Preservation Awards

2023 NHPT House Preservation Award

Gertrude and Seth Cruttenden House
459 Dixwell Avenue

Original Owner: Oliver C. Aspinwall
Current Owners: Steven Winter and Emily Sigman

Renovation Builder: John Nelson, 2022

New Haven’s Dixwell Avenue looked very different in 1875 when Oliver C. Aspinwall, a 40-year-old wheelwright and superintendent of the New Haven Wheel Company, took out a loan to build a handsome two-and-one-half story house. With its gable end facing the street, the house originally stood amidst empty fields, along with a few other new houses in the area.

Mr. Aspinwall didn’t enjoy his house for very long: In 1883 he sold it to produce dealers Seth and Gertrude Cruttenden, who lived in it for many years and gave 459 Dixwell Avenue the name by which it is known today.

Built in the then-fashionable Italianate style, with pronounced window surrounds and an inviting porch, its classic Greek Revival details give way to an exuberant Victorian flourish in the form of perforated bargeboards culminating in an ornate pendant punctuating the ridge peak.

A substantial south-facing wing was added in 1911, its style agreeably compatible with the original design of the house. Over the years less sympathetic changes took place. In 1969 a set of pre-cast concrete front steps replaced the wooden stairs, and fabricated steel posts, detracting from the appearance of the entryway, were substituted for two original wood columns supporting the porch roof, spoiling the appearance of the entryway.

First-time homebuyers Steven Winter and Emily Sigman purchased the property in 2019. By then the house had been divided into two apartments, upper and lower, and it needed a good amount of work to return it to its original appearance.

The new owners created their own living quarters in what was once an attic space originally intended for domestic help. Plaster walls and ceilings were either removed or relocated, exposing old joists and giving the owners’ apartment an open and yet cozy feeling. The renovations uncovered several artifacts that had been left behind by previous owners, including a large flagpole with flag, and several other items now proudly on display in the apartment.

Steve, New Haven’s executive director for climate and sustainability, and Emily, a forester by training and an avid gardener, have adapted the house to their needs. In addition to doing much of the work themselves, they engaged John Nelson, a skilled local builder, to serve as their primary contractor, along with necessary electricians, plumbers, and HVAC contractors.

The exterior of the house is ingeniously painted in six shades of yellow, thirteen clapboard rows each, giving a subtle and pleasing effect as the walls ascend into the pale blue soffit behind the lacy bargeboards. Selected exterior details are gently highlighted in purple and teal, but the real delight is the interior of the owners’ apartment, cheerfully painted in an attractive variety of colors that complement the nooks and crannies of the space.

The Cruttenden house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing structure in the Winchester Repeating Arms Historic District. In 2020 the Preservation Trust was pleased to award a Historic Structures Fund grant to the owners to restore the porch. The pre-cast steps have been replaced with wood, and the classic porch columns have been recreated, restoring the original appearance of the entryway.

The owners are quick to point out that their renovations are an evolving process, making the house a true work in progress. “This house is our canvas,” observes Emily, as they continue to discover new ways to enhance their home.

The New Haven Preservation Trust is proud to convey this year’s House Preservation Award to Steven Winter and Emily Sigman, in recognition of their imaginative and thoughtful efforts to preserve and adapt one of New Haven’s historic houses for contemporary living.

2023 NHPT Merit Award

NXTHVN
169 Henry Street

Built By: H. Puddicombe Co.
Date: 1920
Architect: Charles E. Hubble

Renovation Architect: TenBerke, 2021

New ideas feast on existing contexts. Two exceptional men and two ordinary factory buildings have combined with a brilliant architect to create a new reality in an old neighborhood. Artist Titus Kaphar and entrepreneur Jason Price joined talents with architecture firm TenBerke, founded by Yale School of Architecture Dean Deborah Berke, to build and renew in the Dixwell Community in New Haven. Combining underused space and talented persona in a building that manifests the best that our history and hope can foster, a new facility for fine arts cultivation, supporting emerging artists and exhibitions: NXTHVN.

