60 Fun Facts About New Haven

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

The city is drained by three rivers, and its large, shallow harbor is an embayment of the Sound.

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

Most of the original elms died of Dutch elm disease in the mid-20th century, and disease-resistant elms were replanted from the 1980s.

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

The American Planning Association recognizes it as a National Planning Landmark, and the central open square became the New Haven Green.

Roughly how large is the New Haven Green?

Legend says the Puritans sized it to hold the 144,000 people they believed would be spared 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?

They wanted a stricter theocracy than Massachusetts allowed; the New Haven Colony forbade other churches entirely.

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?

Edward Whalley and William Goffe were later joined by a third regicide, John Dixwell; the trail to the cave on West Rock is the Regicides Trail.

New Haven shared the role of Connecticut's capital with Hartford from 1701 until which year?

The last state house on the Green, an 1831 Greek Revival building by Ithiel Town, was demolished in 1889 despite preservationist protests.

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

It was still called the Collegiate School; the Yale name came two years later after a donation from East India Company merchant Elihu Yale.

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

He donated nine bales of goods that sold for more than £560, and Cotton Mather suggested the college take his name.

Which future traitor led New Haven's Governor's Foot Guard to seize the powder house on April 23, 1775?

They armed themselves for a three-day march to Cambridge; the city re-enacts it every April on the Green.

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

Sherman signed the Constitution and authored the Connecticut Compromise; George Washington stayed at his house in 1789.

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

The neighborhood is still called Whitneyville, and his factory is now a museum with a heavy focus on children's activities.

Whose statue stands beside New Haven's City Hall, commemorating the 1839 Amistad trial held in the city?

The memorial stands on the site of the jail that held the captives; spectators paid twelve and a half cents to view them.

Which gunmaker produced firearms in New Haven until 2006?

It grew out of the New Haven Arms Company, which boomed on Civil War orders.

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

Its 23-story headquarters is the third-tallest building in the city, and its founder, Father Michael McGivney, has been beatified.

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

It also produced the first telephone directory and installed the first public phone, and it later became Southern New England Telephone.

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

The family story says a hurried customer asked Louis Lassen to 'slap a meatpuck between two planks', so he served ground steak between two slices of toast.

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

A sign inside reads 'This is not Burger King. You don't get it your way.' The burgers are broiled vertically in cast-iron stoves from 1898.

Louis' Lunch burgers are served on what instead of a bun?

The bread goes 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?

It is baked in coal- or wood-fired brick ovens with a thin, charred crust, and a 'plain' pie comes without mozzarella.

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

A white pie uses garlic and olive oil instead of tomato sauce; Pepe's original 1925 menu offered only a tomato pie and an anchovy pie.

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

Before opening his pizzeria in 1925 he sold 'tomato pies' around the Wooster Square market from a special headdress and later a wagon.

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

Filomena Consiglio's son Sal ran it until his death in 1989, and the family sold the business to an unnamed buyer in 2017.

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

It opened in 1934, nine years after Pepe's and four years before Sally's.

The Frisbee is named after a Connecticut company whose tins Yale students tossed. What did it make?

Wham-O adopted the name in 1957 after hearing students call its Pluto Platter a 'Frisbie', after the Frisbie Pie Company.

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

He started making the candies in 1908 and trademarked the 'lollipop' name in 1931.

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

Gilbert was also an Olympic pole-vault gold medalist and a working magician; his inspiration was the steel girders of the New Haven Railroad.

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?

Taft, Ford and Bill Clinton all lived in the city temporarily, and Clinton met Hillary at Yale Law School.

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

They were the largest and longest trials in Connecticut history, and Jean Genet, Benjamin Spock and Abbie Hoffman were among the activists who came.

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

Alexis de Tocqueville had already used New Haven's theocratic history as an example in Democracy in America.

Which Broadway musical was written in New Haven and premiered at the city's Shubert Theatre?

Carousel, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, The King and I, The Sound of Music and A Streetcar Named Desire also tried out at the Shubert first.

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

That includes more than 300 world premieres; these days shows tend to arrive after their Broadway run rather than before.

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

The Yale University Art Gallery, across the street, is the western hemisphere's oldest college art museum.

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?

It is the first full-scale reproduction of the animal ever erected, 21 feet long on a 13-foot granite base.

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

A Yale president 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?

Its residents include 14 Yale presidents along with signers of the Constitution, inventors and lexicographers.

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

The neighborhood is New Haven's Little Italy and was nearly razed for Interstate 91 in the 1950s before a community preservation effort re-routed the highway.

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's iron-rich diabase weathers rusty brown, and the Wilbur Cross Parkway tunnels straight through West Rock.

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

The 112-foot column honors New Haveners who died in the Revolutionary War, 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?

Players still dress in the Smilow Field Center and walk 200 yards to the field while the band plays, a tradition called the Bulldog Walk. The stadium inspired the design and name of the Rose Bowl.

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

He is buried in Grove Street Cemetery, and New Haven hosts 'The Game' against Harvard every other year.

Toad's Place, the York Street music venue, opened in 1975. How did owner Mike Spoerndle explain the name?

Spoerndle had studied at a conservatory in Volos, Greece, where the hills are famous for breeding toads.

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

He was charged with attempting to incite a riot in the middle of the concert; the Arena itself was demolished in 1972.

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

About 500 locals were cast as extras; Robert De Niro's 'Denver' station scene in Everybody's Fine was also shot in the city's Union Station.

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

He was also commissioned for a City Beautiful plan for New Haven in 1919, and is better known for the Woolworth Building and the US Supreme Court.

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

Its 19th-century mansions now belong mostly to Yale, and the whole avenue is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Which of the three churches on the Green is considered the first Gothic-style church in the US?

Ithiel Town designed it in 1813; a crypt beneath the neighboring Center Church holds more than 1,000 colonial burials.

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

The airport sits three miles east of downtown, straddling the East Haven line, and serves about 25 cities.

Which two clothing brands were founded in New Haven?

Yale is the city's biggest employer, followed by Yale New Haven Hospital; the lock maker Assa Abloy is also based here.

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

It draws the largest crowd of any one-day spectator event in Connecticut.

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

They wanted to build a fresh theocracy elsewhere after England forced the two colonies together.

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

That makes it Connecticut's third-most populous city, and the metro area has about 577,000 residents.

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

Downtown blocks were rebuilt with museums, office towers, a hotel and shopping complexes; the federal courthouse now bears his name.

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

Its route is now being turned into the Farmington Canal Trail, a rail trail planned to run the full distance.