College Street Between Elm Street and Wall Street-West Side

Sanborn 1886 Map:

1879 Bird's Eye View:

This was a block of small Federal and Greek Revival houses bounded by a large Italianate house at one end and the Yale Divinity School at the other (covered on Elm Street). The Divinity School replaced an 18th century tavern, the Doolittle Tavern, which was five bays with wooden siding that was designed to resemble stone. It was one of New Haven's premiere high style colonial buildings. It was removed in the 1870s for the school. This entire block was demolished in the 1920s for the construction of the current buildings and the open square, cross campus.

112 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: ?, 1820s-1840s?
There is almost no information about this house and only one image, since it was set back quite a bit on its lot. It was a typical brick, three bay, Greek Revival design, common to New Haven. Only one side of the house can be seen in images, but it does follow the typical design.

114 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: Charles Seymour (?), 1800-1820s?
The house was a three bay, gable front, Federal Style house with a closed gable, a semi-circular window in the gable. A fancy Italianate style overhang was added in the mid-19th century. The house can be seen to the right of this image.

116 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: ?, 1830s-1850s
This was a tall three bay Greek Revival house with an Ionic porch, an iron balcony running across the first floor and a rather tall entablature with half windows.

118 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: ?, 1800s-1850s
There is no information about this diminutive gable front house of two bays. It is likely a Federal Style simple house, but no images exist of it before its remodeling in the Queen Anne style with curved shingles and a gabled, spindled, Queen Anne porch. An odd feature is that a double window is in the gable, rather than a typical semicircular window. It bears some resemblance to a house on Elm Street.

The previous houses, 114-116:

A view of 116, 118, and 120:

120 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: Charles Tuttle (occupant 1841), 1800-1840s?
Yet another three bay, gable front Federal Style house, but unlike 114, this had an open gable and a rather squashed semicircular window. The door had an open pediment resting on brackets, similar to the Whitney house on Orange Street.

122 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: ?, 1820s-1840s
Another three bay, Greek Revival house, this one with a Doric porch and a fine balustrade above the very short entablature.

126 College Street

Status: Demolished

Built for: Timothy Dwight, 1853, demolished 1917
This was one of the grand downtown mansions of New Haven; it was built in 1853 for Timothy Dwight, a classics professor and later college president. It looks, given its date, that it was originally an Italianate house in the Anglo-Italianate manner, similar to the houses on Church Street. The porch had Temple of the Winds columns with an engaged arch. The windows had thick molded surrounds with bracketed moldings above, all inset into a stuccoed surface. The central bay featured a larger window, though it is unclear how it looked originally. Sometime before 1879, almost surely in the 1870s, the house was remodeled in the Second Empire style with a mansard roof with Swiss Chalet details, of which a surviving example is further down College Street.The remodel cut through the house's cornice line with gabled windows with cut out, decorative barge boards on the gables. Above the porch, a second porch, glassed in, with segmental arches was built, topped by an extension of the mansard roof, with a large gable with decorative bargeboards. The side, featured an extensive bay window with a simple classical entablature. The house was later the home of the Yale Music School and was eventually demolished for the current music hall, Sprague Hall, in 1917, the dimensions of which give you somewhat of an idea of the house's size.

Block Survival Rate: 0/7: 0%

College Street Between Wall Street and Grove Street-East Side

Sanborn 1886 Map:

1879 Bird's Eye View:

On the 1879 plan, the corner lot on Wall Street appears empty. It was filled in 1880 with St. Anthony hall, a society building seen on the Sanborn map in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. This was expanded in the 1890s. Later it was demolished with most of the block in 1901.

133 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1890s

Built for: ?, 1790s-1820s?

Although this five bay, ridge front house has an unknown construction date and builder, it certainly was extant by 1820. I suspect it may actually be older and a Colonial design, partly based on the small size of the windows and the low basement. At some point, an open Italianate pediment canopy was added to the door (which seems to have had steps recessed within the entrance. The house can be seen to right of this image. The house was demolished to accommodate the expansion of St. Anthony hall, seen below.

135-7 College Street

Status: Demolished, prior to 1890s

Built for: ?, 1810s-1840s?

This was a rather strange Greek Revival double house, with a symmetrical three bay façade and a hip roof. The house, instead of having two windows on each side, only had one, a rare design. The porch was a fine Ionic composition, and the brownstone lintels were slightly flared on the edges, a seemingly Federal touch. A particularly interesting feature is the roof balustrade with a raised central section on the middle bay. Unfortunately there is little information about the house, and its builder and date are unknown. It can be seen in this image. This double house seems to have been replaced in the 1880s or 90s by a brick pair of more conventional Italianate rowhouses seen here to the left. I am unsure, however, whether these are a new construction or a very extensive remodel. At any rate, they, like the other buildings, were demolished in 1901.

139 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1905

Built for: Nathaniel Rossiter, 1780s

This house was moved here in 1825 from Church street next to Court Street where the New Haven post office currently stands for the construction of the Tontine Hotel. The house is a five bay, ridge front design, but it is exceptionally broad, with a large space between each window, much more so than similar styled houses. A fine open pediment porch surrounded the front door, and the whole was topped with a balustrade with alternating balustered and closed panels. 

The house can be seen here.

141-53 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1901

Built for: ?, 1820s-40s?

