316-320 Elm Street mixed use building. (Nice Day Chinese-Tomatillo building)

At first glance, 316-320 Elm Street looked like a stone in a river to me. Apart from its modern storefronts, much of the 1878 High Victorian Italianate building looks as it did when it was created.¹ Though, through thorough research (try saying that 3 times quickly) and archival sleuthing, the building’s personality and identity slowly emerged, revealing a story of change and renewal, while simultaneously preserving much of its identity as an anchor of late 19th century New Haven architectural history.

Standing in front of what I’ll call 316 Elm from this point on, you see a large, four story red brick building of the typical High Victorian Italianate style. It sits humbly at the corner of Elm and Park street, currently containing Nice Day Chinese and Tomatillo at street level with residences above. The current first floor tenants (or more so their delicious food), steal the shine away from the story the structure tells. It’s a building that has been passed by a million times by students and locals alike, and yet I’d wager less than 10% know how many floors it has.

In a convenient way, the everyday citizen’s interaction with 316 Elm reflects the building's evolution across time. The upper three stories are unassuming and for good reason, as they’ve been dedicated housing since 1905.² They read strongly as a unified 19th century building with brick masonry, stone lintels and sills, bracketed cornice, and regular window bays. The exterior has remained largely unchanged (as of the 1980 image stored in New Haven museum records).³

Even though everything above the first floor has remained relatively unchanged, the first floor itself has undergone many changes in tenants and appearance. For much of its early history, the building seems to have functioned as a single storefront, before being subdivided into the two businesses we see today. Each change in use brought changes to the storefront facade, from signage and display windows to larger alterations in the way the ground floor was divided and presented to the street. In that sense, the facade itself is a record of the building’s commercial history. Most simply put, the upper stories preserve its 19th century architectural identity, while the ground floor reflects the changing businesses, tastes, and needs of each generation.