Yale University and Environs

New Haven

Connecticut

Thanks to the miracle of medium-speed rail (America is still on the fence about ever developing high-speed rail like nearly all of Europe….), it is possible to travel from Manhattan to Connecticut in two hours for about $20. That makes a day-trip to visit Yale University’s many free museums quite doable. Even better, though, is finding a cheap apartment on airbnb.com and making it a two- or three-day weekend so you can explore what else New Haven has to explore. Though, be warned, the joke about how many Yale students it takes to screw in a light bulb makes perfect sense the moment you wander away from the main campus area… 

Many people find Yale University’s gray-stoned buildings charming. I personally am annoyed that every structure looks like a late English Gothic church. Note: none of them is actually an church. They are actually residence halls or college buildings filled with classrooms. The churches tend to be American colonial revival on the outside and Gothic revival on the inside and are lovely. They look like churches and they are churches. Several are even filled with gorgeous Tiffany stained glass, despite having been poorly renovated as to cover much of said gorgeous stained glass. Yes, my boyfriend will tell you it can be bothersome to visit New Haven with someone who gets easily annoyed with architecture, though we do come in handy from time to time. 

If fabulous architecture is your thing, Yale has more to offer than fake churches. Its two major museums, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Center for British Art, were both designed by Louis Kahn. The Art Gallery, 1953, was his first major commission and the Center for British Art, 1974, was his last. While the art in the Gallery might be more famous, the Center’s actual structure is far more striking. Not that the works at the Center are none too shabby—there’s plenty of Turner and Stubbs, plus many fabulous paintings of horses and boats, English specialties. Kahn designed the Center for British Art to be airy and open; at any time you can see through and around spaces. It makes you realize how claustrophobic most art museums are. 

The design for the Yale University Art Gallery is less successful, mainly because he designed only the core building where visitors enter and exit. The Gallery branches off into another building that looks like (you guessed it) yet another one of those pseudo English Gothic churches. The large windows in the ancient art galleries works, but the rest of the space is dark and heavy, and surprisingly densely packed with artwork ranging from African to Asian to Medieval to Modern. Indeed, the Gallery’s collection is so tightly displayed that it rather fatiguing. Best to break this museum into two separate visits. What’s the point of finally getting to Van Gogh’s Night Cafe if you’re so tired and cranky you can’t enjoy it? 

For a real visual treat be sure to visit the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 1963, on a sunny day. This stunning building was built with translucent marble walls in lieu of glass windows. Rather than make the building a dark box or put in windows that would just be shuttered off to protect the books, Gordon Bunshaft made a visually striking structure that appears to glow when you’re inside it. Some of the books are rather impressive, too—an original Gutenberg Bible and a double elephant folio of Audubon’s Birds of North America. 

Travelers not afraid to explore beyond Chapel Street might want to check out East Rock Park. The hiking trails make a nice change of pace from museum walls and the various summits offer wonderful views of New Haven. Parts of the walk to the park demonstrate some of New Haven’s local color, but nothing so untoward that trekkers should be deterred. A fair warning: it’s at least two miles from downtown New Haven to East Rock Park. Then after hiking up and down overlooks for a few hours, and maybe checking out the Eli Whitney Museum, it’s probably for the best to take a bus or taxi back downtown. My boyfriend and I did not do this, and we greatly regretting the seemingly endless walk back to our rented apartment. 

Also off the beaten Yale path are the Divinity School and the Peabody Museum of Natural History, both about halfway between the New Haven Green and East Rock Park. The original Divinity School structure was recently rebuilt and its red brick is a change from the usual Yale buildings. There are also several picturesque private Victorian-style homes and mini-mansions along the way on Hillhouse Avenue and Prospect Street. Visitors familiar with New York’s Museum of Natural History will find the Peabody Museum to be a bit ho-hum, as well as overpriced. Ticket enforcement is rather lax (there are none), however, so if you go to the gift shop you can continue to walk around the museum without paying. Most of the displays are text-heavy and laden with mediocre objects. The display on the exposition to Machu Picchu is rather interesting, but the most fun room in the museum is the kids discovery room which contains an entire tropical leaf-cutter ant colony. Don’t worry, adults without children can see it, too. 

A bit closer to campus are the Grove Street Cemetery and the New Haven Museum. Be sure to download a map of the cemetery if you want to find some of the more famous residents, like Charles Goodyear, Noah Webster, and Eli Whitney. The New Haven Museum houses a modest collection of local industrial artifacts like Goodyear’s rubber inkwell and one of Whitney’s original cotton gins, as well as folk art. 

For something TOTALLY unexpected—and a little bit creepy—head down to the free Knights of Columbus Museum. Walking through the corridors of this museum it becomes very apparent that this place is loaded with cash. The exhibits and displays are of a far higher quality that most small museums, like the Peabody or New Haven Museum. This is despite the fact that the Knights of Columbus Museum receives very little foot traffic and charges no admission. Several parts of the collection were donated directly from the Vatican. There’s even a reliquary room. Catholics will love it and the rest will be awestruck up until they feel a burning desire to get out the place as fast as possible.

As for food, forget all the hype about New Haven pizza, especially if you’re from New York City. The white clam pizza from Frank Pepe’s is gross and hardly worth waiting in line for an hour or more. Instead, head in the opposite direction and check out Miya’s, an eclectic sushi restaurant that serves fusion rolls with brie and goat cheese alongside more traditional Japanese fare. Hippie bonus: everything is local, organic, and homemade. A good breakfast option is the Atticus Bookstore Café which opens an hour before most other places. 

If you visit New Haven between April and October, the Center Church on the Green offers tours down into its crypt. However, except when visiting one of the three churches on the New Haven Green, it’s best to avoid the small green area flanked by Phelps Gate and City Hall. What should be a nice, relaxing place to stroll and lounge is actually a rather sad plot of land that serves as a sleeping area for New Haven’s homeless. Why New Haven or Yale hasn’t done something along the lines of outreach serves to clean up the Green is beyond me. Lord knows parents paying $35,000 a year to send their children to Yale don’t want the entranceway to the campus filled with makeshift cardboard beds and dwellings. The New Haven Green is a perfect example of how everything in the town isn’t as peachy as visitor brochures would have you believe.

For those who haven’t heard it, the joke goes:

How many Yale students does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None: New Haven looks better in the dark. 

It’s not as bad as all that, though, and certainly nice enough for a relaxing weekend. If you go when school’s not in session things are much quieter. But, if you’re itching to see a play or attend a concert, you’ll need to visit when the area is crawling with co-eds.