The Elaine Apartments

A 1920s courtyard apartment dwelling, a common New Haven building type from a time when the city was expanding. The Elaine took the place of a group of single-family houses. The entire district was being redeveloped intensively at that time with industrial uses like the SEAMCO plant up the street. Utilitarian and not overly-ornamented building and crenelated parapet

This particular building can be understood as part of a trend that affected the whole nation between World War I and the Great Depression. In 1926, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the construction of apartments exceeded that of single-family dwellings in 265 cities in the United States. In New Haven alone, 200 apartment buildings that together contained 2,560 housing units were built between 1870 and 1930. This was mostly a response to a population boom in New Haven during this period; there was an influx of immigrants, birthrates rose and in particular, during WWI, the city attracted munitions and mechanic workers to work in factories. In addition, the percentage of renters within the city’s population increased, opening up the market for affordable rental units in apartment buildings. However, of the 200 apartment buildings built in New Haven, only twenty are located in the more working class neighborhoods of New Haven such as City Point, East Long Wharf, Fair Haven, Wooster, and the Hill, where the Elaine Apartments are located.



These apartments were built as personal businesses. Louis Miller owned the Elaine Apartments, but was also the carpenter and mason for the project. It is interesting to note that 87.16% of owners of apartments built in New Haven from 1870 to 1929 were also the carpenters or masons for the project. Generally, these owners started out as carpenters or masons and once they acquired enough wealth, they would build an apartment building as their own business. Most of these apartments were named after the owner, so who was Elaine? Perhaps she was Louisʼs wife or daughter.

The surroundings of the Elaine Apartments also provide us with very interesting information. Looking at the Sanborn map of 1886, it is evident that the block was mostly residential except for an engine house across the street and a police station two blocks down. The lot adjacent to the one that would house the Elaine Apartments from 1925 onwards was occupied by a “Wagon House” that might have painted wagons and designed liveries for them, for it is labeled as a “livery” on the map. Only one house set back from the street was in the lot of what would become the Elaine Apartments. In 1901, the block was still mostly residential and the same house was still in the lot of the Elaine Apartments. However, the wagon house had expanded and now acted as carriage sheds and a livery. In 1911, the owner of the house on 703 Howard Ave was Estella J. Parmeiee, and not much had changed in the area. In 1924, an addition was appended to the house. Furthermore, the carriage shed in the lot next to it changed into a series of several buildings, one still acting as a shed, and a plumbing factory was added at the end of the block. These were the conditions the year before the Elaine Apartments were built.

701-703 Howard Ave — better known as The Elaine Apartments — is a four-story brick apartment building with the capacity to house twenty families. The building’s architect, Jacob Weinstein, was a well-known architect for apartment buildings. He designed around thirty in New Haven, including this complex in the Hill neighborhood. The building has no elevator unlike other more luxurious apartments built at the time, which shows that this apartment was built for a more working class clientele. However, the apartment building was designed to distinguish itself from the low class tenements that were popular in the industrial age. The building is topped with crenellations and has a small, elevated courtyard at the entrance making it seem much grander than it is. The building is brick because new fire codes had been added in the late 19th / early 20th century, shortly before the building’s construction. The whole project cost $55,000.