Fairhaven Furniture

A "destination" furniture outlet located within one of New Haven's last sizable industrial streetscapes, Fairhaven Furniture has occupied the former Foskett and Bishop pipe manufacturing building since the 1980s. Specialty desks, chairs, and shuffle-boarding tables now occupy the long, open-floor mill space where metalworkers once made pipes, sprinklers, and feed-water heaters to accompany the Bigelow boilers churned out down the street. The 0.3-acre structure announces itself on Blatchley Avenue with new white and tan windows that burst from the original 1904 brick facade; once inside, blood-red pipes and a 1940s-era freight elevator with exposed mechanical pulley keep the building's history front and center. Since Fairhaven Furniture gets little foot traffic from the surrounding industrial area, it advertises extensively throughout the Elm City and its environs.