Thomas MacMillan Photo
Walk down Howe Street, and you’ll see Meryl Streep outside Miya’s restaurant. Walter Camp and Albie Booth are talking football in a driveway on Chapel Street. And Chad Dawson and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. are hanging out by the YMCA.
Literally hanging, that is.
A crew of workers Tuesday hung a number of new vinyl posters of famous New Haven dwellers at locations in the Chapel West Special Services District, the business organization-monitored area of Chapel Street just west of the center of town.
Chapel West is hanging about 15 posters, said Vin Romei (pictured), president of the organization. Each features a black and white drawing of “A New Haven notable,” someone who either is from New Haven or spent a significant period of her life here.
“We’re just trying to bring notice to New Haven history,” said Romei. The idea is to select people who have made a “contribution to society,” to highlight the great people and achievements that have come out of the city.
“Our main goal is promoting Chapel West,” Romei said. When passersby see the posters on the streets, “we just want them to be impressed,” he said. “We’re waiting to see the reaction.”
On Tuesday afternoon, workers from a North Haven company were hanging Streep outside of Miya’s. Woody Ford, the owner of the company, said the posters should last at least two years.
Nate Blair (at right in photo), a waiter at Miya’s, stepped outside to admire the new poster. “The question is, will anyone tag it? It’s hanging pretty low,” he said to Brian McGrath (at left), who works for Chapel West.
Blair said he wishes all the posters honored people who grew up in New Haven, “but we might as well have Meryl Streep up here. … Lots of the Yale Drama School students come in here.”
The “New Haven notables” hanging anew in Chapel West include:
Goodyear hangs on Park Street.
Innovators:
Charles Goodyear, who was born in New Haven in 1800, invented a process to vulcanize rubber, and went on to found the Goodyear tire company. Eli Whitney was a Yale alum who invented the cotton gin. Robert Moses, the urban planner who changed the face of New York City, was born in New Haven in 1888. Dr. Benjamin Spock was born in New Haven, went to Yale, and won an Olympic medal in rowing before becoming a renowned author of books about child care.
Giamatti hangs on Chapel Street.
Actors:
Paul Giamatti, born in New Haven, is an actor who went to the Yale School of Drama. Meryl Streep, who also studied acting at Yale, gets her face on a poster, even though she wasn’t born here. Patricia Smith, born in New Haven in 1930, was a film and TV actress.
Athletes:
Albie Booth, a New Haven born Yale football player, nearly singlehandedly defeated the Army football team in 1929 by rushing for 233 yards and scoring all of Yale’s points. Walter Camp, considered the “Father of American Football,” went to Hopkins Academy and Yale and in the late 1800s made the rule changes that led to the modern game as we know it. “Bad” Chad Dawson, born in 1982, trained in New Haven and went on to become a national light heavyweight champion. Craig Breslow, born in New Haven in 1980, is a Yale-educated pitcher who was recently traded to the Boston Red Sox. Floyd Little, a pro football Hall of Fame running back, was born in New Haven in 1942.
Powell and Dawson on Howe Street.
Leaders:
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born in 1908 in New Haven and went on to represent Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought against racial segregation. Father Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in New Haven in 1882. James Hillhouse represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate at the turn of the 19th century.