Townsend Block
1000 Chapel Street (New Haven Visitor Information)
Townsend Block, c. 1892. Courtesy Joe Taylor.
This is one of three commercial Greek Revival style buildings built in the 1830s which remain on Chapel Street. The other two are the Exchange Building (#8 on this tour, corner of Church Street) and the Street Building (#5 on this tour, corner of State Street). Before these were built, the shops along Chapel Street had looked like houses with storefronts. The Townsend Building now houses the New Haven Visitor Information Center, which has brochures and flyers about additional cultural sites, stores, tours and special events in the City. The building is also the home of Claire’s Corner Copia, a popular vegetarian restaurant founded by Claire LaPia Criscuolo and her late husband Frank Criscuolo on September 17, 1975.
Text source courtesy Elizabeth Brown, New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design.
On the Downtown Tour
1 | New Haven Green
2 | Amistad Memorial
3 | Knights of Columbus First Office
4 | Young Men’s Hebrew Association
5 | First St. Patrick’s Day Parade
6 | Shartenberg’s Department Store
10 | Poli’s Bijou Theater
11 | First St. Mary’s R.C. Church
12 | Edw. Malley Co. and Gamble-Desmond’s
13 | Temple Street Congregational Church/B’nai Jacob Synagogue
14 | First Knights of Columbus Headquarters
15 | Shubert Theater
16 | Townsend Block
17 | WNHC TV
19 | St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church
20 | St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church/Ukrainian National Home