St. Basil's Greek Orthodox Church

St. Basil’s stands out on Church St. S, located between a looming gray 5-over-1 apartment building and a sea of overgrown empty lots, it is a spark of bright yellow and red. The false-stucco material and bright colors remind me more of Floridian gated communities than most New England churches. The yellow gate welcomes you into the encircling parking lot. The street is mostly empty, and the Greek flag pennants strung up outside the luxury 5-over-1 development are the only sign of community. The bright clock tower is a civic beacon over the block, but looks out over an empty lot overgrown with weeds of a muddy-green color on one-side and an empty luxury balcony on the other. As incongruous as the cheery church is on this street, it is a marker of resilience for the Greek community in New Haven, and the church was advertising their Hellenic heritage fair when I first visited.

1988 - Present: New Haven Greek Community LLC

In 1969, the streets in this area were changed with the arrival of the highway, and Tower Lane was created. Tower Lane first appears in registries around this time (1974 Registry). Around the same time the Church Street South housing developments and the Tower (Jewish senior citizen housing) were constructed (1974 Registry). This transformed what had previously been an area with a more traditional grid and block structure (Sanborn Maps, 1960). It is very difficult to tell what exactly was on the site of 1 Tower Ln. since addresses changed frequently, but one registry (1974) lists this address as DeDiego Court, a part of the Church St. S development. From 1969 to the construction of the first church building, most of this area was filled with public housing. In 1988 the land at 1 Tower Ln. was bought by New Haven Greek Community Inc. Construction on the old church building was intended to take 18 months (Shapiro), but tax records indicate that the building was constructed ten years after this purchase, in 1998 (NH Assessor). Regardless of how long construction took, the site has been owned by the Greek community since 1988. In 2017, a new church building was constructed, connected to the old one (NH Assessor; Boroson).

The building (old and new sections) has always been occupied by its current tenant: St. Basil’s Greek Orthodox Church. However, the broader area has changed tremendously over the last 70 years. During the urban renewal period (although possibly not the exact site of the church, this area was occupied by public housing. Interestingly, when the land was first bought by the Greek community, Spyros Condos, a local Greek leader, spoke about how he intended for the church to be a good neighbor to those living nearby in public housing. Since the original purchase and construction of the old church building, the surrounding area has again changed radically, with the Church St. S development being destroyed. This has left the church mostly surrounded by empty and overgrown lots. This housing development often served as a reminder of the difficult conditions that many New Haven residents live in. In 2011, a carbon monoxide leak in the Church St. S development caused residents to be forced to move out for a period of time (Bailey). This development housed over 300 families and was known as an epicenter of drugs and violent crime (McFadden). Now, there is a new 5-over-1 development near the church, but much of the surrounding area is still empty. The 5-over-1 is called Pierpont City Crossing, and is described as luxury apartment housing, featuring a pool and other high-class amenities for residents (RMS Companies). This building is one of five new luxury developments in this area, all built by the same company. Currently, a studio apartment in The Pierpont starts at $2,323 per month ($27,876 per year) and larger units can rent for as much as $3,733 per month (RMS Companies). To put this in context, New Haven’s median household income is $53,771 (Data USA), meaning that this studio apartment would be severely rent-burdening for a typical New Haven family.

The building itself represents New Haven’s history of immigration and ethnic communities. St. Basil’s was predated by St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church. This church was established in 1920, and represented the increased legitimacy of New Haven’s Greek community. The church was incredibly important to the Greek community, serving as a cultural and religious center (St. Barbara’s). St. Barbara’s has since moved to the suburban town of Orange, Ct. which caused a split in the local community. Part of the community felt it was important to keep a church in the City of New Haven, and this eventually became St. Basil’s (Shapiro). This evolution of the Greek community from a striving immigrant group in New Haven in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a group that left for the suburbs follows a pattern of many European ethnic groups in American cities in the late 20th century. Spyros Condos and his group’s insistence on staying in New Haven was a reaction against this, and there was considerable conflict in the Greek community over the move to Orange (Shapiro).

The area that St. Basil’s is in has clearly changed rapidly, and the streetscape of this area was completely different prior to 1960s, with a much denser pattern of development and more uniform streets. Now, to get to the church from the Yale Campus and Downtown New Haven, you need to walk across an overpass and cross several multi-lane streets. One of these streets, S Frontage Street, took me several minutes to cross each time that I visited. This street is a significant barrier for pedestrians aiming to walk in this area, and most times I was there the only other people on the street were unhoused people, sitting on sidewalks or asking for donations from drivers. The area directly around the church seems to be improving somewhat with the arrival of the 5-over-1 housing development, but I did not see any residents going in or out of the apartment building or walking on the street. The apartment building also has a large garage, which I saw cars entering and exiting. The empty lots are separated from the street by a long chain-link fence, so there is a lot of empty space that is also inaccessible, meaning that to walk around to the other side of the block you need to walk a long distance around this empty lot on a street that is usually empty. Overall, the area feels very isolated and lacks a sense of community, although the church does add some much-needed color and community to the area.

St. Basil’s Greek Orthodox Church is painted a striking yellow, especially when contrasted with the black 5-over-1 apartment and overgrown empty lots that surround it. The building is far back from Church St. S, and surrounded by a sizable parking lot and a black metal fence. The roof a front gable Greek Revival roof (Adrian Architecture) and is very visually striking, with a red roof covering, made from metal tiles and designed to look like other typical Greek Orthodox churches, although it also resembles many Spanish Revival roofs (Boroson). The walls are a synthetic stucco painted yellow (NH Assessor; Boroson), and the same material and color are used for a gate linking the street and the parking lot. The interior is drywall/plaster (NH Assessor). There is a ramp sloping down from the street to the parking lot, through the yellow gate. The front door is under a sort of covered arcade, and the entrance has arches and columns, blending elements of Greek Revival entrances and Romanesque revival entrances (Adrian Architecture). The columns resemble un-fluted Tuscan Order columns (Adrian Architecture). To get to the front door from the ground, you walk under these arches, which are supported by white columns. There is also a very prominent bell tower, which is the same bright yellow color as the rest of the church. The tower has a smaller version of the white column and arch design as the front entrance. There are two prominent crosses on the building, one at the center of the church’s facade and the other on the top of the bell tower. Both crosses appear golden. The windows of the church are mostly half-round arch shaped, resembling Romanesque Revival windows (Adrian Architecture).

Behind the main church is the meeting hall, which was the original church prior to the construction of the new building. The meeting hall also has a front gable Greek Revival roof, but with an asphalt covering (NH Assessor). It has a concrete/cinder exterior wall and drywall/plaster on the interior (NH Assessor). The entrance is a Greek Revival entrance without the Romanesque elements of the new church’s entrance and the same Tuscan Order columns (Adrian Architecture).

The new building was constructed because the congregation wanted a separate meeting hall and church. Kenneth Boroson was hired and used the likely now defunct Keystone Construction Managers as the contractor (Boroson). The budget for the new church was limited, leading to the use of cheap materials such as synthetic stucco (Boroson). Boroson stated that he based the design for the church on examples of typical Greek Orthodox churches, aiming for a simple and inexpensive design with the characteristics of these churches (Boroson).

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