Kaphar and Price hit upon an idea so elemental as to be revolutionary. Artists have to be entrepreneurs in practical application of their expression, and entrepreneurs have to be artists to deliver the unique appeal of their ventures. Rather than a “Business Incubator” or a “Fine Arts Studio”, these inventors recognized the common humanity that demands expression and built a singular support mechanism for artists.

Their vision combines the creativity of the fine arts with a focus on entrepreneurship They created a place where high school artists are taught as apprentices, emerging and underrepresented artists are supported as Fellows, with studios and inexpensive housing, and established artists can find residency in new in-house apartments. Need is not just a requirement for innovation; need can also fulfill the promise of dormant possibility.

A three-year construction, during COVID, addressed both those needs. The State of Connecticut and a number of foundations funded an extraordinary effort to reinvent the century-old infrastructure. Leibo Brothers of Woodbridge worked with architecture firm TenBerke to create an incredible result that addresses the future and honors the past.

The Dixwell community — the living history of the neighborhood — was also a productive inspiration. Between Dixwell and Sherman Avenues, Henry Street was home to small businesses throughout the 20th century. Two early industrial buildings had housed a Hood Ice Cream operation at 169 Henry Street and the venerable Macalaster Bicknell Company, a scientific lab equipment and glassware supplier, at 181 Henry. This structure, built by H. Puddicombe & Company, was occupied by ‘Mac Bick’ from the 1940’s until 2012, when they were purchased and moved to North Haven. The similarly sized facades with brick and limestone appointments are preserved, punctuated by new window treatments, with a new glass entry facing the street between.

As they were defining their innovation, Jason Price and Titus Kaphar encountered architect Deborah Berke, a key player in the New Haven architecture world. Berke had renovated Louis Kahn’s Jewish Community Center into the Yale School of Art and Iseman Theater Arts complex while she was a professor at the Yale School of Architecture, where she is now Dean.

The multiple intentions to build art studios, teaching space, an exhibition hall, and housing gained new elements of a public coffee shop, a black box theater and a performance space. The Fellowship and visiting artist apartments took the form of a “tower” to the rear, and the former alley space between the buildings became entry lobby and fantastic exhibit space, with ramp access to mediate between the two levels of the existing building.

The new work is crafted in wood, steel and concrete in a spare, modern linearity, but there is a rare magic of focusing on the suspended animation only history provides. All buildings have generations of use. Each renovation often washes away the previous use — old systems, openings, and surfaces are simply covered over or removed — gone forever. Here TenBerke chose the harder, better, way to make new wine in old bottles. When necessary new systems of HVAC, lighting and circulation were required, those new constructions were held distinct from the unapologetic bones of the host buildings and all their previous renovations. Similarly, the newly applied additions that are set between or behind the existing buildings fully expose the old structures now exposed in their interiors.

Strategic skylighting is remade or inserted. Studios, exhibit spaces and new interiors offer up the blank, white surfaces that stand back and allow the art created in them to hold forth. Brick, stone, timber, iron and wood are not only salvaged but exposed, featured, and presented as evidence of an older world, including some rust, just as the art of the occupants is exhibited in the world of this moment.

This visual choreography only seems composed because TenBerke offers its living history in the space of new construction. Coexistence of now and then offers a future because it does not deny the past. Living in the Dixwell community as an unprecedented idea, a woven tapestry of new and existing buildings, NXTHVN represents the essence of our human beauty: our common reality that living with the past and nurturing the future is better than denial of either.

It is a true pleasure to offer the 2023 New Haven Preservation Trust Merit Award to NXTHVN.

Photo: John Dennis, Courtesy of NXTHVN

2023 NHPT Landmark Award

The Union
205 Church Street

Architect: Cross and Cross
Date: 1927
Original Owner: The Union and New Haven Trust Company
Current Owner: Cooper Church LLC

Renovation Architect: Newman Architects, 2016

The New Haven Preservation Trust is pleased to present the Landmark Award to the 1927 home of The Union and New Haven Trust Company, later the Union Trust Bank, and later still the City’s main branch of Wells Fargo Bank. Today, under the name The Union, the building houses 138 apartments, in a successful transition from commercial office use to residential, a concept with many possible post-COVID applications. This largely institutional area of downtown has been given new life from the energy and activity of apartment dwellers.

