38 High Street

Built in circa 1840, the innocuous 2½ story multi-family home residing at 38 High Street is situated in the residential High Street area of the Chapel Street district – home to numerous Yale students, fraternities, and other groups. Built in the Greek Revival style popularized in New Haven by the architects Ithiel Towne and Alexander Jackson Davis, the flat brick façade and Doric columned portico present a quiet alternative to the neighboring crowded apartment complexes and rowdy fraternity houses that is almost hidden by the combined 11 stories of the looming Oxford and Cambridge apartment buildings.

Showing some signs of Queen Anne style in its portico and Italianate style through its windowed flat brick front with a protruding entryway, the building has been strictly a residential space since it’s erecting, stressing the residential character of High Street.

Earliest known owner: John T. Sloan (9)

Unknown when John A. Cooney acquired the property from John T. Sloan

By 1937: John A. Cooney (8 pg. 1: Application to Alter, April 8, 1937, City of New Haven Building Department)

1937 — 1990: John A. Cooney (died 1967)/ Florence I. Cooney (died 1988) (husband and wife). Building permit and Historic Resources Inventory records indicate it stayed in the Cooney family before being transferred to Cambridge Oxford Apts. after her passing (10).

1990 — 2001: Cooney James K c/o Cambridge Oxford Apts. (13)

2001 — 2016: Cambridge Oxford Apts. LLC (13)

2016 — Present: Cambridge Oxford Apts. (13)

It is unclear who specifically inhabited the home during these eras (as these owners were real estate brokers), although given the nature of the area and proximity to Yale it was probably a New Haven resident, Yale student, or student group (11, 12). That being said, using the New Haven City Directories it appears that 38 High Street was vacant for a number of years in the 1930s, which may explain the sale to Cooney (14).

As depicted by the Sanborn Maps of New Haven, we see that by 1886 the plot of 38 High Street was occupied by a fairly large residential building (1). Being a premier real estate location, the use of this site by brokers such as John T. Sloan is not surprising, nor is the subsequent split of the site in half (2, 3, see picture).

In what was most likely an aim to keep up with rising residential demand, the destruction of half the property to build the Oxford Apartments represents the last shift in site to date (2, 3, 5). 

The Chapel Street district has always served as a core commercial and residential area of New Haven. Going through periods of explosive growth, both commercial and other, the area has transitioned tremendously from the original nine square plan to the teeming hub of the city it is today (7, 9).

That being said, High Street has always been a residential nucleus among the hubbub of Chapel Street. The boom of the commercial area, saw an increased need for residential housing as well. It was during this mid-nineteenth century craze that 38 High Street was built (c. 1840). A callback to the residential nature of the Chapel Street district during the nineteenth century as well as the popularization of the Greek Revival style by Ithiel Towne and Alexander Jackson David, the house was built in that style using brick, a material that was at once desirable as well as expensive. The style and material were meant to showcase a certain wealth of the residents (7).

Although it is not clear who originally commissioned the house, the earliest known owner was John T. Sloan, the President of John T. Sloan Co., real estate and insurance agents. The story of John T. Sloan and his real estate company mimic that of the “growth and development of New Haven” – starting when there were very few ‘modern’ buildings and taking advantage of the opportunity to ‘modernize’ the cities office and residential buildings (4).

Serving successfully as a multi-family home yielded its pluses, however the same modernizing city that enabled displays of such wealthy houses also created an issue – the skyrocketing population required more and more housing. In regards to 38 High Street, this shift materialized itself in the construction of the Oxford Apartments at 36 High Street necessitating the plot of land to be split and half of 38 High Street to be destroyed (5). This was an iconic shift in the landscape of High Street and the Chapel Street district as a whole and although it is not clear, I would not be surprised if it was around this time that John A. Cooney acquired the building from John T. Sloan. The construction of large apartment complexes represented a shift from the familial nature of many of the homes on the street to a grand-residential area, complementing the commercial nature of Chapel Street itself.

However, this era was stopped short by the Great Depression which halted most construction in the United States. By the close of the Great Depression, John A. Cooney had acquired the building and performed the requisite alterations to make it residentially popular once again (5, 8).

Although not much is known of the residents during the subsequent time period, a few writers (such as Mrs. Emma Joyner circa 1952) and other scholars inhabited the premises (14). Continuing to serve as a residential space for New Haven residents and Yalies alike, 38 High Street has retained its familial ambience. 

High Street itself is home to numerous Yale students, fraternities, and other groups and serves as a social space for Yalies. On any given day, you are likely to find undergraduates walking up and down the street talking to friends, going or leaving a party, making dinner, or getting together to study. Situated right next to campus and surrounded by the more commercial/restaurant-packed Chapel and Crown Streets, High Street provides students with the required proximity to both all forms of necessitates (food, classrooms, friends, social circles, etc.) and continues to serve its original residential purpose.