A row of six chaste Greek Revival houses, much less elaborate than those across College Street. and with more conventional Federal details. These were built as dormitory housing for Yale Students in the early 19th century on very tall basements with thick Doric pilasters and entablatures around the doors. A similar development abutted this row on Grove Street. The row can be seen here. It's now the site of the very French Byers Hall.

Block Survival Rate: 0/4: 0%

College Street Between Elm Street and Wall Street-East Side

Sanborn 1886 Map:

1879 Bird's Eye View:

The First Methodist Church on the corner, now the First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, extant, is dealt with on Elm Street. This block was most demolished in stages for he current college buildings.

105 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1935

Built for: ?, 1820s-40s?

This was assuredly a Greek Revival house once, as in earlier pictures it appears with a typical Greek Revival, Doric porch. It was three bays, with a side entrance, and brick with brownstone lintels. Some time, probably in the 1870s, the house was remodeled in a Second Empire style with a new mansard roof with pointed dormers and a new porch, as seen here. The house served as the parish house for the Methodist church until it was replaced by the current parish house in 1936 in a Federal Revival style, though it keeps some similar proportions to the earlier house.

The changes can be seen here along with 109-115:

109 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1928

Built for: John Foster (?), 1820s-1840s

Pictured below, this was another three bay, side entrance, Greek Revival house, probably almost identical to 105 before it was remodeled. It had a fine Doric porch, a brick façade with brownstone lintels, and a row of dentils beneath the cornice. Sometime in the late 19th century, an addition was added to the right and the oriole window was removed along with the balustrade at the roofline. It served as the Yale Health center for many years until replaced in 1929 with the current Gothic building. 

113 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1928

Built for: Samuel Butler (?) 1790s-1820s

This was a typical three bay, side entrance, ridge front, Federal Style house (its Federal design can be ascertained from the higher cornice line than would be found in Colonial examples). It had strong moldings over the windows and the typical New Haven Tuscan porch. It was also demolished for the Gothic health center building in 1929.

YA 9/30/21

115 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1909

Built for: ?, 1790s-1820s?
This was a complete copy of 113, same style, same orientation, but it was demolished in 1909 for the current large Federal Revival building of 1910.

119 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1909

Built for: ?, 1820s-1840s?
A very poorly documented house, this was likely nearly identical to 109, a three bay, side entrance, Greek Revival house. It's rather odd that there is such symmetry on this street from 109 to 119.

123 College Street

Status: Extant!
Built for: Leverett Griswold, 1810

Now the Elizabethan Club, the Griswold house is one of the best examples surviving of what was once a very common New Haven house design, a three bay, gable front, Federal Style house, complete with a Palladian window in the gable and an open pediment door surround, so beloved in New Haven. This provides a good example of the asymmetry of many of these three bay houses, with the door bay slightly separated by a greater length from the other two bays. The details on the house are quite fine, with a slender porch with dentils supported by impossibly thin, and classically incorrect, Tuscan columns. Small panels fill the porch entablature, almost suggesting Doric triglyphs. The Palladian window as well features a fine set of moldings with a keystone marking the center. The side wings might have been added after its construction date. As the Sanborn map shows, there was no large bay on the side as there was in the 1920s.

Wikimedia

125 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1950s

Built for: George E. Day, 1870s
This was an unfortunate late loss to College Street. This four bay (an uncommon number of bays) Second Empire house looks like a product of the 1870s or late 60s to me, with a rather spare façade of brick and brownstone, featuring a complex porch design with oversized brackets and a balustrade, almost in Henry Austin's Indian idiom. The mansard roof was unexpectedly tall and had round, arched windows. Like many New Haven Second Empire houses, the brackets varied in length, with longer brackets marking the bays and shorter brackets serving as the runs. The space is currently filled by a modern addition to the old York Hall.

The corner of the house can be seen in this postcard:

The porch can be seen here:

127 College Street

Status: Demolished, 1896

Built for: ?, 1820s-40s?, 1860s-70s?
There is only one surviving image of this house, from a hurricane in the 1880s, and even there it is somewhat poorly evidenced. Though made of wood (which suggests that it may be a remodel of a Federal House, in the image it is a Second Empire design with a roof and round dormers matching its neighbor at 125. Like several of the Second Empire designs on Church Street, it featured a two story bay window on one side, with an entrance on the other, something that seems to have been a local craze. The porch and bay window seem to have had small miniature mansard roofs. The house was demolished for the current building, York Hall, originally a fraternity (pictured above), one of the most eclectic designs in the city and an ode to terracotta. 

Block Survival Rate: 1/8: 13%

Wall Street Between Temple Street and College Street-South Side

Sanborn 1886 Map:

1879 Bird's Eye View:

The house on the corner of Temple Street is still extant. The Second Empire on the corner of College has been replaced by the current building. The block, mostly empty in 1879, quickly was filled with additional row houses, one set of which is still extant. The Bird's Eye view shows a gabled building to the right of 50-54, but there is no visual evidence of the building or what form it took, whether it was a house or a carriage house.

50-54 Wall Street

Status: Extant!

Built for: unknown, 1870s

A series of connected Second Empire rowhouses in brick with brownstone lintels which survive, although they were converted for retail in the early 20th century, destroying the first floor. The house to the left of the grouping is unique in having narrower windows in the center bay. The houses to the right were only two bays wide. There is one image of how the porches looked around the doors (seen below), but the original doors can be seen today, partially obscured by Colonial Revival designs from the remodel. The building is currently owned by the university.

Block Survival Rate: 1/1: 100%