Developed by owner David Kuperberg, The Union represents an important link between investment opportunity and preservation. The 2023 Landmark Award recognizes that this large-scale adaptive reuse occurred without impairing the historic exterior, with its distinctive diagonal facade facing the Green. The building is at once a nod to New Haven’s deep colonial roots and a sign of the Trust Company’s economic standing at the time of its construction.

The Union and New Haven Trust was a merger of two earlier banks, the Union Trust and the New Haven Trust Company, forming one of the most successful financial institutions in the City’s history. As they planned their new building on the corner of Church and Elm Streets in 1927, the bank officers recognized that in New Haven, “everything centers about the Green, that old New England marketplace... laid out nearly three hundred years ago.” They wanted a structure “pleasing to the people of New Haven, appropriate to the location, and practical from a business standpoint.”

The architects, Cross and Cross, designed the building to incorporate colonial details, as many as possible in a tall building. They focused on honoring the early American architecture represented in churches on the Green and several (at the time) residential structures on Elm Street. Wherever the needs of an office building permitted, Cross and Cross employed characteristic features of Colonial civic architecture, including marble water tables and belt courses, entablatures with dentils and modillions, roof-line balustrades, marble coping, and, at street level, multi-pane two-story windows in arched brick recesses.

The dominant symbol of the colonial theme is the gold-covered dome, 225 feet above the street. The brick and marble cupola has eight curved bays, separated by marble Corinthian columns. The arched windows have fancy interlaced muntins, with marble surrounds. Above, the marble cornice and wide frieze are modeled on the older steeple of United Church on the Green (1815). Whether imitating the church steeple at a larger and bolder scale is respectful or rude is a topic that has engaged generations of architecture critics.

Continuing similar architectural themes, the main banking room reflects strong classical influences. These include a stained glass dome supported by a ring of two-story Corinthian columns around a circular bank desk enclosed by a decorative iron screen. Marble pilasters along the walls, elaborate sconces, and arched windows with fan-shaped panes add more grandeur. In her well-known 1976 book, New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design, Elizabeth Mills Brown calls the ornate banking room “one of the best remaining interiors of the Golden Twenties.”

Developer David Kuperberg notes that there were some challenges in the residential conversion, as there are in any rehabilitation project. Existing conditions create issues that must be worked through. Some particular challenges at 205 Church Street included:

• Installing utility lines for 138 apartments on 13 floors without disturbing the interior of the beautiful, and occupied, bank space on the ground floor and mezzanine levels.

• Installing all new, energy efficient building systems in an old building.

• Adding an additional floor over part of the building, and creating elevator access.

• Obtaining financing for what was then a "visionary" project for downtown New Haven.

The Union is a significant example of early 20th century Colonial Revival architecture and a representative work of the notable New York architecture firm of Cross and Cross. We see it today as a conscious reference to New Haven’s Colonial Green and the historic structures around it. At the same time, it is an excellent standard for the contemporary model of reshaping unused office space into living space.

Photo: Courtesy of David Kuperberg

2022 NHPT House Preservation Award

51 Perkins Street

Built By: James Woodhouse, a shipbuilder
Date: c. 1872
Owners: David Weinreb and Marlene Edelstein

Renovation: c. 2000 by former owners Oliver Barton and Debra Riding

This year’s House Award recognizes that more humble structures may receive the same dedication to care and restoration that more grand homes may display. The New Haven neighborhood of Fair Haven, the area of awards focus this year, has a variety of well-designed homes which have witnessed generations of changing occupancies, including diverse countries of origin and associated cultural expressions. The houses, in turn, have been periodically renovated and renewed, sustaining domestic uses and neighborhood pride.

This modest 2-story Italianate house, the basic form of which is repeated along the length of Perkins Street, would likely have been occupied by working families until well into the late 20th century. The most certain date by which this house was constructed is 1872 when the owner of the parcel, James Woodhouse, a ship builder who lived nearby, sold the “land with a dwelling house” to George and Caroline Gidney, George being a dentist and/or watchman (i.e. policeman).

