980 State Street is a brick building built in a transitional style between Queen Anne and Italianate on the southwest corner of Edwards and State. The structure is a residential building built between 1879 and 1888 whose entrance is slivered between two first floor retail spaces. These retail pieces, 978 and 982, combine with 980 to make one mixed-use unit. Denticulated cornicing, and brick pilasters isolate the frontages of each physical address. Gauged brick arches and cut stone stills denote window and door openings, and the original storefronts with the pressed entablature are intact. Attic windows are foreshortened with segmental arches set in a brick frieze above a heavily scaled band of molding.



As of 2015, 978 is home to Annandale Photography, while  982 houses Farnam Realty Group. All four residential units, which are located on the second and third floor, are and seem to have always been rented and never owned. The ownership of the building has found its way to 168 Inc., a company that owns many buildings in and around New Haven. Although this building is of no particular culture import, its story provides us with a lens through which to view the history of New Haven and the surrounding area on State Street.



The first recorded activity on the block, which borders Orange and Bishop Streets in addition to State and Edwards, was an 1859 sale of all or most of the block to the Hine Brothers by one H. J. Smith of Boston. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were built in the mid to late 19th century, so a sale of minimally developed land at this time period makes economic sense.



The Hine Brothers begin to sell of pieces of the property in the 1870s and 80s, and it’s also during this period that they lay down the beginnings of Hine Place, which partially bisects the block from the State Street side. The site transfers hands from J. G. Hine to George Hugo in 1889 for $4,970, which, judging by probate records for similar parcels at the time, was somewhat steep.



Sometime between 1895 and 1901, three and one half stories go up on the lot. Ownership passes through a variety of local hands until in the 30s the building is sold to the Mechanics Savings Bank, and then to the Connecticut Savings Banks—a common Depression-era move. And although tracing a building through ownership gives us one kind of cultural information, the occupants often offer a more telling story



Through the 1950s, the occupants of this building were predominantly Irish, with last names like Kiley, Shanley, O’Brien and Hollaran. This genealogy reflects the influx of Irish immigrants coming to the northeast from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. Though the largest group of immigrants to New Haven was Italian, Irish people also made up a significant percentage. Like immigrants have often done, many occupants of 980 State took up menial labor, often at the Winchester Repeating Arms factory, New Haven Clock Co., and on the railroad.



After the fifties the tenant group become somewhat more diverse, with DeCarlo (Italian) and Sobolewski (Polish) taking up residence. By the eighties the building hosts a Diaz too, in keeping with the influx of minorities to New Haven in the second half of the 20th century. After that the residents all seem to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, though, as it gets later in the century, it becomes harder to make judgments about the neighborhood solely on the basis of surname. Perhaps what it might reflect is the transformation of the area from a poorer immigrant neighborhood, to a more affluent, ritzier enclave, with restaurants and a quiet, albeit present nightlife.



Quick Facts:



Year built: 1895-1901



Architect and/or builder: Unknown



Style: Italianate



Building materials: Load Bearing Masonry, Brick Facing



Program (building function): Residential