Here are some links to information and articles, mostly in the non-New Haven press (so you don't have to worry about local bias.)
Wed expect nothing less than braininess from the host city of the International Festival of Art & Ideas
If you've been to downtown New Haven lately, you know that it has come alive. It's as if someone flipped a switch. There are great restaurants, clubs, museums, theaters, shops. People live there. This is the downtown that thrived after it knocked down a sports arena. It has two train stations and two all-night grocery stores ...
Firehouse 12, a stylishly repurposed 1905 firehouse in the Ninth Square neighborhood here, has earned a reputation as the pre-eminent spot for improvised music in the region ...
the [newly opened] Study [boutique hotel] makes a good base for exploring Yale and the surrounding neighborhood. The Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Yale Center for British Art are all in easy walking distance ... the district is also full of trendy student-oriented shops, along with ethnic and fine-dining cafes and restaurants.
Work started in October on the $180 million, 500-unit apartment tower, which is slated for completion in the fall of 2010. Monthly rents will range from $1,000 for studio and one-bedroom apartments to $6,000 for several three-bedroom penthouses atop the 31-story building ... [the developer says that] "the interesting thing is that we hear about the national economic problems, but I have not seen evidence in New Haven or at Yale of any dramatic change ...Note that in April 2009 national firm Cushman Wakeman found that New Haven has the lowest commerical real estate vacancy rate of any city in the country. Some reasons why are explained in the (local) blog Design New Haven.
Savvy theatergoers know New Haven as a place to see top-flight dramatic talent at a significant discount ...
The college's neo-Gothic buildings gild the city's oldest avenues, but it's not all heady Ivy League intellectualism in New Haven. The city has also actively cultivated the artistic left side of its brain ...enough artists have gravitated to the city that every autumn more than 500 of them open their studios to the public over three consecutive weekends. And all those artists have had an impact.
... the city's continuing efforts to revitalize the blocks around the historic town green yield airy lofts and stylish restaurants serving exotic cuisine.
DOWNTOWN New Haven has been transformed over the last five years from Yale's mundane backyard into a vibrant neighborhood of shops, theaters and restaurants ...
The Hartford Courant talks about the recent movement of young people into downtown New Haven:
In the past three years, New Haven's downtown has experienced an influx of 20- and 30-somethings that is bringing new life and vibrancy to the city. As more singletons and young marrieds appear, so do the restored apartments, sleek and funky bars, restaurants, coffee shops and boutiques they crave. And it's a go-to place for nightlife.An article in the Financial Times noted the appeal of the downtown to older residents as well. The Washington Post emphasized the revival of the city and its tradition as a center for theater and culture:
Today New Haven is a quaint retreat from busier cities, with 10 times the culture.Later, the Post notes that
Creating theater buzz has been key to the revival, and theaters are tucked in everywhere . . . In other places, at other times, New Haven offers the symphony, summer cabaret, galleries, the grand exhibits of the Yale Center for British Art, and smaller spaces with concerts and solo performers. In June the city hosts a New Festival of Arts and Ideas, luring dance, music and theater talent from around the world.In 2002, the New York Times focused on the reasons for the revival of real estate markets in the city, in a follow-up to a 2000 piece on an earlier stage of New Haven's residential renaissance.
It's now a cultural hub with a thriving nightlife. The residential streets are quiet and peaceful, the town green is well lighted and inviting. But on a recent visit, what I saw above all was a pedestrian-size town with big culinary ambitions.In 2002-2003, cookbook author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman reviewed a series of New Haven restaurants for the NYT. Some of those reviews are collected here. One of the restaurants reviewed by Bittman is Ibiza, whose chef, Luis Bollo, was named 2003 "Chef of the Year" in Esquire magazine's list of the best U.S. restaurants. They called Ibiza "the best Spanish restaurant in the country."
href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/22/nyregion/dining-out-trendy-newcomer-in-new-haven.html?scp=14&sq=dining%20%22new%20haven%22&st=cse">This search will pull up a partial list of NYT reviews of New Haven restaurants, over many years. Older NYT reviews include those of the standout Malaysian restaurant Bentara and of Le Petit Cafe in nearby Branford.
Relatively recent NYT reviews include those of Thali, Thali too L'Orcio, Lalibela, Heirloom, Caseus, The Terrace, 116 Crown, Skappo, Bespoke, Rice Pot,has produced 89 world and American premieres, four of which have received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Theatre has sent ten productions to Broadway, earning nine Tony Awards and a total of 37 Tony Award nominations. Recognized as one of the leading regional theatres in the United States, Yale Rep itself received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre . . .Astoundingly for a city this size, there is also the Long Wharf theater, which also boasts multiple Tony's and Pulitzer's and notes that
More than twenty productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or off-Broadway, including Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Down the Garden Paths, Red, Mystery School, Hughie, Broken Glass, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Quartermaine.The Yale School of Drama is one of the nation's top theater schools. It puts on first rate productions of its own, including the often original and experimental work of the Yale Cabaret.
The most famous of the summer arts festivals is the International Festival of Arts and Ideas that fills the city's art venues for 17 days in June. The rest of the summer is filled with a Jazz festival, a Blues and Roots festival and other activities.
A partial list of local art museums is as follows:
New Haven county has a 2007 population of 843,571, with an median household income of $58,528 (well above the national median of $50,000.)
We are $16 by frequent commuter train from New York City and 2 hours from Boston by Amtrak Acela train.
The restored train station, right downtown, get us quickly to every Northeastern corridor university: Harvard, MIT, Brown, Columbia, NYU, Princeton, Rutgers, Penn, Johns Hopkins and so forth.
Shoreline beaches are 15 minutes away; Rhode Island's ocean beaches are a little more than one hour's drive. Within a few hours drive, you will find the quaint Berkshires, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the wilderness of the Adirondacks, the mansions of Newport and of the Hudson River Valley, and the Cape Cod National Seashore.
Bradley airport, a 50 minute drive, has direct service to nearly every major U.S. hub, but typically requires a connection to the West Coast. The three New York airports are about 75 miles away and obviously offer direct service to the major cities of the world.
The tiny New Haven "Tweed" airport, 10 minutes from campus, currently offers frequent flights by USAir to its Philidelphia hub. On-going runway improvements are spuring efforts to attract additional flights by other airlines to two or three additional hub cities
Contrary to popular opinion, Connecticut is not all cities and suburbs.For example, Connecticut's Blue Trail system includes more than 800 miles of trail, often going for long distances along the state's trap-rock ridges. The 2,135 mile Appalacian Trail goes through the Northwest corner of the state, about an hour away. The New Haven Regional Water Authority maintains a large system of trails.A gratifyingly high proportion of the state's woodlands are preserved as state parks and state forests.
In fact, the only New England state with more miles of hiking is New Hampshire.
As for biking, Yale Cycling Team has extensive local ride maps.
We have many multi-use biking trails, especially good for local use is the Farmington Canal trail, which (in various stages of completion) runs from the New Haven harbor well into Massachusets. The 12(?) mile long section from New Haven's Hillhouse Avenue, through Hamden and into Cheshire is nearly completed, with final touches to the New Haven / Hamden connection in progress and scheduled for summer/fall 2009 completion. See here for a description of the section in/near New Haven, but note that the southern dotted and dashed parts are completed (or nearly so); look here for northern sections of the trail.