Photoessay #1918 - New Haven sites

The other day I found a site associated with the Yale library with historical maps of New Haven. They were in a special format where you had to download a plug-in. My history with this kind of thing is dismal. But I tried it (Lizard Tech) and, to my surprise, it worked.

I worked mostly with the 1852 map which was when MZ moved to New Haven.

My thrill yesterday (or one of them) was to find Cherry St!!! Of course this is related to my great great grandfather Maier Zunder. He listed his address as 41 Cherry St. But, according to Google, no Cherry Street in New Haven. Mary Ann had never heard of Cherry St, neither had the archivist Marvin. But it had to be there.

I was eyeballing the 1852 map and I found it! It no longer exists, disappears from the map in 1955. Cherry St. was a short street that ran east from State Street in the Nine Squares area between Chapel and Court Sts. It crossed the railroad tracks, ran a few blocks. At Olive, it became Wooster St, which still exists. The westernmost end still contains the train tracks and a small park area, the Union Street Parkway. Torrington Supply and associated parking lots now occupy the Cherry St. site. An industrial style building with a For Lease sign stands where Cherry St. intersected with Union St.

Flat out not there

Here are the sites marked on the 1852 map

A - 41 Cherry Street, Maier's 1870 address
B - 212 Orange Street, residence when Reginz Zunder died, now the Post Office and back of City Hall
C - 352 Orange Street where Maier lived at the time of Delia's wedding in 1894
D - 54 Church Street site of Samuel Zunder's store, really nothing there now
E - 221-7 State Street - site of Maier Zunder's wholesale grocery. Still a commercial site.
F - 74 Pearl Street - first home of Maier's daughter Cordelia and her husband Paul Weil. Maier had obtained and furnished the house. It still stands

Yale College is shown in the small area just west of the Public Square. It now takes up many blocks to the west and north almost all the way to Orange St.

Took me quite awhile to put this altogether even though I had most of the addresses.

Good luck to Janine who will be interviewing for a PhD program at Yale very soon. Go Janine!