What to See in New Haven - Top Sights and Attractions

Building complex. The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Literature, and Philosophy. Fourteen buildings—including eight dormitories and two chapels—surround a 4-acre courtyard with a main entrance from the New Haven Green known as Phelps Gate.

The Old Campus comprised most of Yale College's grounds between its arrival in New Haven in 1718 and its 20th-century expansion. Yale's first building in New Haven, the College House, was erected in 1718 on the Old Campus' southeast corner, fulfilling the city founders' wish to have a college near New Haven's Congregational church. It was joined by Connecticut Hall in 1750, a student dormitory and Yale's only surviving building from the colonial era. A linear building plan established in 1792, known as Old Brick Row, was the first campus plan in the United States and became a template for many American college campuses built in the 19th century. After 1870, the original plan gave way to the current quadrangle of dormitories, academic buildings, and chapels.

In addition to Connecticut Hall, the current buildings of Old Campus include most of the freshman dormitories of Yale College, Street Hall of the Yale University Art Gallery, and two buildings used for religious purpose: Battell Chapel, third in a succession of college chapels, and Dwight Hall, formerly the College Library. Although the current buildings have been renovated and their uses changed during the twentieth century, all were completed before 1928.^[5]

Art school in New Haven, Connecticut. The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture.

U.S. News & World Report's 2012 and 2013 rankings rated Yale first in the United States for its Masters of Fine Arts programs. The Yale Daily News reported in February 2007 that 1,215 applicants for its class of 2009 sought admission to 55 places. The Yale Alumni Magazine reported in November 2008 that the School admitted sixty-five applicants from among 1,142 for its class of 2010, and that fifty-six enrolled.

Any student applying to the school must have an exceptional undergraduate record as well as a complete body of work for presentation. This is further followed by an essay and recommendations. The complete process for an applicant requires great preparation and the process must be completed in accordance with strict guidelines established by the school.^[7]

Park in New Haven, Connecticut. The New Haven Green is a 16-acre privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New Haven, and was designed and surveyed by colonist John Brockett. Today the Green is bordered by the modern paved roads of College, Chapel, Church, and Elm streets. Temple Street bisects the Green into upper and lower halves.

The green is host to numerous public events, such as the International Festival of Arts and Ideas and New Haven Jazz Festival, summer jazz and classical music concerts that can draw hundreds of thousands of people, as well as typical daily park activities. The New Haven Green Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark District for the architectural significance of the three 19th-century churches located there.

The New Haven Green is one of the oldest and most well-known town greens in the nation, dating back to at least 1638. As of July 2017, the City of New Haven offers free public WiFi on the Green.^[8]

Landmark cemetery with graves of famous. Grove Street Cemetery or Grove Street Burial Ground is a cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, that is surrounded by the Yale University campus. It was organized in 1796 as the New Haven Burying Ground and incorporated in October 1797 to replace the crowded burial ground on the New Haven Green. The first private, nonprofit cemetery in the world, it was one of the earliest burial grounds to have a planned layout, with plots permanently owned by individual families, a structured arrangement of ornamental plantings, and paved and named streets and avenues. By introducing ideas like permanent memorials and the sanctity of the deceased body, the cemetery became "a real turning point.. a whole redefinition of how people viewed death and dying", according to historian Peter Dobkin Hall. Many notable Yale and New Haven luminaries are buried in the Grove Street Cemetery, including 14 Yale presidents; nevertheless, it was not restricted to members of the upper class, and was open to all.

In 2000, Grove Street Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Today, it is managed by Camco Cemetery Management.^[9]

Lighthouse in New Haven, Connecticut. Five Mile Point Light, also known as Five Mile Point Lighthouse or Old New Haven Harbor Lighthouse, is a U.S. lighthouse in Long Island Sound on the coast of New Haven, Connecticut. Located at the entrance to New Haven Harbor, the beacon's name derives from its proximity to Downtown New Haven, about five miles away. The original lighthouse consisted of a 30-foot octagonal wooden tower built in 1805 by Abisha Woodward. In 1847, a new 80-foot octagonal tower was constructed by Marcus Bassett with East Haven brownstone. This new beacon was illuminated by 12 lamps with reflectors which were positioned 97 feet above sea level. Also constructed at this time was a two-and-one-half story brick house which supplanted the previous, deteriorating keeper's dwelling. A fourth-order Fresnel lens replaced the lamps in 1855 and a fog bell was added in the 1860s. The Five Mile Point Light was deactivated in 1877 when the nearby Southwest Ledge Light was completed. Currently, the lighthouse is contained within Lighthouse Point Park and, along with the keeper's house, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.^[11]

