Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut

Neighborhoods and details

The neighborhoods column here should reflect the official neighborhoods defined by the City of New Haven, IMO. That provides a complete partition of the city. Some information about overlaps of HDs with neighborhoods is minor and should be relegated to footnotes within this article (attached to the neighborhood mentions in the neighborhoods column), or left for explanation in more detail in the linked NRHP HD articles, and should not dominate the description of the HD in the description column. --doncram (talk) 13:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

However, to be clear, all neighborhoods that a historic district is in, should be listed in the neighborhoods column, in order for this to be factual and encyclopedic. Another editor has been deleting some of those. --doncram (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Developing articles and possible DYKs

Hey, i'm proceeding with starting articles about the missing NRHP-listed places here, and would welcome help. Since the NRHP documents for almost all CT places are now on-line, it's usually possible to do a pretty decent job. Many of the places, though, seem pretty boring, based on just the NRHP documents. Maybe it's the places or these particular NRHP nomination writers. Anyhow, pics and other sources would be great. And, one that jumps out as more interesting than others is John Cook House, where i just happened on the fact that it has an asserted-to-be-rare architectural feature, sandstone quoining, which might work well in a DYK nomination. I wonder if HABS pics are available for this one, esp. as it is one of New Haven's oldest homes. --doncram (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Regular photo available for it, which would work well with a quoin-oriented hook.

Other articles for which DYKs might work well are:

• Morris House (New Haven, Connecticut), built in 1700, partially burned by British in 1779. Photos from recent, from 1972 (exterior), from 1937 (exterior and interior) available. Article started 4/15.
• Goffe Street Special School for Colored Children, perhaps most important black-history-related building in New Haven, tho no pic seems available at Habs or otherwise. Article started 4/15.

User:Staib developed this one nicely and got a DYK for it. :) --doncram (talk) 22:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

John Cook article started 13 April, so DYK nom by 18 Apr needed, first. --doncram (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortuneately the NPS documents site is not working now for me, and may be down for weekend then, so the DYK by 18 apr won't happen. Possible later with 5x expansion from still-short article size. Perhaps: Did you know..."that the oldest stone house in New Haven features rare sandstone quoins and a third floor ballroom?" --doncram (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Also i am adding NRHP nomination document links to all articles, where missing. Done through item 17 for now. Usually adding just a little bit of info from the nom, to the articles that have already existed, but there's more info which could be used to develop these better. Part of improving all to much better than minimal stubs. Is anyone watching? :) --doncram (talk) 19:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Update: NRHP documents added to all (i think) articles, often with a bit more development of the articles. If any are missing, please note. --doncram (talk) 20:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

numbers in lede

The lede currently states "There are 252 properties and districts listed on the National Register in New Haven County. The city of New Haven is the location of 59 of these properties and districts, including 21 National Historic Landmarks; they are listed here, while the 195 properties and districts in the remaining parts of the county, including 1 National Historic Landmark, are covered in National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven County, Connecticut."

It seems not to total properly, 59+195 is not equal 252, and i see only about 8 rows indicated as NHLs, rather than 21 claimed. Seems messed up, 21 would be too many i think. --doncram (talk) 08:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Location issues

The coordinates are not all accurate, need checking and fixing. For example, the Caroline Nicoll House, stated to be next to the John Cook House, shows up far away on the linked Google map. I think the coords for the Nicoll House in this list-article and in its own article must be wrong. --doncram (talk) 13:51, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Coords for this one problem corrected by User:Polaron in the Caroline Nicoll House article, and applied now also in this list-article. Thanks! --doncram (talk) 17:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

