1172 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

1172 Chapel Street is a three-story building.

The survey indicates that, as of 1907, the land formerly belonged to Sarah Daggett and Eliza O. Daggett, but does not list an owner for the time of its printing.



A contract found in the Yale Archives from February 26, 1919 describes how Louis H. Levy acquired the property and its building as part of the will and estate of Andrew R. Bradley. The gift of the property to Mr. Levy included the burdens of a $12,000 outstanding mortgage. According to the “Medical Review of Reviews” of 1917 (found by searching Google Books), Louis Henry Levy was a prominent Gastroenterologist.



A building permit issued by the city of New Haven on September 7th, 1921 to Dr. Louis H. Levy describes plans for the building that still occupies 1172 Chapel Street. The architect, J. Weinstein, with an office at 6 Church Street, planned a three-story building with two ground-level stores and fourteen apartments above. The building is 4800 square feet in footprint and wholly fills the 54’-8” street frontage. The building will have concrete footings, a stone foundation wall, and brick walls above grade. The roof will be flat, made out of slag, and have a metal cornice. The estimated cost of the building, including its steam heating system, is listed at $70,000.



This new building is of a larger, urban scale not yet present in much of the neighborhood. It was one of the first to change from the single-family-home typology to a block-filling type. This perhaps helped spur the rest of the neighborhood to further and denser development; such anticipated development, as evidenced by the present state of buildings of the neighborhood, never fully occurred.



Another contract found in the Yale Archives from October 30, 1926 indicates that Louis H. Levy sold the property and his new building to the Parker-Smith Company for $119,000. The Parker-Smith Company took out a mortgage with the Second National Bank to purchase the property.





Another document in the Yale Manuscripts & Archives collection from June 27, 1946, indicates that the property and building, then known as the Medical Arts Building – perhaps indicating a number of medical practices present in the ground-floor commercial spaces—had been sold from owner Second National Bank to the Municipal Realty Corporation for $73,000. Perhaps the Second National Bank had acquired the property through foreclosure on the previous owner.



A 1949 insurance policy statement for the building from the Layer’s Title Insurance Company describes that the owner, Municipal Realty Corporation, has taken out an insurance policy for $140,000. Municipal Realty must also own the adjacent 1176 Chapel, as the insurance policy lists the tenants as a 3-year lease to a Michael Cunningham and a 10-year lease to a Justin Mercuria, who ran “Jesse’s Epicure Shoppe.” Unfortunately, the tenants of 1172 Chapel were not specifically listed.



A contract from 1951 found at the Yale Archives indicates that both 1172 and 1166 Chapel were sold to Herman T. Perry for the sum of one dollar. Perhaps this indicates that the property and neighborhood had become blighted and that this low price was part of an intention urban renewal of the area. Another contract found from September of the same year describes a lease to .Sullivan’s Restaurant, presumably in its present location of 1166 Chapel.



According to a building permit from August 16, 1982, the owner of the 1172 Chapel at the time was “1166 Chapel Street, Inc.,” apparently a subsidiary of Ripps Realty of New Haven. At that time, they were applying for a permit to convert unused office space to an apartment.



An archivist’s summary of the history of this building indicates that a new owner took out a $300k mortgage for the building on May 15, 1984. Visionappraisal.com indicates that this date is when present owner William S. Esposito of East Haven purchased the building. Esposito is mentioned in a number of other building permits for the adjoining buildings on Chapel Street; a search on Visionappraisal reveals that Esposito is a major landowner in New Haven, owning 20 buildings within the city. The fact that he chose to rename 1172 Chapel after himself perhaps indicates that this was one of his first acquisitions or that he found something significant about this building that he did not in his other properties.





The current appraisal listed at Visionappraisal indicates the building has 14,854 square feet of living area, an assessed value of $744,800 and a replacement cost of $1,519,796. The assessment does, however, incorrectly list the date of construction as 1900 and somewhat incorrectly lists the address simply as 1170 Chapel Street.



As of February 2009, the long-term ground-floor tenants on Chapel Street remain Chap’s Grille and Pad Thai Restaurant. Together with the restaurants Sullivan’s, to the east in adjoining building 1166 Chapel, and Est Pizza Ristorante, to the west in adjoining building 1174-1176 Chapel, they form a small but dense and bustling corridor of commercial activity. All owned by Esposito, this is one of the westernmost outposts of the Yale community and perhaps acts as neutral ground between university and city.

A 1907 survey map found in the Yale Archives indicates that before the current building occupied 1172 Chapel Street, the property lines remained the same but a different building occupied the site. This building was much smaller, occupying only about one-quarter of the site, at its northwest corner on Chapel Street. The size and shape of the building in plan makes it appear to be, at least typologically, a single-family home.



According to a survey map from 1950, the building actually occupies both addresses 1170 and 1172 Chapel Street. In this survey, both of the current adjoining buildings are already present. To the west, the building that currently houses Sullivan’s Restaurant and shares an adjacent wall with 1172 occupies street number 1166. To the west, the building that currently houses Est Pizza Ristorante and also shares an adjacent wall with 1172, though significantly smaller than 1172 Chapel, occupies both 1174 and 1176 Chapel as well as 166 Park Street.