Sneak Peek Reveals ​“Lost” City Treasures

A dozen sixth graders took a step back in time — to the 1810s expansion of Long Wharf, to the 1909 planting of the Lincoln Oak, to the 1927 crafting of the Lender bagel — in a tour of an emerging new museum dedicated to New Haven history’s ephemera.

That was the scene Thursday as a class of 11- and 12-year-olds from St. Thomas’s Day School walked through the carefully curated rooms and cavernous warehouse space of 80 Hamilton St.

That former industrial building is the new permanent home of local artist and historian Robert Greenberg’s ever-expanding ​“Lost in New Haven” collection of Elm City artifacts and memorabilia.

That collection includes cultural artifacts ranging from the old Cutler’s record store sign to World War I military recruitment posters, from Church Street to relics from the now mostly demolished former Bigelow Boiler Factory complex to Sally’s pizza boxes, Bradley Smith Co. lollipop tins, New Haven Nighthawks hockey pucks, late 19th-century porcelain teacups, and early 20th-century New Haven police photographs.

The museum is not yet finished and open to the public. Greenberg said he still needs to build out bathrooms and American Disabilities Act-compliant ramps and other upgrades necessary for the site to pass city inspections. He anticipates the museum officially opening to the public in the next several months. 

On Thursday, he and fellow Lost in New Havener Alexis Gage took a break from the museum buildout to walk the St. Thomas sixth graders through the space and its many, many, many local-history exhibits. 

The student-historian meetup marked a reunion of sorts. 

Back in 2019, Greenberg and Gage visited St. Thomas’s Whitney Avenue art classroom when these same students were just in second grade. At the time, Greenberg and Gage helped the young history enthusiasts create ​“curio boxes” — small wooden displays segmented into nine squares, each holding a different piece of New Haven, like a shell from Lighthouse Point or a piece of marble from a historic Church Street bank.

Four years later, Greenberg and Gage rekindled that New Haven-history spark with the same students by walking them through the nascent museum, an industrial-sized ​“curio box” that doubles as Greenberg’s life work.

“I’m hunting for objects all the time,” Greenberg told the students and their teachers Leslie Reyes and Adam Wallenta. ​“It’s about leaving the evidence of what our ancestors did for future people” to discover and understand.

In describing how he came to this work of collecting and archiving pieces of New Haven history, Greenberg reached back to his youth — attending Beecher School and Lee High, embracing his creative skills at Educational Center for the Arts and RISD, diving deep into New Haven history with his Legion Avenue-raised grandfather Simon. 

His grandfather would take him to ​“flea markets, museums, the top of East Rock, Lighthouse Point,” Greenberg recalled. He taught him the history of Urban Renewal and the destruction of the Oak Street neighborhood. ​“He would have tears in his eyes telling the story of New Haven.” So Greenberg started collecting New Haven artifacts to preserve those stories. With Lost in New Haven, he said, ​“I took those things I collected as a kid and built on them.”

Greenberg and Gage then took the students on an hour-and-a-half whirlwind tour of as many Lost in New Haven displays as they could. The students pointed and gasped and chattered throughout, their interest in local history growing by the step, feeding off Greenberg’s passion for the materials he has collected.

The group marveled at a projection of an 1879 map of New Haven, pointing out where their school now stands and finding where their houses are and the still-familiar grid of the New Haven Green.

They got up close to a New Haven-quarried brownstone that once made up a now-demolished building next to City Hall — and looked at a picture of that building and the old City Hall in a 1908-sent postcard.

They saw the evolution of ​“Handsome Dan” through different eras of Yale pennants, and through a stained glass window Greenberg said had been hidden inside the walls of the old Naples Pizza.

“Is that an actual poison bottle?” Alia Mojibian asked with awe while she and her classmates took in a glass display of 19th and 20th century locally made medicines.

“This is a billion years in the past,” she remarked to a student. Well, not really a billion, she conceded. That’s an exaggeration. But ​“it’s crazy” to see these objects and know that they were owned by people in this very city so many years ago.

The students looked up at a picture of the construction of the former Connecticut Savings Bank at Church and Crown Streets, as well as at a shelf of bank-shaped piggy banks that New Haven financial institutions used to hand out to young customers.

“I wish we had such cool piggy banks” now, Miles Betts remarked. ​“Why don’t banks do that anymore?” 

Greenberg showed them a book from 1812 documenting goods brought in to Long Wharf at the very time that William Lanson was overseeing its construction, and decoy ducks designed by Sperry topsider creator Paul Sperry. ​“I love your use of fabric,” Sylvie Smith said while taking in the prom dress tulle-turned-waves Greenberg had created for a diorama of early 19th century Long Wharf.

Their tour included stops on the history of rubber and Charles Goodyear …

… on Bigelow-made boilers and Sargent-made cow bells …

… on Toad’s concert posters and a wall full of signed drum sticks and early New Haven telephones.

“Let’s keep moving on,” Greenberg said as the students’ tour sped towards its conclusion and the school bus outside got ready to depart. ​“I want to show you many more things.”