Today, 121 Whitney Avenue is a four-story 20,000 foot office building located between Trumbull and Bradley. The building is now managed by C.A. White a commercial real estate development firm. The first two floors are currently occupied by Yale University, the third floor by Delio and Peterson an intellectual property patents, trademarks and copyright firm, and the fourth floor (penthouse) by Seely and Berglass a law firm. The office building that is situated at 121 Whitney Avenue at present was built in 1962 by Tenth Street Building Corporation of Erie (figure 1). The civil engineer and surveyor of the project was Charles A. Cahn.



121 Whitney Avenue is very unique in comparison to its next door neighbors because of its contemporary architectural style influenced by Mies van der Rohe (figure 2). The elevated simple metal and glass fronted building creates more space out of a small lot. According to Mies “less is more” which in this case proves to be true as space is created for both an office building and a parking lot (figure 3).



In order to fully appreciate the building that is now located at 121 Whitney Avenue a brief history of the property is necessary. In 1890 Wallace B. Fenn inherited 121 Whitney Avenue which was one of the four lots of Benjamin Thayer’s land (figure 4). However, in 1900 Fenn divided his land by a brick partition wall creating two separate lots (121 and 119 Whitney Ave.). He kept 119 for himself and gave Henrietta W. English 121 for free . By May of 1900 both L.H. English (husband of H.W. English) and W.B. Fenn received the permission to build two three story masonry buildings. By 1924 the two buildings had been converted into flats (Figure 5). However, according to the phone directory both buildings were occupied by one family until the 1930s: 119 by Julia S. Bristol and 121 by Lucius Storrs. While Julia Bristol continued to live in 119 Whitney Avenue until 1948; 121 Whitney Avenue was used as office spaces for mostly physicians until 1957. In 1957 the Whitney Development Company purchased 119 Whitney Avenue and by 1958 they had also purchased 121 Whitney Avenue (figure 6). In 1961 the two lots were sold to Tenth Street Building Corporation of Erie, officially remerging the two lots. Finally in 1962 as mentioned earlier the four-story office building was built (figure 7).



Since 1962 not much has been altered to the exterior or interior design of the building. The only minor noteworthy changes that have been made were in 2005. First the lobby and first floor common areas were renovated by Motor Inn Associates, LLC and finally the second floor was renovated by C.A. White in order to create office space and labs for Yale University.



In the last century 121 Whitney Avenue has gone through a lot of change both architecturally and tenant wise. However, its contemporary structure is very successful in that it accommodates the offices for the purpose of its use, efficiently.



 



Bibliography



Black and White photos: Olympia Arco



Figure 1: http://block-kahan.com/featured.html



Sanborn Map : 1.  New Haven Hisotrical Society 2. Maps Library



City Directory for names and proffesions



Manuscripts and Archives library



City Hall: permits