The aforementioned physical aspects of 38 High Street echo and fit into this residential character – the flat brick façade does not “interrupt the scale or rhythm of the streetscape”, nor do the half-dozen windows overlooking the street impose a voyeuristic perspective onto passersby (7). That being said, the stone steps leading up to the portico do just barely extend onto the sidewalk; although instead of detracting from the residential ambience of the street, this augments the inviting nature of the home. In fact, the stairs and portico, which are common to almost all of the buildings on High Street, serve an important purpose on the street – they provide their residents with a step to sit and chat on a warm day. In the spring and summer months those stairs are packed with students eating Salad Shop, talking about their classes, or socializing with their friends.

A quiet alternative to the massive Oxford and Cambridge apartment buildings or rowdy fraternity houses across the street, 38 High Street maintains the familial core of High Street retained even through the commercialization of the Chapel Street District as a whole in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while also alluding to the social connections brought about by that change (7). 

This 2½-story Greek Revival multi-family home, composed almost entirely of brick, has a combination of a gabled and hipped roof as well as a small portico entryway held up by Doric columns. The flat brick façade and columned portico make the residence at once both inviting and homey as well as subtle (6, 7).

Although a strong representation of the Greek Revival style, the littering of windows along three sides of the building (all but that which faces the Oxford building on the left) make a vague reference to the Italianate style, despite the lack of heavy brackets common to that style of home. Furthermore, the presence of the columned portico harks back to those often found in Queen Anne styled houses.

The unusual shape of the building layout — two connected, offset rectangles — emphasize the “multi” in multi-family home (see picture). Built to provide residence to multiple families, the layout highlights the inherit separation between these living spaces, without compromising the singularity of the plot of land.

The unusual shape found in the layout is also a by-product having one-half of the building destroyed to build the neighboring 36 High Street (Oxford apartments) in 1910 (5). As can be seen through the progression of the Sanborn maps, we see that initially (1886) there exists a singular lot and connected building, but in 1901, while there is still a connected building, the lot has been split in half (1, 2). Finally, in the 1924 map we see two separated buildings, 38 High Street and the Oxford Apartments, one occupying each lot (3, see picture).

Opposed from the above changes, the earliest known alterations to the building currently occupying 38 High Street occurred in the late 1930s and early 40s. Although most of these alterations are not described in great detail, they, too, emphasize the multi-family nature of the home as well as the buildings connection (or lack thereof) to the larger Oxford apartments next door: in 1941 there were additions for a bath room on the rear as well as an enclosed stairway “between two existing buildings” (presumably this is the now unused brick connection between the buildings at 36 and 38 High Street but could also be between 38 and 40 High Street, see picture) (8 pg. 1-3).

A key, yet only vaguely referenced, alteration to the building is the split of 38 High Street into 38 and 40 High Street. The New Haven City Directory does not mention a 40 High Street until about the 1950s, signaling it was at about this time that the building began its dual purpose (14). This could also explain some of the alterations done at the time. Furthermore, while the aforementioned floorplan makes this seem like a natural maneuver for the building, I speculate this split was accented in 2001/02 as there are a number of electrical and plumbing permits to “rewire 2 units completely” as well as “complete plumbing.” I theorize it was then that the buildings were effectively separated into two separate entities – each with their own set of plumbing and electrical wires (8 pg. 4-7, 9-10). There is also reference to a very large interior alteration where, among other unspecified alterations, an “existing ladder/stairway to the third floor” is removed and a new stairway constructed (8 pg. 8). My conjecture is that a stairway that previously united these now separate interiors was removed.

Finally, overall the external condition of the building is very good. The brick façade appears to be in excellent condition and only minimal weathering/wear and tear can be seen on the front steps (see picture).

1.     Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Haven Connecticut, Volume 2, 1886.

2.    Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Haven Connecticut, Volume 2, 1901.

3.    Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Haven Connecticut, Volume 1, 1924.

4.    Modern Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts: A Book of Representative Houses, Interiors, Gardens, Decorations, Furnishings and Equipment Appropriately Described and Illustrated by Several Hundred Beautiful Engravings (American Homecrafts Company, 1921), 148-149, https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=pkhIAAAAYAAJ

5.    New Haven Historic Resources Inventory, Phase I, Volume III, 413

6.    Elizabeth Mills Brown, New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design (Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 67

7.    National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form: Chapel Street Historic District (United States Department of the Interior Heritage Conservation and Recreation Services)

8.    New Haven City Building Department Permits for 38 High Street (see attached archival document)

9.    “Digital Atlas of New Haven 1911”, https://samghelms.github.io/new-haven-historical-maps 

10.  Connecticut Department of Health. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2003.

11. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

12. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

13. 

14. “38 High Street,” New Haven, CT Online Assessment Database, accessed Feb. 25, 2017, http://gis.vgsi.com/newhavenct/Parcel.aspx?Pid=14974

15. “38 High Street,” Zillow, https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/38-High-St-New-Haven-CT-06510/57965794_zpid