New Haven County Courthouse

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New Haven County Courthouse
New Haven County Courthouse, October 17, 2008.jpg
New Haven County Courthouse in 2008
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Location 121 Elm Street, New Haven, Connecticut
Coordinates 41°18′38″N72°55′27″W / 41.31056°N 72.92417°W / 41.31056; -72.92417 Coordinates: 41°18′38″N72°55′27″W / 41.31056°N 72.92417°W / 41.31056; -72.92417
Area 1.2 acres (0.49 ha)
Built 1917 (1917)
Architect Allen and Williams
Architectural style Beaux Arts, Classical Revival
NRHP reference # 03000404 [1]
Added to NRHP May 16, 2003

The New Haven County Courthouse is located at 121 Elm Street in the Downtown section of New Haven, Connecticut. The building was built in 1917 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 16, 2003. [1] It is one of the city's finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture, with a particularly elaborate central atrium, and was the site of Griswold v. Connecticut , a historic court case involving women's right to birth control. [2]

Downtown New Haven Neighborhood of New Haven in Connecticut, United States

Downtown New Haven is the neighborhood located in the heart of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It is made up of the original nine squares laid out in 1638 to form New Haven, including the New Haven Green, and the immediate surrounding central business district, as well as a significant portion of the Yale University campus. The area includes many restaurants, cafes, theaters and stores. Downtown is bordered by Wooster Square to the east, Long Wharf to the southeast, the Hill neighborhood to the south, the Dwight neighborhood to the west, the Dixwell neighborhood to the northwest, the Prospect Hill area to the north, and East Rock to the northeast.

New Haven, Connecticut City in Connecticut, United States

New Haven is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, and is part of the New York metropolitan area. With a population of 129,779 as determined by the 2010 United States Census, it is the second-largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport. New Haven is the principal municipality of Greater New Haven, which had a total population of 862,477 in 2010.

Connecticut state of the United States of America

Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the United States. As of the 2010 Census, it has the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index (0.962), and median household income in the United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. It is part of New England, although portions of it are often grouped with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-state area. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for "long tidal river".

Contents

Description and history

The New Haven County Courthouse is located in downtown New Haven, facing the New Haven Green from the northwest corner of Elm and Church Streets, It is a three-story stone structure, finished in white Vermont marble. Its principal mass is basically rectangular, with projecting sections of differing depths on each side. The two street-facing projections house its main entrances, which are fronted by Ionic porticos. A central section rises a full extra story to provide additional height to the central atrium. The interior is finished in richly ornamented finishes of marble, mahogany, brass, and plaster. Some doors have heavy brass knobs bearing the county seal. [2]

New Haven Green park in New Haven, Connecticut

The New Haven Green is a 16-acre (65,000 m2) privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of the original Puritan colonists in New Haven, and was designed and surveyed by colonist John Brockett. Today the Green is bordered by the modern paved roads of College, Chapel, Church, and Elm streets. Temple Street bisects the Green into upper (northwest) and lower (southeast) halves.

The courthouse was designed by William H. Allen and Richard Williams. Their Beaux Arts architecture design won a design competition over submissions from several well-known architects, and contributed to the city's adoption of the City Beautiful movement to improve its public spaces and facilities. [2] The building was under threat of demolition in 1956. [2] The building's exterior underwent a $10.5 million renovation project, with work beginning in January 2013. [3]

William H. Allen (architect) American architect

William H. Allen (1858–1936) was an American architect who worked in New Haven, Connecticut. He designed hundreds of houses and other buildings.

Significant court cases tried at the courthouse include Griswold v. Connecticut , which ensured that married women could have access to birth control methods and information, and the trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale. [2]

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark case in the United States about access to contraception. The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that "the clear effect of [the Connecticut law ...] is to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as a right to "protect[ion] from governmental intrusion."

Black Panther Party Black revolutionary socialist organization

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a political organization founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California. The party was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with chapters in numerous major cities, and international chapters operating in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and in Algeria from 1969 until 1972.

Bobby Seale American activist

Robert George Seale is an American political activist. He and fellow activist Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party.

The sculpture in the courthouse's front was executed by J. Massey Rhind. [4] The figures in Rhind's tympanum are Justice, Victory, Precedence, Accuracy, Common Law, Statutory Law, Progress and Commerce. [3] Unobtrusive netting is installed across the tympanum to prevent hawks from nesting there, as the birds have done in the past. [3]

J. Massey Rhind American artist

John Massey Rhind was a Scottish-American sculptor. Among Rhind's better known works is the marble statue of Dr. Crawford W. Long located in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D.C. (1926).

Tympanum (architecture) architectural element

In architecture, a tympanum is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and arch. It often contains sculpture or other imagery or ornaments. Most architectural styles include this element.

Hawk group of diurnal birds of prey

Hawks are a group of medium-sized diurnal birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Hawks are widely distributed and vary greatly in size.

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut Wikimedia list article

This is a list of National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut.

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References

  1. 1 2 National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Heather L. McGrath and William G. Foulks (July 9, 2002). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: New Haven County Courthouse (including 20 photo copies)". National Park Service. and Accompanying 13 photos, exterior and interior, from 2002
  3. 1 2 3 Mary E. O'Leary, New Haven Superior Courthouse once again a jewel on the Green, New Haven Register (April 6, 2015).
  4. Colin M. Caplan, A Guide to Historic New Haven, Connecticut (The History Press: 2007), p. 22.