neighborhood mentions

The usefulness of the neighborhood info now displayed here, following City of New Haven's partition of the city into neighborhood service areas has been vigorously disputed in many articles and Talk pages. Given no consensus that the neighborhoods are useful terms, I see no need to have them in this article about NRHP-listed places. The locations of places are well conveyed by addresses and coordinates. So I am inclined to entirely remove the neighborhood column information. A lesser step would be to remove the column, but move neighborhood mentions to the location column. This follows similar discussion at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Stamford, Connecticut#neighborhood info sourcing and at similar Greenwich NRHP list article talk. --doncram (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the neighborhood names aren't of interest to you, but that doesn't mean that the information doesn't have value to encyclopedia users, Doncram. To me, it seems likely that many users would want to sort one of these lists by neighborhood, or would click on a neighborhood/section link to find the article about the part of town where a particular listed property is located. --Orlady (talk) 18:34, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, they were of interest to me in the past, as I was attracted to the idea of using the list-article to also convey info about the nice official partition of the city into its service area neighborhoods. But the long-running disputes about many of them soured me a bit, such as seemingly endless arguing that Prospect Hill neighborhood (which includes 4 disjoint historic districts) is the same as just one historic district, Prospect Hill Historic District (which actually extends into three official neighborhoods). Orlady, I believe you yourself speedy deleted a list-article about the New Haven neighborhoods, and/or otherwise opposed creation of verified information about them at some/many points in the past. Now, with this list-article now having substantial development in the description column, as an editorial matter I further don't want to see a whole column used for neighborhood info. The info is not really clearly sourced. I am not sure what would be proper exactly for objective information like locations relative to objective, well defined neighborhoods. Actually I do believe some of the neighborhood assertions present are slanted ones where Polaron was making the assertion that a given historic district is in only one not two or three areas, as part of other arguments that various historic districts are the same as various neighborhoods and that their articles should be merged. So I do dispute the general accuracy of the info here.

It just seems not worthwhile to tolerate endless machinations about neighborhoods in NRHP articles, here where Polaron has argued neighborhoods are not what they are defined by the city, and elsewhere where P argues non-defined neighborhoods form a partition, etc. I think it's best just to delete the mentions here, where they do not specifically help the reader interested in the historic sites in New Haven. The locations are very well described by street addresses and coordinates. --doncram (talk) 21:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I oppose removal of the neighborhood column as neighborhood identification is very strong in New Haven. The sorting by neighborhood would also be lost. Right now, the list is based on the neighborhood planning area groupings, which is fine as we need to choose one set of groupings for verifiability. Fix any errors if you must but this is useful in a city with very distinct neighborhoods. --Polaron | Talk 22:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I spent some time browsing and see conceptual errors of various types. There is at least one false claim (and probably more) in this list-article, about which neighborhood(s) a historic district is in, if the official neighborhood partition is accepted. If something other than the City's official partition is intended, then we are no where, and everything is to be disputed. There are many assertions in this list-article regarding neighborhoods which are not supported by the articles about the neighborhoods and/or are not supported by the articles about the NRHP historic districts and properties. In my view a NRHP list-article like this should be a summary of information in the NRHP articles (and in the neighborhood articles if those are mentioned); it should not be a compendium of personal knowledge or original research. It should not be the location of new encyclopedic material about the neighborhoods; that should be established clearly, elsewhere, which has not happened. Past editing has been contentious, with bias towards "proving" that various districts are the same as various neighborhoods, as part of general arguing that the articles should be merged.

Some review: In February 2010, Polaron offered/claimed several times that he would develop neighborhood articles over the course of 6-7 months, which has not happened. There was lots else going on, and his offer was probably contingent on other things that were not agreed. So I don't wish to hold him to any promise there, but my point is that this has been long-running and he's had plenty of time to make the situation better. In March 2010 i created an article for Neighborhoods of New Haven, Connecticut and asked at its Talk page and elsewhere for Polaron to assist in creating an overall map showing the partition of the city into its neighborhoods, and clarifying where historic districts lay. We are all volunteers; Polaron has no obligation to respond to such a request. But, argument on multiple fronts has continued where it is argued that a given neighborhood is not as defined by the city, and so on. Orlady put disputed tag upon, and tried to remove the neighborhoods article. Argument took place from February 2010 on at User talk:Acroterion/NRHP HD issues list#General wrangling and User talk:Acroterion/NRHP HD issues list#New Haven City HDs and User talk:Acroterion/NRHP HD issues list#General comments on City of New Haven HDs and Talk:Prospect Hill (New Haven) and elsewhere. There is still disagreement about basics of article structure in September 2010.

Eventually, I conclude that there is not encyclopedic quality undisputed information available about neighborhoods of New Haven. I observe, still, now, disagreement between fact and what is in this New Haven NRHP list-article. I don't myself want to develop information about neighborhoods. I expect that doing so would be contentious. I don't want to develop information in each of the NRHP articles about which neighborhoods they extend into. I expect that doing so would be contentious. I am not myself sure about what is appropriate sourcing for neighborhood overlaps. Is it original research or personal knowledge to make statements based on my comparing various maps? I would tend to think that if prepared maps can be prepared which can be included in articles which display boundaries of both neighborhoods and historic districts that those would tend to make some assertions obvious, and get beyond the need for finding a source that explicitly describes a relationship. But, to do that kind of work is beyond me and not necessary either. We simply don't need the neighborhood assertions.