Chapel in New Haven, Connecticut. Battell Chapel is the largest chapel of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Built in 1874–76, it was funded primarily with gifts from Joseph Battell and others of his family. Succeeding two previous chapel buildings on Yale's Old Campus, it provided space for daily chapel services, which were mandatory for Yale College students until 1926. Together with Durfee Hall and Farnam Hall, the chapel was part of a program begun in the 1870s to build up the perimeter of Old Campus and separate it from the rest of the city. These three buildings, all by the same architect, were among the first at Yale to be named for donors rather than function, location, or legislative funding.

Battell Chapel is one of the locations on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.^[14]

Neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel Street and Academy Street in the center of the neighborhood. Wooster Square is also known as Little Italy: a bastion of Italian American culture and cuisine, and is home to some of New Haven's, best-known pizza eateries, including Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza. The square and much of the neighborhood are included in the Wooster Square Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

An annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Wooster Square Park commemorates the planting of 72 Yoshino Japanese cherry blossom trees in 1973 by the New Haven Historic Commission in collaboration with the New Haven Parks Department and neighborhood residents. The festival, founded and organized by the Historic Wooster Square Association, has grown from a modest event in the early 1970s with a local band entertaining a handful of neighbors under lighted trees to a major New Haven event that in 2016 attracted over 10,000 visitors.^[15]

Residential college. Silliman College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, named for scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. It opened in September 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges, and contains buildings constructed as early as 1901.

Silliman is Yale's largest residential college by its footprint, occupying most of a city block. Due to its size, the college is able to house its freshmen in the college instead of on Yale's Old Campus. The college's architecture is eclectic: though architect Otto Eggers completed most of the college with Georgian buildings, the college also incorporates two early-20th century buildings in the French Renaissance and Gothic Revival styles.

The College has links to Harvard's Pforzheimer House and Dudley House, as well as Trinity College, Cambridge and Brasenose College, Oxford. Its rival college at Yale is Timothy Dwight College, located directly across Temple Street.^[16]

Historical landmark in New Haven, Connecticut. Fort Nathan Hale, also known as Fort Hale Park, Black Rock, is a 20-acre city park located on the east shore of New Haven Harbor in New Haven, Connecticut. It includes the site of a 1659 fort, a Revolutionary War-era fort, and a Civil War-era fort. The fort was named after Nathan Hale, Connecticut's official hero. Since 1921, the site has been owned by the state of Connecticut. It has been used as a park and maintained as a historical site by the City of New Haven. Educational programs are given throughout the year to students attending local schools.

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. In 1970 the listing included three contributing buildings, one contributing site, and three contributing structures.^[19]

Extradosed bridge in New Haven, Connecticut. The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, commonly referred to as the Q Bridge by locals, is an extradosed bridge that carries Interstate 95 over the mouth of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, in the U.S. state of Connecticut. This bridge replaced the original 1,300 m span which opened on January 2, 1958. The old bridge had a girder and floorbeam design where steel beams supported a concrete bridge deck that carried three lanes of traffic in each direction with no inside or outside shoulders. The bridge was officially dedicated as the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in 1995 to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The old Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge was replaced by a $554 million 10-lane extradosed bridge; the northbound span of which opened to traffic on June 22, 2012. Southbound traffic was shifted onto the new bridge, sharing the northbound span with northbound traffic until the new southbound span was completed in late 2015. Since the Gibbs Street Bridge in Portland, Oregon was redesigned from an extradosed span to a box girder bridge, the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge was the first extradosed bridge completed in the United States when it fully opened in September 2015. The new bridge is the centerpiece of a $2 billion megaproject called the New Haven Harbor Crossing Improvement Program.^[22]

The Chapel Street Historic District is a 23-acre historic district in the Downtown New Haven area of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The district covers the southwestern corner of Downtown New Haven, including properties from Park Street to Temple Street between Chapel and Crown streets, and properties from High Street to Temple Street between George and Crown streets. It is bordered on the north by the New Haven Green and the Yale University campus. The western edge borders the Dwight Street Historic District. The eastern and southern edges of the district abut areas of more modern development.

