Downtown Garage

In 2015, the Down Town Garage was dramatically transformed into "Metro on Crown," part of a larger redevelopment of this block by Metro Star Properties, LLC. Gone are the elegant tan brick, art deco details, and casement windows. In their place, a five-story apartment building with no discernible character; the top two floors set-back in massing with a butterfly roof.

The 1888 Atlas of New Haven shows the Thomas R. Trowbridge Jr.’s residence at 284 Crown Street on this corner. The 1911 Atlas shows that the stables in the backyard of on the 1888 Trowbridge plot were demolished before 1911 to become the home the brick residence J. J. Lawton on a new, section-off plot facing High Street. However, the brick structure at the corner of High and Crown remained unchanged until the garage was erected. Directories of the time reveal that the brick building at 284 Crown was the property of Thomas R. Trowbridge, of shipping merchants H. Trowbridge’s Sons, from 1884 to 1889; S. Harrison Wagner, a prominent lawyer, and his family from 1895-1911, and, after his death, his son Harrison G. Wagner in 1912, and his wife Estella C. Wagner in 1913; and the Hebrew Institute from 1914 to 1925.



Turn-of-the-twenieth-century inhabitant of 284 Crown, Simeon Harrison Wagner (1849-1912), was influential in the implementation of electric street railways into many Connecticut towns and cities and in the drafting of state street railway laws. He was also the officer of numerous traction roads in Connecticut and other New England States. To him, the suburbs, with natural beauty and space for thought, should be accessible to all. He believed that the suburbs provided a comfortable and luxurious life for its residents. He hoped to connect the residents of the suburbs to their professional lives in the city center by developing roads and railways. His beliefs were reflected in society’s increasing dependence on the automobile and the residential decentralization of cities. The 1946 Atlas of New Haven shows the Down Town Garage on the southeast corner of Crown and High as one of many motor parks, gas stations and garages in New Haven at the time.

While the automobile and the suburb defined the landscape of the early-to-mid-twentieth-century, the reversion back to living downtown has shaped real estate development in New Haven in the early twenty-first century. The rental market has been at its peak for several years, the city boasting the lowest vacancy rate in the country. Many historic buildings have been renovated while developers continue to propose new apartment-living complex construction. In 2014, Metro Star Properties got the rights to expand and add two stories to the garage to create an apartment building with twenty-four residential units as well as commercial space on the first floor. Metro 280! features outdoor decks, wonderful views of the city and secure submerged parking. Metro Star Properties proposes that it will contribute to the “ongoing renaissance of Downtown New Haven.”

In 1925, architects Brown and Van Beren designed and the National Construction Co. built the Downtown Garage at 280 Crown Street. Until its renovation in 2014, the three-story garage was approximately one hundred by seventy six feet. Structurally, the building had a concrete foundation and load-bearing masonry. Vertical supports divided the exterior into bays, three wide and six deep, of varying dimensions, while recessed brick and multi-paned-sash-in-metal-frame windows created horizontal bands. Built in the Art Moderne style, the brick was gold and brown and the masonry parapet has engraved sandstone panels and sandstone coping. On the ground level, several store faced Crown Street and the garage entrance opened onto High. The building was plainly visible from the street and extended to the edge of the lot, bordering the sidewalk. The exterior façade masked the interior function of the building, although the sheering of the horizontal bands of windows on the High Street side references the interior ramp.