It seems reasonable now to remove the neighborhood information, as it is biased and at least in part factually inaccurate, and it is contentious, and is not necessary for an NRHP list-article. The locations of the NRHP places are well described by coordinates and by street addresses and shown in the linked Google/Bing map. There is no need here to identify neighborhoods towards helping with a future split of a too-large city NRHP article; this list-article is a fine size and does not need to be split.

If others want to develop clear information about neighborhoods, the way is open, in an overall neighborhoods article and in the component articles. As i suggested in February and March 2010, Polaron, please go ahead, elsewhere. If after 6 months or a year you have developed reliable stable material, then perhaps this list-article could be revised to include neighborhood mentions. For now, the obvious way to clear contention and bad information is to remove the neighborhood information, which is nonessential, contentious, and inadequately sourced. I'll pause for some further comment, then expect to proceed with removing it. --doncram (talk) 01:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't have the patience to attempt to read that entire wall of words. The general flavor I get from it is that Doncram wants to delete that column from this particular list because he associates the column with a certain person or persons he doesn't like. If that interpretation is not true, please restate it in fewer words. --Orlady (talk) 03:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Orlady's comment, with edit summary " I don't like the wall of words and the personal invective it seems to include" doesn't make sense. As Orlady notes, she didn't read the above. --doncram (talk) 13:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

If you have a valid point to make, it shouldn't take you five long paragraphs to make it, and you shouldn't have to make it personal, nor review months of past discussions about other articles. I get the impression that you figure you can "win" Wikipedia discussions (this one and others) by throwing so many words onto a talk page that everyone else will get tired of the discussion and leave you alone. --Orlady (talk) 14:23, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure, if you leave the article structure of Connecticut historic districts/neighborhoods to the person who will develop them, I can commit to starting development. There's no point in me writing if it is going to be butchered by you. Can you commit to not touching New Haven historic district/neighborhood article structures for the next 6 months while I merge what needs to be merged and proceed on expanding them? It is fine to use the city plan boundaries for this list as we have to choose one set of boundaries anyway. If there are any errors, let's fix them. But the neighborhood information is very useful here. --Polaron | Talk 03:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Polaron, no offense, but I think you're suggesting that for now, for here, you are willing to accept the city of New Haven's definitions of neighborhoods, but that you wish to reserve the right to contend later and elsewhere that the neighborhoods are different. I don't see a decent overall article about the neighborhoods, or stable, sourced individual articles about the neighborhoods, and the historic district articles are contentious and incomplete with respect to mention of corresponding neighborhoods. I think the definitions of the neighborhoods are muddied by lack of sourcing and by lack of decent maps and by long-running contention. Since information about the neighborhoods is not essential for this list article about NRHP places, and even seems to detract from the formatting and understanding about the NRHP places, again I think it is best to remove the neighborhood assertions. --doncram (talk) 13:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

So, if there is contention between Doncram and somebody, the appropriate course of action is to go with Doncram's way? So, just disregard any concerns by others? Anyway, choose one set of neighborhood boundaries for the list and let's use it. If the city planning area is the one you prefer, that's fine, and I've fixed the list to conform with that. With that definition then there is no longer a problem of lack of sourcing or maps for boundaries. There is no need to remove this information. Anyway, will you leave the New Haven historic districts alone and let me work on the article structure for the next 6 months or so while I work on the neighborhood articles one by one? --Polaron | Talk 13:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Point of order

Eventually, I conclude that there is not encyclopedic quality undisputed information available about neighborhoods of New Haven. I observe, still, now, disagreement between fact and what is in this New Haven NRHP list-article.
Doncram, these are also Connecticut articles. You are a member of WikiProject Connecticut, are you not? Then you should be able to see that (at least some of!) what Polaran has been adding is of some value to the CT project, if not the NRHP. There is such a thing as {{Citation needed|date=October 2010}}, too. Automatically reverting everything he does as he does isn't justifiable. Markvs88 (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Final photo?

I added a self-authored photo of the New Haven Lawn Club. I believe this completes the photographs for this list. Nickknack00 (talk) 14:01, 10 April 2014 (UTC)