Resources
Self-Guided Tours
Take a walk — virtually or in person — and learn more about the streetscapes of New Haven’s communities.
Autumn Street
Autumn Street is an eclectic, mews-like street located in the heart of the Prospect Hill Historic District. The diverse mix of architectural styles found here tell the story of New Haven’s development within a single block.
Though it appeared on New Haven maps before 1879, Autumn Street developed as a residential corridor between 1900 and 1925, coinciding with the growth of surrounding Prospect Hill Neighborhood. Its original use as a carriage way is still reflected in the housing styles and streetscape that exist today.
Take the self-guided tour and look at houses ranging from converted carriage houses to classic Colonial Revivals to Modernist dwellings and learn how they reflect the ever-changing city that surrounds them.
Beaver Hills
The Beaver Hills Historic District, significant for its collection of early 20th-century suburban residences, is particularly notable for the Tudor Revival houses found here. Many of these are located on Ellsworth Avenue and Colony Road.
Take the self-guided tour down these tree-lined residential streets and learn more about how Beaver Hills developed as one of New Haven’s earliest examples of a planned and promoted subdivision. Along the way, stop to appreciate the beautifully preserved Tudor Revival houses that represent the district.
Dixwell Urban Renewal Plan (1960)
Dixwell is a diverse neighborhood and the largest redevelopment area of New Haven during Urban Renewal. The 1960 Dixwell Renewal Plan took a holistic approach to instituting urban renewal ideals in the neighborhood. The construction of new commercial, institutional, religious, and community-focused buildings and public spaces was seen as a path for racial integration and minority empowerment.
After starting at the monumental Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church (designed by John M. Johansen), continue to explore the Modernist buildings in the neighborhood in a self-guided walking tour.
Photo courtesy of the New Haven Museum.
Download a PDF of the Dixwell Urban Renewal Plan walking tour brochure →
Docomomo US Tour Day: All Things New are Old Again
Today preservationists seek to honor and save seemingly impersonal and stark modernist buildings of the 1970s whose construction was often a bête noire of their preservationist predecessors.
Buildings such as the New Haven Savings Bank (1972), shown here, or the New Haven County Courthouse (1971) present us with much to admire and ponder — they may seem formal and simple, but as we take in their cutouts and windows, ornaments and patterns appear.
This self-guided online tour is an opportunity to explore the meaningful character of a style in flux, as the exaggerated simple forms of late modernism encountered the extravagant, exaggerated, and even humorous, neoclassicism deployed by Postmodernism.
Lynwood Place
Not far from downtown New Haven, located in the Dwight Street Historic District, is a one-block enclave of buildings dating to the 1880s. Lynwood Place was developed by professionals associated with local businesses and nearby Yale University and opened in 1880, on land formerly owned by the Osborne Carriage Factory on Park Street. Bookended by Edgewood Avenue and Elm Street, the street is relatively narrow, with shallow setbacks from the curb, giving it an intimate feel. Single-family houses which have been converted to multi-family dwellings remain remarkably intact. Plentiful trees contribute to the block’s impression as an urban oasis.