Farnam Courts

Farnam Court was built by the Housing Authority of New Haven in 1942.  In 2017, it is undergoing a major redevelopment -- not the first time that this public residential estate has been reconfigured; in fact, renovations were carried out as recently as 2012. Today it is a construction site and we wait to see what will replace what had been there:  two clusters of three-story, neo-colonial buildings set around a grassy courtyard, the suburban square concept represents a prescriptive vision by mid-20th century urban planners for otherness in the city founded in slum clearance of immigrant districts. Poor management, larger socioeconomic structural changes, and a spike in crime led to a severe deterioration of Farnam Courts. There is the hope that its next iteration will promote better outcomes.

Prior to urban renewal demolition, Farnam Courts was filled by a dense built-environment. Tenement housing, low-income small businesses, and light industry were found along Hamilton and Franklin Streets from Grand Avenue.

Mayor and Labor Leader John W. Murphy was elected in 1932, and he made slum clearance and employment his top priority. Congress passed the Housing Act of 1937, providing the City of New Haven $5.5 million to form the Housing Authority of New Haven in summer of 1938 and start initial projects (Rae). The Housing Authority of New Haven targeted three slum sites in the city, and reached out to David Orr and R.W. Foote Architects to create the complexes (Orr and Foote). The second project targeted a dilapidated block in Mill River on Grand Avenue between Hamilton and Franklin Street. Filled with broken properties and low-income small businesses, the block was home to a very large population of European Immigrants (mostly Irish and Italian) that worked in local factories like the nearby ice plant (Sanborn Maps, 1911/1924). According to the New Haven Register, so many immigrants lived in homes on the block that one at 191 Hamilton St. was known as the “Bee Hive.”  The project was named Farnam Courts, and construction was completed in March 1942 (The Old Timer).For the first decade the project was successful, keeping demographics matching the neighborhoods, ensuring families get on their feet, and being a positive icon to the local neighborhood and the city (Rae).

However, the newfound stability of the Mill River area was disturbed in the early 1950s. After numerous studies, the Connecticut Department of Transportation proposed an extension of Interstate 91 that would cut through the western section of the Wooster Square. The Wooster Square residents protested the plan and requested an alternative from city hall that would accommodate for displaced families. In the spring of 1950, the City Plan Department of the City of New Haven proposed building I-91 east of Wooster Square Park, arguing slum clearance and downtown access (Weibgen). Members of the Wooster Square community lobbied city officials, and with the support of Italian-American Mayor William C. Celentano, New Haven’s plan gained State support. After a city plan assessment estimated the total cost of the state’s highway plan to be $300,000 more than the city’s, the state adopted the city’s plan in 1953 and construction began in 1956 (Weibgen).

Although the highway removed blight in the Wooster Square neighborhood, it turned Farnam Courts into a racialized slum. East Wooster Square may have had rundown buildings, but it became a small minority enclave as African-Americans moved into the neighborhood for cheap rents when their industrial wages declined (Weibgen). When the highway displaced this growing African American community, Wooster Square residents insisted that no new public housing should be built around the Square. As a result, many of these families had no choice but to move into Farnam Court, especially when rents began to increase in the 1960s. Farnam Court, within a decade after the highway, became a public housing project of intense black poverty, separated from New Haven jobs and life (Rae; Weibgen)

From the 1960s to the 1980s, there are not many public records of structural changes to Farnam Courts (lost or destroyed). In spite of this, it is apparent that The Housing Authority of New Haven was a mediocre landlord. Even as YDN archives describe broken doors, broken windows, cracked stairs, poor heating and leaks, there are no building permits of large renovations (Bates). Moreover, the complex lacked an adequate police presence. The only records available during the time period describe life in the public complex: loud noise, stabbings, robberies, shootings, small fires etc. Farnam Courts has been a hub of drug traffic since the 60s, where everything from weed to heroin exchanges hands. Some residents said they would warn their children to watch out in the snow because one could “see all the syringes on the ground when the snow melts” (Olasky).

As I explored Farnam Courts for this assignment, I noticed that many issues within the complex have not been resolved. During the afternoon, I observed multiple drug dealings in broad daylight amid languishing young people and a strong aroma marijuana. As I walked towards the northern cluster, I overheard arguments that had the potential to turn violent, and not a single person around me flinched. Some of the surrounding windows were damaged. Moving forward, New Haven has acquired $30 million to tear down and replace Farnam Courts with a Hope IV project. The complex will have 120 housing units instead of 240 townhouse structures, with 70% utilized public housing and 30% at market rate. Additionally, there will be 100 “Farnam Houses” throughout the local neighborhood connected to the Farnam community (Appel). I’m excited for the project – if this plan is accompanied by a revamp of DeLauro Park, there can be a real shift in the neighborhood.

Farnam Courts is found in the urban renewal path of Interstate 91 along Grand Avenue, a testament to the extensive demolitions that tore apart the old streetscape in the mid-20th century. A strong example of opening space in a hygienic concept of housing, the complex features much parkland.

Farnam Courts is composed of two clusters of three-story, brick and mortar, neo-colonial buildings set around a grassy courtyard. In the 1990s, the city finally decided to renovate Farnam Courts up to code. In an effort to cut crime in the complex, units were cut from 300 to 240 over the course of two construction phases. Phase I, which started in 1991, provided a new gable roof, a fire alarm system, a new canopy of over the entrance of each building, and repairs to the windows, and renovations to the courtyard. Phase II, which began in 1995, continued the work of Phase I, but also heavily repaired the interior, including drywall, plumbing and heating. Altogether, the renovation cost around $12 million. Alongside the creation of the Livable Cities Initiative in 2005, which reports damaged public property, life drastically improved for the residents in the complex. Still, crime remained an issue. Since the mid-1990s, there has been an increase in violent crimes and shootings at the complex. In 2011, a resident of the complex who shot another resident in 2010, killed a man outside of a bar on the edge of the East Rock neighborhood. The community in East Rock lashed out to city hall, and Room 102/103 in Farman Courts were converted into a police substation for $1,200. A storage tank was replaced in 2012 for $2,000.

Adrien A. Weibgen, THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Slums, Social Uplift, and the Remaking of Wooster Square (2013). Yale University Law School Student Legal History Papers. Paper 24.

Allan Appel. $30M Sought To Raze, Rebuild Farnam Courts. New Haven Independent. February 28, 2012.

David Orr and R.W. Foote. Farnam Court Original Drawings. Accessed through New Haven Museum

Douglas W. Rae. City: Urbanism and Its End. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Online.

Elizabeth Mills Brown. New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design.  New

Haven: Yale University, 1976.

Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, Then and Now: Fifth Annual Report of the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven 1942-1943. New Haven: City of New Haven. Accessed through New Haven Museum Archival Scans

Marvin Olasky. Farnam Courts. Yale Daily News. February 27, 1970.

New Haven Building Department. Building Permit Application, February 11, 1992

—– Building Permit Application. December 2, 1994

—– Building Permit Application. February 14, 1995

—– Building Permit Application. February 15, 1995

—– Building Permit Application. April 24, 2011

—– Building Permit Application. October 10, 2012

Register Staff. New Haven man arrested in connection with 2010 fatal shooting near Humphrey’s East. New Haven Register. Feb. 16, 2012

The Old Timer. Old Time “Bee Hive.” New Haven Register (?). Accessed through New Haven Museum Archival Scans

Timothy Bates. Whites Here, Blacks Over There. Yale Daily News. November 17, 1967