Turning onto Lynwood Place, one will immediately notice the peace and quiet of the small residential street. The noise and bustle of downtown New Haven and Yale University’s central campus area pleasantly dies down by the time you reach #28, built in 1877 and located halfway between where Lynwood Pl. abuts Elm St. and Edgewood Avenue. A passerby can easily identify this building by its white porch with subtle ornate designs that contrasts starkly with the dark red brick walls and black front door. 28 Lynwood Place has been home to many different people since its construction almost a century and a half ago, but more recently has housed members of Yale’s greatest folk music singing group, Tangled Up in Blue (“TUiB”), and The Purple Crayon, a student improvisation comedy group.[i] Anyone walking past would be lucky to hear the sound of a guitar, fiddle, or banjo and the accompanying soulful voices harmonizing together with echoing laughter within the walls of their upstairs apartment. Other activity on Lynwood Pl. may be attributed to the nearby Chabad building, or to the two fraternity houses that characteristically liven up the street’s quiet ambiance on Friday and Saturday nights.

[i] Cosgrove, Martha, “Questions About Living at 28,” Interview by Alison Nordell, February 23, 2018, transcript, New Haven, CT.

1886 – No named property owner or tenant[i]

1911 – Property owned by J. Strecker[ii]

1994-1996 – Property owned by Unknown[iii]

1996-2016* – Property owned by Randall K. Murdock[iv]

2016-present** – Property owned by 28 Lynwood LLC[v]

*Since 2011, paying tenants of #28 Lynwood Pl. have included members of Yale student groups such as The Exit Players, Tangled Up in Blue, the Dukes Men, and The Purple Crayon.

**TUiB residents have owned the third floor unit since 2013.

[i] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 21), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1886, (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[ii] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 54), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1901.

[iii] “New Haven, CT”, Vision Government Solutions, Last Updated 2016, (Accessed February 21, 2018.)

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

An interesting feature of the Sanborn Maps is that evidence of the building’s porches changes over time. Although the front porch, which makes 28 Lynwood Place so identifiable and welcoming, is clearly shown in the 1886 map, it disappears altogether from the records until 1973.[i]^{,[ii],[iii],[iv],[v]} It is clear from observing the building as it exists today that the front door (which is the main entryway for all three separate units inside) is raised at least three feet off of ground level and requires the five steps leading up to the porch to be able to enter inside. One hypothesis is that the original porch experienced damage from weather or another external disaster such as a fire that would challenge its wooden structure but not affect the solid brick of the main house. After awhile, perhaps not until the property owner was one with sufficient financial resources, the porch was rebuilt and the suitable entrance was restored.

[i] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 21), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1886 (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[ii] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 54), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1901 (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[iii] New Haven Sanborn Map 1911, Digital Atlas of New Haven, (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[iv] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 5), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1924 (Accessed February 18, 2018.)

[v] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 4), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1973 (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

Built as a multi-family home in 1877, 28 Lynwood Pl. has housed many different tenants since its construction. The individual tenants’ names are not publicly available, but included below are a few of the different property owners to give a sense of the continuity of the building as a residential space over time. Sanborn Maps from 1886 and 1901 named no single owner of the building, implying perhaps that many different families owned property rights to their respective units within the dwelling.[i] Then, in 1911, it is shown that Mr. J. Strecker owned 28 Lynwood Place.[ii] His name did not appear on any other buildings along Lynwood Pl. or in the surrounding streets, suggesting that he was the sole private owner of #28, but again, because the building is a multi-unit dwelling, it is probable that Mr. Strecker was either the first official tenant, or a long-term landlord of the property.

More recently, 28 Lynwood has been home to members of TUiB, a Yale student-run folk music band and A Cappella group for as long as member Martha Cosgrove (Yale College, ’16) can remember.[iii] She has fond memories from living there. She lived on the third floor with two other friends and recalls having equal access to the second floor porch in the back and the backyard. They were common spaces for all residents living within the separate units to share with each other. “If someone was throwing a party in the backyard,” she remembers, “we’d all be invited anyway. We were all friends…[and] everyone would use every living room space.”[iv] Before Martha started at Yale in the fall of 2012 and joined TUiB, #28 Lynwood Pl. was home to members of The Exit Players, an improvisation comedy group on campus.[v] People in The Purple Crayon, another student comedy group at Yale, began moving in once TUiB singers started living there, so #28 Lynwood really became a shared space of song and laughter for those who dwelled within.

[i] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 21), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1886 (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[ii] New Haven Sanborn Map 1911, Digital Atlas of New Haven, (Accessed February 17, 2018.)

[iii] Cosgrove, Martha, “Questions About Living at 28,” Interview by Alison Nordell, February 23, 2018, transcript, New Haven, CT.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

Lynwood Place is a small residential side street connecting Elm Street to Edgewood Avenue, located near the border between Dwight and Downtown neighborhoods, and well outside the hustle and bustle of the city’s urban center. The one-way road has parking for cars on the left side and wide concrete sidewalks along either side, within which stand a six or seven old trees that have had their branches cut away to create space for the phone and electricity wires that run along the right side. #28 resides halfway down the street between two similarly sized multi-family dwellings—one of which has been the Yale Lightweight Crew Team house for many years—and across from a Pike Intl. apartment complex that combined two previously separate lots. Most of the buildings are brick with white or black gables, fenestration and details, but the Pike buildings also have elements of Tudor style, which differentiate them from the rest of Lynwood’s buildings. 

