy and dingy,became on the Redevelopmenty Agency’s most dramatic rehabilitation

projects”1 ___________________________________________

1 Brown. “New Haven” p.


Court Street c 1905 Court Street pre-1961



Court Street, c.1905

Court Street, c.1905

Source: Magrisso Forte Collection


Court Street, pre-1961



Court Street, 1962

Conclusions



1) Title 1 of the Housing Act of 1949 provided the opportunity for local governments - through their RedevelopmentAgency’s - to apply for Federal dollars to fund slum clearance projects and urban redevelopment.

2) In 1956, amendments to the Housing Act enabled funding for the use in rehabilitation projects as well as clearanceand redevelopment.

3) The Court Street row houses were rehabilitated in 1961 under the 1956 amendments to the Housing Act as part of the Wooster Square Renewal Plan.

4) The Howard Avenue row houses were demolished in 1965 in order to allow Grace-New Haven Hospital (now Yale-New Haven Hospital) to expand and create the Connecticut Mental Health Center as part of the Oak StreetRedevelopment Plan.

5) According to Richard Ely professor of Management and professor of Politcal Science at Yale University, DouglasW. Rae, “due to the audacity and ingenuity of [Edward J.] Logue and his staff [at the New Haven RedevelopmentAgency], [Mayor Richard C.] Lee managed in one instance to count $7,827,600 of Yale’s spending on its elegantEaro-Saarinen-designed residential colleges (Morse and Stiles) as part of the local match for [the 1967 Dixwell]urban renewal [project].”1

Not only did New Haven’s Redevelopment Agency defraud the Federal government when applyingfor funding, but the City then misallocated those funds designated for slum clearance in order to meet

planning objectives.

1 Rae. “City” p. 322



Sources:

Aerial Photographs of Connecticut, 1934 and 1965 “Connecticut State Library Digital Collection”

Birds Eye Aerial Map of New Haven, 1879 “Library of Congress Digital Collection”

Development Plan City of New Haven, 1955 “Historical New Haven Digital Collection”

Images “Historical New Haven Digital Collection”

Images “New Haven Museum and Historical Society” (Connecticut History Online)

Sanborn Insurance Map, 1886 “Historical New Haven Digital Collection”

Brown, Elizabeth Mills. “New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design” (Yale University Press, 1976)

Hommann, Mary. “Wooster Square Design” (New Haven Redevelopment Agency, 1965)

Rae, Douglas W. “City: Urbanism and Its End” (Yale University Press, 2003)

Documents

Three Presentations about City Planning in America