THE HISTORY OF DWIGHT AND EDGEWOOD is important to the citizens who live there. The streets that make up the neighborhood are the homes of many important organizations, including Dwight School, Saint Raphael’s and The Holocaust Memorial. These streets are also a home to a diverse group of people.

The Streets

Several streets define the neighborhood. These include Dwight Street, Whalley Ave, and Edgewood Ave. Dwight Street was first opened in 1840, named after Timothy Dwight, who was the president of Yale College. By 1854 Dwight was extended into Whalley Ave. Dwight was a wealthy community; historical photographs show that many of its residents dressed in fancy clothes and drove expensive cars. In the early 1900’s when cars were first introduced only wealthy people owned them. The first car to be driven on these streets was the Ford automobile. Back then when you drove down Dwight you might have seen African-Americans chauffeuring their employees around.

Whalley Avenue was opened to travel in 1797. This street was named for Colonel Edward Whalley. He was one of the three regicides, judges who escaped when Charles II took over the throne of England. In the mid 1800’s Whalley Avenue was a just hilly dirt road, with many trees surrounding it. By the late 1800’s the roads was graded. Also, trolley tracks were laid along Whalley, which made travel a lot faster and easier than was possible than by horse and carriage. In the 1900’s the roads was finally paved. There were fewer trees, and cement sidewalks separated people traveling by foot from car traffic. By that time cars were used frequently and the sidewalks made things a lot safer.

Edgewood Avenue was named in 1883; it used to be called Martin Street but was later renamed after Donald Grant Mitchell’s home. Mitchell donated the land he owned to the city of New Haven after he passed away, making room for Edgewood Park. Mr. Mitchell called that side of the neighborhood the “edge of the woods” because it was near the forest that once surrounded New Haven. There have always been many houses on Edgewood Avenue; it was mostly a residential street and has always been such throughout New Haven’s history.

The Places

Along these streets are located many important businesses, schools and memorials. First is the Holocaust Memorial on Whalley Ave. This monument represents all the lives that were taken during the Holocaust. There are six iron bars standing around the monument to honor the 6 million people who lost their lives during the holocaust.

One of the schools in this neighborhood is Dwight school. This school was built in the early 1900’s; photographs show us that when the school first opened there were mainly Caucasian boys and girls who attended the school. They girls mainly wore white tops and black skirts and the boys wore black suits with white under shirts. By 1924 the school had become more diverse and the children were able to dress more freely.

Two hospitals, Saint Raphael’s and Grace Hospital, are important to the history of the neighborhood. Grace Hospital was on West Chapel Street, and was a community hospital. This hospital was started in the 1920’s. Two thirds of the members of the board of physicians and surgeons worked at Grace Hospital. The hospital mainly relied on middle class and wealthy patients to keep themselves going. In 1922 they built a private pavilion with 109 beds. By 1927 they admitted 5,266 patients, treated 1,253 emergency cases and delivered 651 births. But they still struggled financially. By the time the hospital closed down they treated 7,315 patients. Saint Raphael’s, on the other hand, is still here today. It opened in 1942. In 1907 the sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth sent 14 physicians to come to New Haven to start a hospital. The mission was to start and maintain a successful hospital. Because of this they just decided to name the hospital Saint Raphael’s Hospital. They started out with only 12 beds and as the years went by the expanded into more and more rooms. Neighborhood residents feel that having a hospital so close to their neighborhood is good because if anything was to happen it would be right there.

The People

As years went by many different types of ethnic groups moved into the neighborhood. In the early 1900’s mainly wealthy whites lived in this neighborhood; only 9.6% of the population was black. As the years went on the neighborhood got more and more diverse. In the 1980’s there were more blacks (at 44.7%) than any other race. In the 1990’s, the black population increased to 50.3%; only 38% of whites. over the years, Hispanics and Asians also began to arrive in the neighborhood. By 2000, the neighborhood was 30.5% whites, 36.3% blacks, .4% Asian and 4.7% of Hispanics. According to a neighborhood resident Joan Gillette, the residents used to host block parties so every one would get a chance to get to know each other. That helped them interact with each other and talk about the problems they had.

In conclusion, I would recommend you to move to Dwight if you had a chance because it is a great place to raise kids. Even if you did not have children, there are still many things you can do as an adult. I think Dwight and Edgewood is a great neighborhood; I hope you come to love it, too.

- Tia Streater