Allan Appel Photo
Doo-wop legend Parris and the mayor at Thursday’s celebration.
Some 377 years after the Puritans established their colony here and 60 after Fred Parris penned “In the Still of the Night” in the basement of a church in Morris Cove, live doo-wop and newly planted trees popped up at City Hall.
New Haven was throwing itself a 377th birthday party.
More than 100 people filled the atrium of City Hall Thursday afternoon for the occasion. It included the planting of the five trees — two New England apple trees out front and three magnolias on Orange Street in front of the Hall of Records, each representing a century of the city’s history and spirit, and, of course, one to grow on.
The event included a salute to its creative spirit, embodied in the achievements of Thomas Morrison, one of the founders of New Haven, and Hillhouse grad and doo-wop icon Fred Parris, the founder of the Five Satins.
Mayor Toni Harp escorted Parris down to the ceremonies, led by a bagpiper and “Morrison,” also known as city capital projects architect William MacMullen.
In a strong English accent, Morrison said he thought he was looking pretty good for his age, which is even older than New Haven itself, founded officially on April 24, 1638.
“History matters,” said the mayor. “In 22 years, when New Haven celebrates 400 years as a cornerstone of the American journey, these trees will stand tall and flower to commemorate those visionaries,” she said.
She noted that the five trees are also the beginning of more symbolic municipal plantings to come, marking each succeeding year in the run-up to the city’s major celebration of its 400th birthday, in 2038.
New Haven Museum Executive Director Margaret Anne Tockarshewky and City Historian Judith Schiff hailed the city’s energy, welcoming spirit, and creative and entrepreneurial ways.
The event’s chief organizer, city arts czar Andy Wolf (pictured), had corralled civic organizations, dubbed them “spiritual gardeners,” and asked them to sponsor a tree and a century.
Out back, Sydney Perry, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, checked out “her” magnolia, which was already flowering nicely.
Her organization and the John and Gladys Soto Foundation had teamed up to mark the 1839-to-1938 century, and hail Jewish and Puerto Rican cultural contributions to New Haven’s city life.
The previous century, 1739 to 1838, was sponsored by the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church, the oldest African-American Congregational church in the country, and symbolic of the struggle for social justice in America during that era.
Thursday afternoon the action was mainly inside the atrium as speakers told the story of how Parris, on leave from the army in 1954, penned the doo-wop anthem and recorded it in the basement of St. Bernadette Church on Townsend Avenue.
WNHU radio personality Richard Phillips, aka Rockin’ Richard, said the success of the song might have had to do with where it was recorded.
“We were blessed,” Phillips recalled Parris explaining.
The ceremony ended with local group Boogie Chillun performing “In the Still of the Night,” as well as three swinging, finger-snapping fifth-graders from Morris Cove’s Nathan Hale School doing their own version of an I‑Love-New Haven doo-wop.
How might the Puritan founders of New Haven have responded if they’d had a chance to hear “In the Still of the Night?”
“Give me a while to think about that,” Parris said, slyly.