Thomas Breen photos
Anti-demolition flyer (left) and 90-day demolition notice. Below: Opponents celebrate Historic District Commission vote.
Calls to preserve local African American history and to stymie future demolition-happy developers earned Dwight preservationists a vote of support in their bid to save two historic, derelict Howe Street buildings from the wrecking ball.
The preservationists brought their quest to Wednesday night’s regular monthly meeting of the city’s Historic District Commission (HDC) on the second floor of City Hall.
At the meeting, commissioners voted unanimously in favor of drafting a letter to send to the state Historic Preservation Council stressing their opposition to MOD Equities’ plans to knock down 95 and 97 Howe St.
97 and 95 Howe St.
The local development company, run by New York-based brothers Jacob and Josef Feldman, plans to tear down the vacant houses and build in their stead an as-of-right 30-unit, market rate apartment complex.
The development duo has already received site plan approval for the project from the City Plan Commission and filed a 90-day demolition notice for the two buildings on May 3. In past interviews, they’ve said the derelict buildings, which they purchased in 2016, are in such disrepair that they are beyond salvaging.
The commissioners voted Wednesday to formally oppose the planned demolition after hearing nearly a dozen testimonies and receiving over 700 signatures from neighbors affiliated with the Friends of the Dwight Historic District.
Wednesday night’s HDC meeting.
The commission could do little more than throw their support behind the group’s appeal for state intervention because the two buildings are not in one of the city’s three local historic districts, which the HDC does have regulatory powers over. The buildings are however listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Led by local realtor and preservationist Olivia Martson, the petitioners who stuck around until the end of the three-hour meeting argued for the preservation of the two-story Greek Revival building at 95 Howe and the three-story Italianate building at 97 Howe.
The latter, they said, bears the historical distinction of having once been home to pioneering black abolitionist Rev. Amos Gerry Bemon as well as to the 19th-century women’s school, the West End Institute, which educated the first woman in Connecticut to go on to attend college.
They also argued that tolerating the demolition of these two buildings to make way for new market-rate apartments would set a dangerous precedent for developers looking to knock down and build up in the city’s Downtown-adjacent neighborhoods once there are no more surface lots available.
“This proposed demolition would erase forever the history of an earlier time that must be remembered,” Martson told the commissioners.
HDC Chair Trina Learned (left).
In promising to draft the letter herself, HDC Chair Trina Learned applauded the group for investing so much time and effort and organizing energy into rallying around this preservationist cause.
“Don’t discount the fact that developers understand where there’s resistance and where there’s not,” she said.
The demolition opponents plan next to bring their petition to the state preservation council at its July 3 meeting in Hartford.
“An Obligation, A Moral Responsibility”
Olivia Martson.
One of two dozen attendees wearing a brightly colored green-and-yellow “FDHD” pin, Martson kicked off the Friends of the Dwight Historic District’s petition by arguing that 95 and 97 Howe deserve adaptive reuse rather than outright demolition because of their historic significance and architectural compatibility with this stretch of Howe Street.
“This block of homes was built between 1833 and 1920,” she said. “Some of which are 185 years old. Some have been added, modified to fit modern needs, but the streetscape is reminiscent of the 19th century. .. The streetscape to date is an untouched record of the 19th century, and should remain prominent in New Haven’s landscape and cultural history.”
The nine demolition opponents who followed Martson broke out pretty evenly into two rhetorical camps: those who argued for preservation because of these buildings’ unique position in local African American history, and those who argued that allowing these buildings to be knocked down would provide a template for developers interested in building new housing by tearing down existing structures.
Al Marder.
Speaking on behalf of the buildings’ historical import, 97-year-old activist and Amistad Committee President Al Marder said that the city and the state have an “obligation, a moral responsibility to tell the story of how our country was truly fashioned.”
Preserving 97 Howe, which the abolitionist Rev. Bemon lived in for several years in the mid-19th century, would be a step in the right direction of doing that work, he said.
Bemon was the pastor of the Temple Street Church, now known as Dixwell Congregational, and was a lifelong outspoken critic of slavery. He wrote for Frederick Douglass’s anti-slavery newspaper The North Star and served as the president of nearly every national conference organizing against slavery, Marder said.