The single-family residence evokes through its street elevation an implied Classical temple front, complete with broken pediment contained by shallow boxed returns at both its gables. Details such as these are characteristic in domestic architecture during the Greek Revival period, which falls in New England between 1820 and 1860. However, style elements of one period almost always linger into a later period where they are joined by new elements.

In this case, the street-facing Greek Revival pediment is joined by the segmental arch of its distinctive third-floor window, as an example of a new style element. The curve of the arch of this single gable window and its trim provides a distinct visual contrast to the straight lines meeting at the ridge of the roof. This simple, clear point and counterpoint lends credibility to the historic architectural value of this modest home. The matching trim and bracket-supported sill profiles of all windows also evidence clarity of design intent. An undeniable love of form-making rings true.

New style elements are also seen in simply implied Doric columns, with their flat, jigsawn capitals, located at the top of all the narrow corner boards. Through these straightforward silhouetted capitals traditional form is maintained, in lieu of more costly fully-formed pilasters, during a period of cost-savings in the face of the looming depression of 1873–1878.

Porches were often integral to houses in this period, to escape summer heat and to facilitate communication between neighbors, though this porch, particularly given its breadth and width, may have been added well after the house was originally built. Certainly, its current circular Doric columns are later additions, showing a formality beyond simplicity. In any case, all these elements at 51 Perkins Street, are historic markers that speak well of the house and to the evolution of this typical New Haven neighborhood streetscape.

This modest yet stylish historic residence has been rejuvenated and restored recently (1990–2000), both on its interior and its exterior, led by its recent owners, Oliver Barton and Debra Riding, with the help of neighbors, while the current owners, David Weinreb and Marlene Edelstein, have submitted this nomination and taken on the next chapter of care of this classic gem. Thoughtful private ownership is the best guarantor of preservation.

2022 NHPT Merit Award

The Studio Building at Cold Spring School
62–68 James Street

Built By: Charles Webb (68 James) and Henry G. Newton (62 James)
Date: 1871–72 (68 James) and c. 1890 (62 James)

Renovation: 2015
Architect: Turner Brooks Architect

The saving and renovation of two nineteenth century houses in Fair Haven manifests the character of the Cold Spring School and the adaptive re-creation of these separate homes into a single academic facility revived the architectural fabric of a community.

When Cold Spring School was founded in 1982, its unique mission inspired its parents, staff and alumni to invest a decade and over $1,000,000, creatively tucking their alternative educational approach into a four-story brick former mattress factory on Chapel Street. In the 1990’s the school’s Board of Directors, under Dan Biemensderfer, committed to remain in Fair Haven and embarked on a long-term physical plant master plan. Implementation of that plan meant buying four sites and renovating and connecting two of those to serve the 6th grade classroom, as well as art and music studios. Dubbed the The Studio Building, this combined facility is where students participate in four of Cold Spring's special area classes — Art, Music, Spanish and Tinkering.

To redefine these simple homes, a renovation designed by New Haven architect Turner Brooks, chose discretion over demolition. He notes: "As architects we really liked preserving the integration of old workers residences with the existing industrial buildings on the same street which is typical of Fair Haven neighborhoods.”

68 James was built in a combined Queen Anne/Italianate style in 1871–72 by Charles Webb. A The later porch with a pedimented gable entry on scrolled consoles is still present on the building. 62 James Street was built by Henry G. Newton twenty years later, in the early 1890’s. This 2½ story vernacular Victorian style, popular throughout the late 19th century, is graced with an arched window with art glass inserts. Having the gable peak face the street, seen in both houses, is a typical neighborhood form. Both houses are listed in the Preservation Trust’s Historic Resources Inventory, a carefully researched description of about 5,000 historic properties in New Haven.

Brooks created a visually ‘quiet’ connecting addition between the two former residences that provides the necessary central entry, circulation and mechanical systems and uses windows mimicking those of the original homes. The unification of using a neutral grey/green for all the walls and outlining white trim, both new and old, gives the twinned shape a quiet presence. Brooks also designed the more recent ‘Community Building’ next door on James Street, bracketing the two smaller scale residences in what is a happy relationship of diversity in building type and scale to the street.

