Bullard Building

The Bullard Building, located on the comer of Elm and Orange Streets sits on a parcel originally owned by Theophilus Eaton, a mercantilist Puritan, who as the first governor of New Haven (1639) sought to quickly develop the colony. Later, in the second half of the eighteenth century, Eli Whitney after opening a gun factory in 1798 purchased what had been formerly Eaton's land and built a second "city" family home. Will records show that the parcel remained in the Whitney family. passing from son to son until the 19205, when after the last Eli Whitney passed away, the block was sold to H.M Bullard. In 1926 construction began on the Bullard building, and at a cost of 340,000$, by 1927 the building was completed.



Today, as in 1927, the building is five stories tall and despite the parallel high towers, it maintains a sizable stature. The Bullard family began their furniture business in 1898 and were originally located on Orange, near Center street. The erection of the building for the purposes of the Bullard business expansion was both an expression and reinforcement of a then growing capitalist New Haven. This new commercial market was a fast and powerful outgrowth of a national post-War manufacturing boom. That railroads, power plants and large-scale companies, like Winchester, came to New Haven was significant to the city's urban development and commercial successes. Additionally, the boom readjusted New Haven's physical scale. Newly automobile trafficked streets likened spaces never before connected and congested~ in this new down town~ to which the Bullard building was central, became a place of convergence, a milieu of floor and street life against which the speeding and meandering cars and people exchanged and intersected.



In the new building, Bullards occupied the entire ground floor as a showroom, and now employing close to 75 people, used the second floor as an office. On the top three floors The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad ran its central passenger traffic and accounting department offices. Their presence in the downtown building indicated the company's growth as well as a new structural relevance of railroads in the urban landscape. Now, a railroad network was coalescing in a unified system within New Haven. Later, in the 1950s, the Railroad moved its offices to Meadow Street. In its place, the Fann Bureau Insurance Company, Price and Lee (a company which published New Haven phone books) the offices of the US District Attorney, Richard Blumenthal, as well as the national jewelry distribution firm, Irving Michaels and Company moved in. While the building maintained its commercial furniture business, the depression after the former industrialism shifted the buildings' heart. Housing the offices of the Attorney General rooted the building in some of the political, social challenges of the time.



During the Korean War, the armed forces and induction center- where Connecticut residents were "processed" for the army-was located on the fourth floor. Later, Community Progress Inc, an organization dedicated to poverty relief, had its headquarters in the building. And many times, the New Haven Register reported, the police were called to handle conflicts. And while the commercial-retail success of the twenties, which saw Kramer's and Bullard 's in fierce competition had slowed, the area was now becoming an office business district. Across from Bullards on Elm Street, the Union Trust Company opened its headquarters. The Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET) also moved to the area. Mayor Richard C. Lee, following his election in 1953, further encouraged this development. While office tenants changed throughout the years, Bullards continued to monopolize the ground floor with its furniture showroom. In 1968 the company merged with Alderman Furniture Company and WB Hall. While Bullards retained its name, Myles H Alderman became president. In 1977, he spent $ 100,000 on store renovations. This renovation, the New Haven Register reported, came" as a part of a downtown revitalization". The new Mayor, Frank Logue commented on the renovation saying, it "shows confidence in the development of our downtown as a regional commercial center." However, this was dubious. The period was marked by a shift in the commercial market, from the downtown center to the suburban periphery. Thus, following this trend, soon after the renovation, Bullard's keyed into the promising opportunities of the suburb and moved out to Branford where they were able to successfully catch the outer-city, driving, middle-class clientele of Hamden, Branford, and North Haven. However, while the area would not be a commercial success, developers were coming to see downtown's capacity to successfully house offices.



Cambridge Associates bought the Bullard building and planned for massive renovations. Chester Zaniewski, general partner of the firm invested close to 6 million dollars in the space, planning building revitalized which would "both complement the traditional architectural style and afford views of the green". He hired Roth and Moore Architects, a New Haven based firm to refurbish the "traditional commercial stucture". They restored the brick, added herringbone details and two-story arch windows on the fourth and fifth floors. Additionally, they created a cellar-arched lobby with a small adjacent space for a ground floor retail, office or shop. Interestingly, Harold Roth, the architect of the redevelopment, described in our interview, that the peculiar arched bay windows on the fourth and fifth levels were in fact a result of a long legal battle. Michaels Jewelers, who had occupied the building for twenty years or so, had had a very stiff lease contract with Myles Aldennan before the building was sold. The lease would not come up for five years after the building's development. It stated something along the lines of "no adjustments of any kind could be made, only certain people could enter their offices". Roth said they were unmovable in their contract. Roth also suggested that it seemed as if Michaels Jewelers were covering up some criminal activity in their offices, their steadfast, secret behavior was perhaps an effort to maintain their businesses legitimacy. However, Zaniewski wanted to move on with the development, so Roth and Moore worked on every floor except for the fourth and fifth , and instead, on those floors, built a new facade literally over the old one. Legally, therefore, they were not entering or adjusting Michaels's leased space. For marketing and aesthetic appeal, they built an extra layer of windows, doubling those on the fourth and fifth floors.



Five years later, when the jewelers moved out, they simply removed the inner layer of windowpanes and made the few interior amendments. Harold Roth also related that the client had developed the building in effort to reap profits from the again burgeoning downtown. The building, he assessed, was "quite funky" before its reconstruction. And Zaniewski and his partners, mid construction commented, " I think that when this is done, we will give a new definition to class A in New Haven". Features of the "class A" extended beyond the refurbished exterior architecture, the new building, completed in 1981, opened with a two doormen lobby, open 10ft-like office spaces and views of the green. It was "compatible" with its neighbors- the Union Trust Building, The New Haven Savings Bank and the SNET headquarters. Another developer summed up the block saying, "we consider this building to be in one of the finest blocks in town." Today the building still operates essentially as an office rental space. Everything from a yoga studio to a real estate company are tenants. The ground floor is mostly a lobby with an adjacent coffee shop. Java Coffee. Roth said that he thought this was formerly some kind of a small insurance brokerage firm, and that Java Coffee had moved in about eight years ago. The shop is only open during the weekdays. and for early hours,



The cafe's pretty clean interior, hours and quick-stop feel indicates its clients are probably largely office workers in the nearby buildings. In this sense. today the geography of the Bullard Building describes an absent pedestrian, commercial  downtown; rather it is a surging office district. The changes and developments, which began in the eighties, seem to have been successful-- the building it still well maintained, its floors are filled with businesses, Thus through the transformation of the Bullard building from 1927 through today. we can trace social. physical and economic changes of New Haven 's downtown.