New haven parks and rec12/4/2023 ![]() ![]() Manufacturing and heavy industry developed in the area because of its proximity to both Long Wharf and the steamboat wharf (in an era when coal and other raw materials were typically brought in by ship), easy access to trolley lines and to downtown. (An 1824 map by well-known cartographer and silversmith Amos Doolittle actually refers to Grand Avenue as “Bell Lane.”) In the late 1800s Grand Avenue became an important streetcar route, with the maintenance facilities and power plant for the Connecticut Trolley Company located at the midpoint of the avenue. Also located in the area were slaughterhouses, stables, and a bell foundry. The other community, to the south and east along the banks of the Mill River, was known as “New Liberia,” a reference to both the West African settlement created by the American Colonization Society for emancipated slaves, and to the Liberian Hotel owned by local African-American entrepreneur William Lanson, who lived in the neighborhood himself until financial troubles and legal persecution landed him in the almshouse.Įarly industry included rope-making facilities (known as “rope walks”) and warehouses that served the maritime economy around New Haven Harbor. One, in the triangular notch created by the intersection of Grand Avenue and State Street (part of which was colloquially known as “Negro Lane”), was displaced in the 1840s by the building of the New Haven & New London Railroad. Two early communities of free Blacks developed in the area. ![]()
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