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        Volume CCXXXIII, Number 30          February, 2003              Page 4

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Once again, as threatened, our intrepid travel correspondent, Robert F. Scott, investigates a burg within easy driving distance and reports back on all of the splendor that can be absorbed during a 36-minute tour.

This week: New Haven, Conn.: big-city crime, small-town amenities

5:00 p.m.

The traveller arriving in New Haven on the eponymous train line is greeted by a magnificent station, well befitting this formerly vibrant transportation hub. In front of the station lies . . . nothing, for it is nowhere near downtown. While no cabs are available at the station, several gentlemen in battered Buicks are more than willing to chauffeur tourists (or as they are quaintly called in the Queen City of the Quinnipiac, "chucks") to the center of town for a mere $20, plus tip.

I had heard that America's first hamburger stand was located in New Haven and sought to visit, but it, like apparently almost everything else in the city, closes at local sunset. The proprietor was just pulling down the steel security gates when he spied us approaching on Elm St. He waived with his right hand, while placing his left hand on his holster.

Our cicerone advised us that further livery service would cost another $20, so we set out on foot to sample the delights of downtown New Haven.

New Haven's broad thoroughfares are refreshingly free of the "madding crowd"

5:10 p.m.

The New Haven Green is a pleasing square dappled with mature elms and other equally-venerabe forms of life who appear (like the trees) to be more or less permanently installed, whether sprawling on park benches, crouching behind statues or just sidling up to the traveller offering a variety of goods and services.

Which is just as well, for the circumference of the Green, although the heart of downtown New Haven, offers the tourist . . . nothing. Not a store, not a restaurant, not a bar, not a hotel, not a theater, not a single source of refreshment or amusement. The Puritans who founded the city would have been pleased.

Tho' the elms are handsome, the visitor to New Haven would appreciate a restaurant, a hotel, an inn, a tavern . . . anything.

Once New Haven was the vibrant commercial hub of Southern New England. The streets were lined with smart shops like Edward Malley, Macy's and Arthur Rosenberg. We gathered that those days ended a long time ago.

5:17 p.m.

My eye chances upon the promisingly named "Chapel Square Mall," entered through a narrow opening in an impressive modern complex. Surely there will be sustenance and diversion inside. The space is large and open, but apparently the retail ventures therein were not entirely successful, as all are dark and shuttered, even the former Burger King. A lone pushcart vendor sat forlornly in a corner offering cut-rate phone cards and low-priced "Nolex" watches. I asked him where I could find something to eat. The man appeared to misunderstand my question, for his only response was to unzip his fly.

5:22 p.m.

George Bush ate and drank at this "secret society," but I couldn't and you won't

I recall that New Haven is the home of Yale University, which surely must offer the hungry a chance to eat. The dark gothic towers of the university do not exactly shout welcome, but I perservere and in due course find myself in a cafeteria line, only to be ejected by a massive functionary who invites me to get "my sorry white ass outta this dining hall."

5:24 p.m.

Back outside, I am reminded that the major streets of this fair city – Whalley, Whitney and Dixwell – are named after the three regicides who lopped off the head of Charles I. Upon the restoration of the Stuarts, they fled for their lives and were sheltered in and around New Haven. The city's tolerance for violent crime continues down to the present. It boasts a murder rate that would do Detroit proud, and the traveller is cautioned to get off the streets after sundown unless accompanied by armed security guards.

    My step quickens as I am eager to avoid the fate of Charles I. I decide that the better part of valor might be a retreat to the train station. Although it is situated at some distance from the downtown, most of the intervening space is the city's famous "urban renewal" zone. The former slums of the area were knocked down almost forty years earlier by the city's crusading mayor Richard Lee. However, due to various economic reverses, no money was ever found to rebuild the site. It remains frozen in time, unchanged since the days of the New Frontier: a barren plain, devoid of any life other than clumps of grass and mangy squirrels.

New Haven's urban renewal zone remains a work in progress, offering light and air but not much else

5:36 p.m.

As I approach the train station, I recall dimly that within its vast, handsome space there was a Dunkin' Donuts cart. Thus fortified, I hop the first train that pulls into the station. The litany of "station stops" is redolent with the romance of travel: Wallingford, Meriden, Hartford, Windsor Locks. I could go on, but these thrilling cities beckon me.

Next week: 36 minutes in Lawrence, Massachusetts