Church, Court, State, and Crown Streets bound the Ninth Square Historic District, a lively, well-preserved slice of Downtown New Haven. The district is bounded by Church, Court, State, and Crown Streets, and is centered on the intersection of Chapel and Orange Streets. Look around: most of the facades you see are late-19th and early-20th commercial buildings, but tucked among them are a number of commercial buildings from the first half of the 19th century — a rarity in most of Connecticut’s urban downtown areas.
The district was recognized for its importance when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Its name reaches back to the New Haven Colony’s 1637 plan of nine large squares, centered on the one that now houses the New Haven Green. Because the ninth square lay closest to the colony’s harbor, it was the first to develop a significant commercial presence.
In the 1820s the Farmington Canal was routed near this area, spurring growth, and when the canal right-of-way was later converted to railroad use, commercial development intensified in the second half of the 19th century. Chapel and Orange cross at this square's center, the first of the colony's nine to turn to commerce.