James Larson, Senior Photographer

New Haven might look a little different than it did when students in the class of 2021 stepped foot on campus as shiny-eyed first years. The News recapped some of the changes that have occured on the Elm City’s streets over the last four years.

Restaurants across New Haven, including many student favorites, have come and gone. The Indian restaurant Thali shuttered its Orange Street storefront amid rising competition. The beloved Wall Street Pizza, a New Haven staple just across the street from Silliman College, closed in 2019 after seven decades of operations, much to students’ and professors’ chagrin.  

“I [had been going to] Wall Street since I was in high school,” Maya Geradi ’22, an Elm City resident and Yale student, told the News. “It is such a great study spot and most of my friends loved hanging out there. The staff was also really friendly … one time I remember my friend and I were stressed about an exam; we had gone to study at Wall Street and they gave us free dessert because we were telling them about our exam.”

A flurry of new restaurants have also opened, many of them close to Yale’s campus. Haven Hot Chicken opened its doors along Whitney, while Sherkaan began serving Indian street food right outside of Ezra Stiles College. The bagelry Olmo, meaning “elm” in Italian, opened a brick-and-mortar storefront on Trumbull Street. Fussy Coffee opened in 2018 at Science Park, north of campus, while Atticus, a bookstore cafe on Chapel Street, opened a second market location in East Rock last month. Entrepreneur Thomas Nguyen opened second locations of the restaurant Pokemoto on Chapel Street in 2019 and Saladcraft on Whitney last year. In 2019, Blue State Coffee opened a fourth location in the East Rock neighborhood. 

Other types of establishments gained new footing, too. Any Occasion Creation Florist, a Black-owned business, found a new home on Howe Street in 2021 during Black History Month. Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen began renovations at a new location on State Street. The Westville Music Bowl, a seasonal performing arts venue, kicked off its opening with two concerts by the Southern rock group Gov’t Mule last month. City officials say drawing music fans from the region could revitalize the neighborhood of Westville. 

“New Haven is a city that makes dreams come true,” said Ward 26 Alder Darryl Brackeen. “I grew up in this neighborhood most of my life, and of those 32 years there have been certain individuals who have contributed to this neighborhood in bringing the heart and soul of Westville back. This is a dream come true.”

The Elm City’s infrastructure continues to evolve as officials reconnect neighborhoods with pedestrian- and cyclist-safe streets. For the first time in four decades, traffic on South Orange Street began to flow onto Orange Street. 

Some of the physical changes in the Elm City doubled as political ones: a statue of Christopher Columbus was removed from historic Wooster Square, New Haven’s hub of Italian American culture. The statue became a point of contention amid a nationwide debate over Columbus’ legacy, and had previously been vandalized. Many Italian Americans saw the statue and Columbus Day as a way to celebrate Italian American heritage. Still, after multiple brawls and protests broke out, the statue was taken down. 

“I think that it would have taken longer and much more community conversation, but eventually we would have ended at the same point had this national uprising not occurred,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker told the News of the change. The current political climate, he said, “lay the groundwork for a pretty fast change in New Haven.”

The Wooster Square community is still deciding on the statue’s replacement, which could include some kind of installment celebrating the Italian American community.

A different statue of the Black civil rights activist and engineer William Lanson of New Haven, was erected by the city outside of Benjamin Franklin College, near the Farmington Canal Trail. 

On the other side of the city, a mural commemorating Lanson was painted on Crown Street last November. After a summer of racial justice protests, a Black Lives Matter mural was painted by volunteers last October along Temple Street at the heart of New Haven Green. 

In April 2021, labor union activists painted a “Yale: Respect New Haven” mural on Prospect Street in front of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. The activists hope their mural will send a strong message of equity and the need to increase its financial contributions to New Haven to University officials.  

The city of New Haven was incorporated in 1784.