To understand New Haven is to understand the highways. Whenever you drive from New York to Boston, or visa versa the mid way point which all of the highway signs point to is New Haven. The entire time you're thinking, "Man, this New Haven, must be good, all the signs point here". Then you drive past New Haven and you feel a bit disappointed. You see a factory and a not so pretty seashore...
Then you actually realize that you were looking the wrong direction the whole time and you feel rather stupid. Lo and behold while New Haven officially does encompass the water section and the factory, that is not even close to the town center.
The other emotional conflict that New Haven causes is that everybody says to you, "New Haven, oh you mean Yale, there's nothing to do in New Haven" and "New Haven, it's not safe". Usually you're left believing these things for quite some time and on both accounts well, you're wrong again. New Haven is a rather frustrating city in that sense because the whole time you're saying, "I didn't realize New Haven was like this..." After a while, you stop saying that, purely because people start looking at you funny, but you still feel it.
We originally were invited to visit New Haven by Renny at the Greater New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau as she read an essay I wrote a number of years ago called, "Why I Hate Connecticut". It wasn't of course a real life list of reasons but went about describing anger, depression and people who came from the rich suburbs of New York who seemed to have everything going for them. Renny realized it was satirical and just wanted to show us another view of Connecticut. Other visitor boards in Connecticut never bothered to even read it but just went along proving the focus of the satirical piece by their ignorance.
Upon driving into Connecticut, you take Interstate 95 to CT-34 which is a poor excuse for a highway as it's only a mile or so long but takes you right into downtown New Haven. Five turns and a few, "Oh, this is very pretty's" later and we arrived at the Omni Hotel. The Omni is a 4- star hotel right next to the main village green in New Haven and can be described as nothing less then clean, pretty and well, very 4-star-ish. There was nothing to complain about which only frustrates you more in New Haven as I was predisposed to think that New Haven would be something to complain about.
I mentioned the city green and that should be commented on. New Haven is America's first planned city according to a grid model and in the center of that grid is a big city green with three separate churches. The middle one came first and then the members of the middle church got pretty upset at each other and built a rebellious church right next door, but made it look really similar so I question how rebellious they were in those days. Almost everything in New Haven that's anything is within one block of the village green.
Anyway, in the lobby we met Renny from the Tourism Bureau who at first strikes you as a quiet elegant, older woman, something like an eccentric aunt who takes you out for pizza when your mom claims you're lactose intolerant. I warn you, this is only a first impression as she breaks out of this perceived shell rather quickly and will exhaust you with her love for the city within minutes.
The pizza thing did however, hold true as our first stop was Pepe's for Pizza. Pepe's was established by Frank Pepe right here in New Haven and is where the first pizza was introduced to the United States. I always thought it was introduced in Brooklyn and Margherita, my wife insisted that no matter how good this pizza was, it couldn't surpass Brooklyn pizza. We agreed before we came that she would smile, nod and enjoy it but NOT say anything about Brooklyn pizza.
She broke that agreement and told Renny how wonderful Brooklyn pizza was and that she wasn't sure if Pepe's could possibly beat it. I tried interjecting but there was no hope as she kept on this impassioned debate arguing stronger than politics or religion would take you. Needless to say, the pizza did beat out most places we've ever eaten in Brooklyn and it easily enters one of the top spots as far as I thought. Margherita was very surprised and commented about how the cheese was fresh and the sauce was very good, although sparse, which surprised her.
This made Renny very happy and she mentioned that we were right on path to make me forever forget my "Why I Hate Connecticut" story.
Well, after pizza we ran back to the car, (as it was a bit cold) and drove around town a bit. New Haven's architecture can best be described as the resultant of a schizophrenic architecture Professor just throwing out ideas randomly. If a block has the same architecture, they are promptly chastised and beaten with a stick. Every house has a unique architecture worth noting... historic, modern, gothic, strange, pretty, you name it and they seem to just collect it here.
We pulled up to a parking lot right near village green to walk over for dessert at a restaurant called, "Hot Tomatoes". Located in the old Taft Hotel, where, believe it or not, President Taft used to stay, Hot Tomatoes now encompasses the old ballroom.
"Wow, the staircase in this restaurant looks just like a ballroom from some old Broadway show" I said.
"It's where Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote, the lyrics for 'My Fair Lady' and 'Oklahoma'" Renny said and marked another point on her mental chart about why people should like New Haven. She giggled to herself.
We walked up the stairs and Margherita started swaying up the stairs preparing to make a "grand entrance". I ignored her as to not encourage her behavior and we ordered dessert.
Get the cappuccino! The cappuccino was incredibly large and practically served in a soup bowl with handles. Margherita ordered a lavender cr?me brulee that she ate quite vigorously. The biggest thing to comment on here was the staff... everybody was beyond courteous as evidenced by the manager's business cards. Chris's card labeled him as "Busboy, Counselor and Computer Geek..." in addition to about 23 other titles. We picked up some of their stuffed bread before leaving and then headed to our next destination. What's stuffed bread? I should just tell you it's really bad so you don't buy any and I get it all for myself, but it's the best damn stuffed bread I've ever had.
From there, we walked along College Street, stopped in a few of the bars and remembered the days of youth gone by. Every single bar and restaurant was filled to the brim with people of every age. It was like a club goers dream with every type of bar one could imagine and a few they couldn't.
Then Renny walked us up to a shack. Yes, a shack... a small, decrepit shack that I thought would win me the battle between loving and hating Connecticut. Right in the middle of town they left this shack. Non-descript and looking a bit like a cabin that Lincoln would have grown up in.
Inside she walked in and we followed her into this one room restaurant. Behind the grill was Jeff and the place was packed.
"This is Louis Lunch's where they made the first hamburger."
Louie was Jeff's great-great-grandfather and I couldn't believe it but they make the burgers on the same vertical grill that his great-great-grandfather used over 100 years ago. The same way they cooked it, same recipe, and the same type of ingredients: sandwich bread, meat, onions and cheese. You want ketchup, go to McDonalds.
Now, we just finished dessert and were rather tired but how could we not have the world's first hamburger? Of course, we succumbed to the non-existent pressure and split a hamburger between us. When I tell you that this was the best quality hamburger I've ever had in my life I'm not exaggerating. I've decided that whenever I drive I-95 anywhere near New Haven I'm going to stop for a hamburger here every time. It's like a ground steak between two slices of bread.
Needless to say, Renny marked another point in her mental pad and smiled deviously.
From there she lead us on a final tour, making a left down this block a right down that and into this club called The Playwright. The Playwright hits you like a historical ton of bricks because well, it is. The man who created this club felt that he wanted to create something unique and had the idea to import pieces of buildings from Ireland and from all over Europe to construct the pub. There's the door from where his grandmother used to work and the DJ sits in a pulpit from a church. The club is packed and you're left wondering how many people there know that they're looking at history.
Anyway, it was almost midnight and Margherita fell asleep but somehow managed to walk at the same time so we decided to call it a night and start the day bright and early on Saturday.
Read part 2