“His was a national voice,” he said, “traveling the country, speaking and organizing opposition to slavery.”
“These are not just properties,” he continued. “Their presence is not only a tribute to Rev. Bemon, but can serve as a constant reminder of how New Haven and our country was built.”
Charles Warner, Jr.
Charles Warner Jr., the chair of the Connecticut Freedom Trail, agreed.
“Rev. Bemon is tied into the very fabric of this state,” Warner said. Preserving 97 Howe would not only be a testament to the city and the state’s respect for this historical icon, he said, but it would also provide an opportunity for New Haven to bolster its tourism appeal and to inspire and educate youth about the history of slavery and abolition.
Dottie Green.
Dwight management team member Dottie Green tied in this grassroots push to save 95 and 97 Howe with the state legislature’s new mandate to include African American and Latino history in public school curricula.
“It is imperative that the historicity of the Dwight community is maintained as much as possible and is not destroyed by demolition,” she said, “and that we don’t lose that part of New Haven’s, Connecticut’s, and the nation’s history.”
Historic Buildings Aren’t Just “Potential Vacant Land”
New Haven Preservation Trust’s Elizabeth Holt.
Elizabeth Holt, the New Haven Preservation Trust’s director of preservation services, testified that the buildings should be saved not just for their historical significance, but because of the dangerous precedent their demolition would set.
Even though she had toured the two buildings with the developers months ago and had co-signed their initial findings that the buildings are in serious structural disrepair, she said the preservation trust now stands firmly in opposition to the demolition.
“Development sites are becoming scarce in Downtown New Haven,” she said, “and developers are being forced into surrounding neighborhoods in search of space for new construction. If demolition is not stopped a precedent will be set in the Dwight Street neighborhood and could soon extend throughout the entire city, leaving these buildings and many others like them vulnerable to demolition.
“We cannot allow historic buildings to be seen only as potential vacant land. If developers are permitted to pick and choose neighborhood buildings to demolish, the results will ultimately have a terrible effect on our harmonious streetscapes.”
Joe Fekieta.
Dwight neighbor Joe Fekieta offered a more personal, plaintive take on the “demolition slippery slope” argument. He said he’s lived in New Haven for 65 years, and has seen hundreds of historic, neighborhood-enriching buildings laid low in the name of the progress.
“When a building comes down,” he said, “a friend is lost. A relationship disappears.”
He said the boxy modern designs of many of the new apartment complexes pale in comparison to the warmth and detail of many of the existing 19th-century buildings on the block.
“They’re almost like slums of the future,” he said about the new designs. Pointing to the packet of 715 signatures that Martson and her neighbors gathered in opposition to the demolition, he said that many more can be gathered if that would help stop the imminent tear down.
Dwight Local Historic District?
City Plan Director Aïcha Woods (right).
City Plan Director Aïcha Woods told the Dwight neighbors who turned out in force for Wednesday’s meeting that she was “so impressed and moved” by their passion for stopping this demolition.
The city is currently undergoing a development boom of mostly market rate apartments, she said. While there are plenty of upsides to that growth, in terms of a bolstered tax base and more housing units and investment dollars pouring into the city, she said, there are some serious risks. The loss of historic, albeit currently derelict, buildings is one of those.
This problem is therefore not unique to these two Howe Street buildings, she said. In fact, she said, she knows that there are already quite a few demolition requests in the pipeline from developers looking to tear down existing properties to make way for new construction.
“I would really urge the Dwight community to organize themselves to be a local historic district,” Woods said. “That is a high bar, but you have so much energy going, I have no doubt that you could pull it off with this outreach effort.”
That would require a lengthy nomination, map drawing, and petition process, she said, which would ultimately require two-thirds of property owners in eligible historic homes within the potential district to vote in favor of the formation. But if successful, she said, the HDC would then have purview not just over alterations to homes within the Dwight district, but also would have the power to approve or reject demolition bids.
“We wont be able to address this on a case by case basis,” she said. “We really need to have more robust regulatory tools to actually enforce the historic preservation aspect.”