Crown Street Parking

Historical Tenants / Programs:



1886: 10 Properties (detached homes & bldgs)



Largest Property: Lincoln Skating Rink, center of the block, surrounded by small detached properties.



1901: 10 Properties (detached homes & bldgs)



Largest property is a skating rink within the block, access to this rink is provided from an alley on Chapel St.



1924: 18 Properties (Buildings arranged along a consolidated street front)



Largest Properties (by lot area):



Auto Storage (2 properties, including former skating rink)



Professional Bldg (59 College St. *1924 numbering).



1973: 1 Property - Crown St. Garage (NH Parking Authority)



Short Description / Narrative:  Since 1970, 215 Crown St. has been the site of the Crown Garage Building [Fig 1], part of a group of garages developed during the 1960s -1970s by the New Haven Parking Authority as an initiative to solve parking shortages in the Downtown area. The building was designed by the firm Granberry Cash & Associates, highly active in New Haven, and responsible for Friendship Houses, a two-story housing complex at Wooster Square [Fig. 8]. It echoes urbanistic moves in Paul Rudolph’s 1961 Temple Street Garage by using a ground-level arcade to mediate its relation with the street; yet its ability to draw pedestrians from four sides of the block[1], and its modular construction techniques, should be recognized as an example of quality public development in downtown New Haven. The Crown Garage is one of the most salient elements along the street-front, both in terms of sheer volume -occupying most of the street-front within its block (209-217 Crown)-, as in terms of use -750 parking places make it one of the most frequented public facilities in the zone-. The Building is also home to two large nightclubs located at street-level, and generally services parking demands for nearby cafes, restaurants, and theaters.The Schubert, among those adjacent, dates to the time when the lot of Crown Garage was occupied by 18 separate structures. Insurance Maps of the turn of the 20th Century [Fig.2] show ten detached homes and buildings partially surrounding a skating rink at the core of the block. Already in 1920, the urban facade of the street presented a consolidated front, and the rink at the interior of the block had shifted its program to accommodate increasing demands for parking space in downtown New Haven [Fig.2]. Access to the new ‘auto-storage’ remained by means of an alley on the opposite side of the block (Chapel Street Front), which used to serve as the path to the original 19th Century skating rink. Since 1924 [Fig.3], buildings within the current site of the Crown Street Garage started to be taken over by the programmatic requirements of the expanding ‘auto-storage’, responding to a general trend of garage space development in the downtown area at the time. Incidentally, a significant part of the current building site used to be occupied by informal garages from the early 20s. These reconditioned buildings would remain in use until their closure in 1970, for the development of Crown Garage [Fig.4]. Such continuities in terms of the site’s use provide interesting aspects for further research, as the transition from informal parking spaces into large-scale public parking is a marked trend within the block’s real-estate dynamics.



[1] Including The New Haven Green