The interiors, once divided into the bedrooms and the uses of a home, are either opened up for studios or left divided for discrete uses. The rear façade has its walls opened facing the common school yard. In fact, the domestic scale of the houses contributes a comfortable association with the outdoor play yard, as a home to its familial backyard.

Architect and board member David Thompson, describes the renovation; “The decision to renovate these two former residences, rather than raze them and start anew, made sense for the school for any number of reasons. Although their renovation involved significant infrastructure costs, the bottom-line project costs were appreciably less than what would have been spent on a new building. The two buildings carry on a rich dialogue with the neighborhood, as they have for the last century. From a preservationist’s perspective, perhaps the school’s most significant achievement here has come about as we search for yet another way to embrace the world as it is, as it was, and as it can be.”

Architecture is both new and old, as is Fair Haven itself. The Cold Spring School started its life by integrating into Fair Haven, with full community access and a robust scholarship program supporting diversity seldom found in private education. That commitment to Fair Haven began with the conversion of a 19th century mattress factory. The subsequent recreation of two homes into a new identity is a wonderful example of an ancient preservation theme, putting new wine into old vessels.

A community, both its architecture and its people, are a tapestry, made richer by its complimentary identities. The sensitivity reflected in embracing of all the potential that each building and person has is the key to our future as a culture. The Cold Spring School is living that future.

2022 NHPT Landmark Award

Grand Avenue Bridge at the Quinnipiac River
City of New Haven Department of Engineering
Mayor Justin Elicker

Original Design Engineers: H. C. Keith and C. W. Kelly
Built By: Berlin Iron Bridge Company (ironwork) and Charles Geary (masonry)
Date: 1896–1898

Renovation Designer: Hardesty & Hanover LLC Renovation
Contractor: Mohawk Northeast, Inc.

Reopening Date: January 17, 2022

The Landmark Award is presented to the City of New Haven Department of Engineering for their role in the recent restoration of the 1898 Grand Avenue bridge across the Quinnipiac River, connecting Fair Haven with Fair Haven Heights. Landmark Awards are typically given to buildings, but this will be the first time a Landmark Plaque will be secured to a work of civil and structural engineering.

Sometimes known as the Dragon bridge, named after the early settlers’ term for the fishing village and seals or ‘sea-dragons’ seen along the Quinnipiac River, it is documented as a key landmark in the Quinnipiac River National Historic District, established in 1984. The bridge was returned to service on January 15, 2022, following a $28 million renovation that required two years for completion. Opened in 1898, the “rim bearing design” swing bridge replaced an earlier non-movable wooden structure, the first from 1791, and has since become an iconic part of the neighborhood.

The 205-foot swinging span has a challenging job description. It is subject to New England’s harsh winters and steamy summers, and the salt content of the environment is not favorable to its mechanical components, working constantly to corrode the structural steel. The bridge must cope with heavy traffic, carrying more than 8,000 vehicles every day. Added to that is the need for the bridge to be rotated by large electric motors whenever the river traffic has to pass. So it is not surprising that the Grand Avenue bridge requires periodic attention in order to continue functioning reliably.

Major repairs were made in the 1940s, but by the 1980s the bridge required another significant intervention. Initial plans were to replace the bridge with a higher concrete span that would not need to move for river traffic, but the projected collateral damage to the historic character of the neighborhood aroused the local residents to plea for a less destructive solution. Soon the State Historic Preservation Office became involved and went so far as to threaten action against the proposed bridge. Fortunately the City reconsidered its plans, and the agreeable result was a nearly new structure, exactly reproducing the original design in 1984, preserving the historic built environment of the area.

The most recent rebuilding included elements not addressed in 1984: a new flexible deck of steel and concrete, new “splash proof” electric motors and related mechanism, completely rebuilt approach spans and abutments on both sides of the river, and a refurbished bridge tender’s house with updated control equipment. A new, wider ‘promenade’ sidewalk is included on the south side. As a further gesture of goodwill to the neighborhood, the residents’ suggestions for a suitable paint color were solicited as part of the project. The chosen color echoes the verdigris-like green hue of weathered civic monuments.

