A. D. Perkins Stamp Building

The current tenants of 43 Elm Street look like they've been there forever, with piles of paper teetering on desks behind the front counters and weathered newspaper clippings stuck up on the walls, as well they should: the building, constructed for a 1951 opening, has never housed another company, and the address of 43 Elm Street was invented when they moved in. "We like the location because you are in the center of everything," says employee Jay Smilovich from A.D. Perkins Company, which manufactures stamps and signs, though he says that the number of parking tickets that his customers receive while visiting is a definite downside. The store was built, and continues to be used, for a combination of commercial and industrial uses: despite its relatively small footprint, 43 Elm Street has storefront counters as you walk in, a few desks for office work off of that, and machines for Perkins' materials' manufacturing in a back room and in a finished basement. The newspaper article from 1952 described the store as follows: “There is an asphalt tile floor…and an office partition…which is broken up in modern design with window panes open at the top for ventilation…The new type and molding room is well lit with two large six foot burglarproof windows…The assembly room has 14 ft. by 45 ft. with new machinery and racks for stock handles.” Though tile floor aside, the most distinctive part of the building today is undoubtedly its porcelanized sign that has white steel letters on a green background. The sign was lit up for many years, but a tree planted by the city grew up too close and broke it, so now it hangs there unlit and slightly damaged.



A.D. Perkins itself is the oldest retailer in New Haven, with a full-time presence (confirmed by old advertisements) in the city since 1879. Perkins' building shares walls described on a 1961 Sanborn Map as "pilast'd" with two other retailers on the block, which in 1951 were Lundblad's Jeweler's and Anderson's Opticians. They bought the lot from S. Loeb & Sons, described in a 1952 newspaper article as “a local real estate man.” Despite the shared or party walls, the three storefronts are not identical; Perkins' building goes further back into the lot. All three of those businesses moved into their spaces simultaneously as soon as they were ready for occupancy, though the latter two have since been replaced.



Because 43 Elm Street came into being with the current building, it is impossible to trace the history attached to that particular address beyond its founding year. However, the plot of land around 43 Elm Street can be traced back using Sanborn Maps and old atlases, and evidence from these sources provides snapshots of its history. In 1641, almost the entirety of Elm Street between Church and State (or their equivalents at the time; Orange Street did not exist then) was owned by the Eaton family. By 1748, the next map available in the Whitney Library's collection, the block was split between Jo Noyes, Michael Todd, and S.A. Bishop, listed as a priest, a merchant, and a farmer, respectively. As of a Doolittle map from the year 1824, there is no building pictured in the vicinity of what is now 43 Elm Street; it appears to be a rather enjoyable pasture. It takes until the 1911 Atlas of New Haven to see true construction on the site: next to what would become 43 Elm Street are two buildings owned by Imperial Granum Co. One, a masonry building, still stands today, while the other, made of wood, had been torn down by the time a 1923 Sanborn Map was made, leaving only the Visiting Nurse Association as a far neighbor of the old Imperial building. This paved the way for the three new and connected stores to be constructed there in 1951.