In 1984 the district included, over a 5 and a half block area, 102 buildings, of which 76 were contributing buildings. The predominantly brick structures represent a wide range of architectural styles. Maps show that the area was residential in the eighteenth century and through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Commercial development began to take over at that time, though residential properties remained well represented. The oldest building in the district is the Ira Atwater House, built in 1817. Most of the buildings now in the district were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, having replaced earlier residential and commercial development. One of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in the city is a c. 1831 building on Church Street. There are three church buildings in the district, including the former Calvary Church Baptist Church (1871) which now house the Yale Repertory Theatre.^[23]

College in New Haven, Connecticut. Saybrook College is one of the 14 residential colleges at Yale University. It was founded in 1933 by partitioning the Memorial Quadrangle into two parts: Saybrook and Branford.

Unlike many of Yale's residential colleges that are centered on one large courtyard, Saybrook has two courtyards—one stone and one grass, hence the college cheer beginning "Two courtyards, stone and grass: two courtyards kick your ass."

Saybrook College was one of the original Yale Residential Colleges. Its name comes from the original location of the university, Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The college has the second highest student-to-land-area ratio of any of the colleges (after Hopper College).

Saybrook students are known on campus for "the Saybrook Strip", a ritual performed during football games at the end of the third quarter. Both male and female college residents strip down to their underwear (some seniors remove all their clothing during The Game) to accompaniment by the Yale Precision Marching Band, which formerly played "The Stripper" or "Sweet Child o' Mine" but now chooses different tunes from game to game. Saybrook is also known for its repeated wins of the Gimbel Cup, which goes to the college with the highest average GPA. Saybrook has won the cup 11 times, four more than the next most frequent winner, Ezra Stiles College. Saybrook won most recently in 2007.

The college was renovated during the 2000-2001 year.

Saybrook College was featured in a chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, part of which was filmed on Yale's campus in late June and early July 2007.^[24]

Catholic church in New Haven, Connecticut. St. Mary Parish is a Roman Catholic parish in New Haven, Connecticut, part of the Archdiocese of Hartford. The Parish of St. Mary consists of two churches: St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue, and St. Joseph's Church in the East Rock section of New Haven.

The parish now known as St. Mary's was the first Catholic church in New Haven, and is the second oldest Roman Catholic parish in Connecticut. The parish was originally established in 1832 and the present St. Mary church building is located near Yale University. It is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. In 1882, Michael J. McGivney, the church's assistant pastor, founded the Knights of Columbus at the parish. McGivney, whose remains are interred within the church, was beatified by Pope Francis in 2020.

For 135 years, from 1886 until their departure in December 2021, St. Mary's parish had been run by friars of the Dominican Order. In 2021, priests from the archdiocese were assigned as part of major restructuring of parishes in New Haven. In 2018, the parish of St. Mary had previously merged with the nearby parish of St. Joseph as part of an earlier restructuring; both church buildings remain open for regularly schedule worship as part of the consolidated Saint Mary Parish.^[27]

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Established by a gift of the Beinecke family and given its own financial endowment, the library is financially independent from the university and is co-governed by the University Library and Yale Corporation.

Situated on Yale University's Hewitt Quadrangle, the building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1963.From 2015-16 the library building was closed for 18 months for major renovations, which included replacing the building's HVAC system and expanding teaching and exhibition capabilities.^[32]

Library in New Haven, Connecticut. Sterling Memorial Library is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revival campus. The library's tower has sixteen levels of bookstacks containing over 4 million volumes. Several special collections—including the university's Manuscripts & Archives—are also housed in the building. It connects via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, which holds an additional 150,000 volumes.

The library is named for John W. Sterling, a lawyer representing Standard Oil, whose huge bequest to Yale required that an "enduring, useful and architecturally beautiful edifice" be built. Sterling Library is elaborately ornamented, featuring extensive sculpture and painting as well as hundreds of panes of stained glass created by G. Owen Bonawit. In addition to the book tower, Rogers' design featured five large reading rooms and two courtyards, one of which is now a music library.

While the library's nave and main reading rooms can be visited on guided tours, its collections are restricted to cardholders.^[35]