The rebuilding and restoration were carried out by the New Haven Department of Engineering, Giovanni Zinn, City Engineer; Zachary Shapiro, Chief Structural Engineer; bridge designer Hardesty & Hanover and contractor, Mohawk Northeast. The City coordinated with the Fair Haven and Quinnipiac East/Fair Haven Heights Community Management Teams and other groups.

Thus, the New Haven Preservation Trust proudly presents its 2022 Landmark Award in recognition of the City of New Haven’s commendable stewardship of this historic structure, reliably serving the Fair Haven community for more than 120 years, and exemplifying the principles and goals of historic preservation.

2021 NHPT Housing Preservation Award

Newhall Gardens
5–45 Daisy Street

Architect: Granbery, Cash & Associates
Built By: New Haven Housing Authority
Date: 1961–1962

Renovation Architect: Paul Bailey
Date: 2005

1961 was a year of great change to the built world in and around New Haven. In this change time, 8,000 people in 11 neighborhoods were displaced creating the need for new places to live in New Haven. This effort included Newhall Gardens finished in 1962, built to house seniors.

Carleton Granbery and Diana Granbery created this new community, intentionally distinct from the two-story gable-roofed homes and institutional or commercial buildings that line the neighborhood. Taking over half of the block on Daisy Street, the complex sets all its walls and roofs on a 45-degree angle to the surrounding streets.

Newhall Gardens was envisioned to be 36 on-grade senior housing apartments, 16 one-bedroom units, and 20 studio apartments — all with their own entries and direct outdoor access from inside each unit to patios. There were 10 buildings, with the residential units connected via breezeways extending from three roofs, as well as a free-standing 900-square-foot social hall. A full site design created walks, terraces, parking, and included trees, making an outdoor extension of the floor plans.

Those plans demanded revision in the 21st century, as energy efficiency, ADA compliance, and over 40 years of wear and tear were addressed by renovation architect Paul Bailey. Rainwater that had sheeted off the generous eaves is now controlled by gutters. The steel casement windows with open glass were replaced with energy efficient divided lite units. New fencing, site lighting, and terraces were added and HVAC systems, kitchens, and baths were updated while maintaining the modern edge of its original form. The tiny studio units were expanded without increasing the buildings' perimeter, so the number of apartments was reduced from 36 to 26 units.

Newhall Gardens is an exceptional manifestation of the spirit of New Haven in 1961. It was built during a time of reinterpretation and rethinking. This example of new thinking has been an unqualified success, creating a community that enhances New Haven, then and now.

2021 NHPT Merit Award

Conte/West Hills Magnet School
511 Chapel Street

Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Built By: City of New Haven
Date: 1961

Additions: Newman Architects, PC
Date: 1999

Designed by one of America’s most prominent exponents of modern architecture, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the Harry A. Conte School was built in the Wooster Square neighborhood in 1961. Conceived by SOM partner Gordon Bunshaft and SOM associate partner Natalie de Blois as ‘temples in a field,’ the school consisted of three buildings in white pre-cast concrete surrounded by imposing colonnades: a mid-block two-story classroom building, a separate 250-seat auditorium, and a public library branch facing Wooster Place. The school was built to serve as a neighborhood resource and incorporated many public amenities.

In 1999–2000, two additions by Newman Architects provided a new entrance on Chapel Street, additional classrooms, and an enclosed connection between the school building and the auditorium. The additions connect the school to the neighborhood while expressing a distinct character of their own. The Trust recognizes the thoughtful balance of scale and character demonstrated by this addition to a Modernist masterwork.

2021 NHPT Landmark Award

New Haven Fire Headquarters (Central Station)
952 Grand Avenue

Architect: Carlin & Pozzi Architects
Built By: City of New Haven
Date: 1961

A clearly distinct and monumental marker located at a high point on the Elm Street and Grand Avenue corridor between downtown and the Wooster Square neighborhood, this 1961 fire station has always been insistently quirky and sculptural, tempting one to look more closely. On approach, walking or driving, its crenelated, varied height towers reinforce the angularity of the corner on which it sits while indirectly complementing the varied buildings in the immediate area.

