Brick facades line the Chapel Street Historic District, a 23-acre slice of Downtown New Haven listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and you are inside it. This district occupies the southwestern corner of downtown, stretching from Park Street to Temple Street between Chapel and Crown, and from High Street to Temple Street between George and Crown. In 1984 it covered a five and a half block area containing 102 buildings, 76 of them counted as contributing.
Look around and you’ll see predominantly brick structures that represent a wide range of architectural styles. Maps show this neighborhood was residential in the eighteenth century and through the first quarter of the nineteenth century; commercial development began to take over at that time, though homes remained well represented. The oldest building here is the Ira Atwater House, built in 1817, a tangible link to that earlier era.
To the north this district meets the New Haven Green and the Yale University campus; to the west it borders the Dwight Street Historic District, while its eastern and southern edges abut more modern development. Somewhere among these brick facades is the Ira Atwater House of 1817, the oldest building in the district and your link to that earlier era.