28 Lynwood Place is 2 ½ stories tall and although its dark red brick exterior has noticeably weathered over time, the building is still in very good condition. As like many of New Haven’s residential buildings, #28 claims a number of different architectural styles all combined to create a sturdy and aesthetically pleasing multi-family home that has lasted for nearly 150 years without any major renovations. The basic design of the building’s exterior has Colonial Revival stylistic elements, with brick masonry and load-bearing masonry laid in a simple, yet uniquely asymmetric, layout. As Vincent Scully might describe, the structural envelope extends towards the driveway as if to maximize the interior dwelling space. Indeed, the front face of the building is 23ft long, and then 14ft from that initial plane, the southwest wall juts out another 4ft, giving the dwelling two more windows and a hipped roof above.[i] Other than that slight aberration in width, the building is 52ft long and 27ft wide, with a 6x6ft entryway porch out front.[ii] An 8x22 ft. enclosed porch at the rear on the second floor was added after the early 1970s, as it did not appear on the 1973 Sanborn Map.[iii] The slate roof is cross-gabled in front and hipped in the back, creating a T-like orientation from the birds-eye perspective.

The architect was generous with the buildings fenestration and incorporated multiple window openings. Both the first and second floors have 11 windows, and the “third” (half) story has three little windows side-by-side beneath the gable on the front and rear faces, as well as two windows of similar design on both sides perpendicular to the street. The building's southwest wall has an impressive six windows on both the first and second floors, which implies that at one point in history—perhaps when it was first designed—there may not have been a building in the adjoining property (#26). The building is heated with a forced air system, as is typical for most “dwellings” built in the late 1800s. There is no built-in cooling system, so the residents of #28 enjoy the many windows on each floor in the warmer months to facilitate a cross-breeze to help cool the interior, regardless of how obstructed their views may be now that the street is more densely populated. The windows on the first floor also have thin iron gates barring entry of any intruder, providing additional protection to the residents living on street level.

           In addition to the Colonial Revival elements of the building’s exterior, which can be identified by the brick walls, the white inlays framing each window, and the hipped roof section, there are also elements of Italianate and Queen Anne architectural style expressed in the cross-gabled roof and the ornate minutia. For example, the little front entryway porch, only big enough for three or four people to stand in at once, is quite beautifully detailed upon closer inspection. The porch roof, itself, has a cross-gable design to match the larger version above it, and the brick inlays that identify each floor add subtle pattern and aesthetic character to the otherwise plain wall faces. Within the past year, these details received new coats of paint that considerably improve the impression of the building’s quality. The concrete strips that frame each window, the porch railings, the front door, and the architectural detail in the cross-gabled roof sections freshen up the exterior to help it fit with the neighboring residential buildings, many of which were recently redone.

           Inside, #28 Lynwood Pl. is not quite as “spruced up”. Each dwelling space has a combination of wood and carpeted floors, although more recently, residents have decided to forego the carpet and reveal the beautiful wood for a cleaner living space. The slight indentations in the still-carpeted staircase indicate the many years of residents climbing and descending, with each step creaking noisily under guests’ feet. With one family or group of friends living on each floor, the building’s layout does facilitate an appropriate and comfortable sense of privacy for those who desire it, as well as the possibility of community for the residents who may want to share their space—kitchen or otherwise—with their “neighbors”. Indeed, it took the collaboration persistence of everyone in the building to generate the necessary interest and value to finally complete the exterior improvements, which certainly do not go unnoticed.

[i] “New Haven, CT”, Vision Government Solutions, Last Updated 2016, (Accessed February 21, 2018.)

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 4), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1973 (Accessed February 18, 2018.)

Cosgrove, Martha, “Questions About Living at 28,” Interview by Alison Nordell, February 23, 2018, transcript, New Haven, CT.

“Latitude and Longitude of 28 Lynwood Pl., New Haven, CT”, LatLong.net, Google+, Accessed February 20, 2018. https://www.latlong.net

New Haven Neighborhoods Map, Google +, Accessed February 21, 2018. https://newhavenct.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Minimalist/index.html?appid=4db0c188c19845ee92a56da9dcf36446

“New Haven, CT”, Vision Government Solutions, Last Updated 2016, Accessed February 21, 2018. http://gis.vgsi.com/newhavenct/Parcel.aspx?Pid=16820

New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 21), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1886, Accessed February 17, 2018. https://yale.instructure.com/courses/34116/files/folder/Sanborn%20Fire%20Insurance%20Maps/New%20Haven%20Sanborn%201886?preview=1840516

New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 54), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1901, Accessed February 17, 2018.  https://yale.instructure.com/courses/34116/files/folder/Sanborn%20Fire%20Insurance%20Maps/New%20Haven%20Sanborn%201901?preview=1840519

New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 5), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1924, Accessed February 18, 2018.  https://yale.instructure.com/courses/34116/files/folder/Sanborn%20Fire%20Insurance%20Maps/New%20Haven%20Sanborn%201924?preview=1840522

New Haven, Connecticut Insurance Maps, Vol. 2 (p. 4), Sanborn Map and Publishing Co., 1973, Accessed February 18, 2018.  https://yale.instructure.com/courses/34116/files/folder/Sanborn%20Fire%20Insurance%20Maps/New%20Haven%20Sanborn%201973?preview=1840543

New Haven Sanborn Map 1911, Digital Atlas of New Haven, Accessed February 17, 2018. http://yalemaps.maps.arcgis.com/apps/PublicInformation/index.html?appid=1bfd537a633141c88a7ae5446a99024a

“28 Lynwood Pl. Property Overview”, Realtor.com, National Association of REALTORS®, Accessed February 17, 2018. https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/28-Lynwood-Pl_New-Haven_CT_06511_M42027-31673