Its cast-in-place concrete walls reveal a regularly repeating language of vertical concrete formwork indentations, highlighted by shadows, evolving upwards across its exterior wall surfaces, particularly as the towers rise and fall unexpectedly at the building’s four corners. The indentations on the shorter towers on the south side of the building also whimsically follow the ups and downs of the stairwells within them. This visual excitement, easily experienced from street or sidewalk, reinforces the sense of a fire department always ready for quick action.

The interior of the building contains a highly ordered series of spaces providing maximal efficiency of function as firefighters await and respond to their calls to duty. The original highly polished brass poles are still used to bring the firefighters quickly down from their upper story sleeping/living quarters to the ground floor vehicle space. The original offices, located on the south side of the building (between Olive and Artizan Streets), are the only original program element that has required expansion as the communication needs of the Fire Department have grown over time. The solution in the 1970s was to infill the original balcony on the top floor of this rear façade. The result is barely noticeable, preserving the building’s original functionality within as well as its visual integrity across the rear elevation.

The Central Station Fire Headquarters building is a visual surprise to those who encounter it. It is a solid, sensational, and enduring delight, fairly graced by its sixty years.

60th Anniversary Award

Ethnic Heritage Center
Founded: 1988
Based At: Southern Connecticut State University

The Ethnic Heritage Center was formed in 1988 to combine five existing ethnic historical societies. The African-American, Italian-American, Jewish, Ukrainian-American, and Irish-American historical societies came together to provide an incredible array of programs and resources, and to safeguard the archives of these and other organizations. Since 1992 the Ethnic Heritage Center has had a unique relationship with Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), which provides their physical home and venues for exhibitions, programming, and archival space. These exhibits have focused on New Haven’s various cultural legacies and have been shown in many local venues over the last 20 years, starting with “An Ethnic History of New Haven,” the Center’s seminal exhibit on display in their facility on the campus of SCSU. The Center’s “Walk New Haven” self-guided tours and books reveal the provenance of these legacies on the streets of the city.

These tours have included Wooster Square, the Lower Dixwell Neighborhood, and the core and northern neighborhoods of downtown New Haven. The books that accompany these self-guided tours use drawings, photos, and maps to make places in history come alive today. The "Walk New Haven" self-guided tours have also celebrated the people and places of New Haven. For example, Eli and Sarah Rosner's Grocery, the performer Lillian Lumpkin, the San Carlino Theatre, and Terese Falcigno's furniture store were part of the physical tour of Grand Avenue — marking history and reviving memories.

History is a subject, but it is embodied in the records and products of our culture. Those physical artifacts can vanish, unless care is taken to preserve the fragile tangible relics of our past. New Haven’s Ethnic Heritage Center does that. The Center’s facility at SCSU has preserved the archives of their constituent societies. In addition, the Center has helped to save the archives of the New Haven Public School System and the Q-House.

A tapestry can be beautiful, but a quilt adds the richness of context and history, and the New Haven Preservation Trust is delighted to recognize the Ethnic Heritage Center as it reveals the glorious quilt of New Haven’s cultures and history.

2021 Margaret Flint Award

Carroll L.V. Meeks, 1907–1966
First NHPT President, 1961–1963

The first President of the New Haven Preservation Trust, Carroll L.V. Meeks was a teacher, an author, a past national president of the Society of Architectural Historians, and chairman of the American Institute of Architects’ preservation committee.

Over the course of the Trust’s first years, Professor Meeks skillfully turned a group of passionate volunteers into an authoritative advocate for the community’s benefit. He orchestrated the formal incorporation process, instituted a membership campaign, and presided over the award of the Trust’s first six Landmark Plaques in 1962.

Sadly, Professor Meeks died in 1966. At that time, widespread concern arose about the future of the Oliver North House at 604 Chapel Street, designed by Henry Austin. When a developer stepped forward to renovate the house to historic standards, the Trust agreed to fund the reconstruction of its elegant cupola. In early 1967, the membership voted that the new tower on the Oliver North House be a memorial to the late Carroll Meeks.

The Trust honors Carroll L.V. Meeks for his unparalleled work on behalf of the organization in its first few years.