New Haven urban renewal demolition with the Connector in foreground. Photo courtesy of the New Haven Museum Collection.
May is Historic Preservation Month, and what better time to analyze the urban renewal of New Haven during the 1950s and 1960s? Lizabeth Cohen, the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies at Harvard University and author of the award-winning “Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age,” will deconstruct this complex topic.
Today, with our appreciation for charming old buildings and historic preservation, one might well ask, “What were these urban renewers thinking?” Cohen explains that while in hindsight we now understand that the urban renewal of the 1950s to 1970s was deeply flawed, the ideals and aspirations by New Haven leaders of the era need to be understood in the context of their times. Did they get anything right?
Cosponsored with the New Haven Museum. The media sponsor is Connecticut Explored, which will feature an article written by Cohen on the same topic in the Summer, 2021 issue.
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