What is New Haven Really Like?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
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<p>wannabe: Drbigboy may have been being condescending, and so may I have been in my earlier post, although I was trying not to be. But I was serious in my earlier post. If you feel uncomfortable around the University of Arizona, then it’s hard to believe you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around Yale. I can’t be perfectly sure, because it’s been a long time since I was in Tucson, and maybe the U of A area has gotten a lot worse, and the Yale area has gotten a bit nicer. </p>

<p>Of course, I agree with everyone that there’s no rational reason for you to feel uncomfortable, but feelings aren’t always rational. You SHOULD think about whether you would be happier at a suburban or exurban college. I don’t believe that’s the right way to go, but I also don’t believe that people should feel uncomfortable where they go to college. That can really have a negative effect on your experience.</p>

42

<p>I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be condescending (although I can see how it does sound it). It just seems that the people who have “concerns and/or fears” of New Haven are those who fit one or more of those characteristics.</p>

<p>My main point however was to say that if you have a problem with New Haven, there is someone else who doesn’t mind New Haven and who will love to be at Yale.</p>

43

<p>Another thing to consider is that learning to love cities is not a bad exercise. Figuring out how to be safe, how to get to NYC on a train, and how to ride the subway are great life skills. Spending time around all kinds of people never hurt anyone, either. The experience of living in a new place will serve you well. After four years you may decide that you’ll never be comfortable in a typical urban area, but that’s important to find out. You also may find that city life is interesting, stimulating and just your cup of tea. Most people’s likes and dislikes aren’t fully formed at 17. You might want to give yourself a chance to try something outside your comfort zone. After two weeks at home in our safe, quiet corner of the west, my daughter can’t wait to get back to New Haven. Two years ago I thought she could only be happy in a place like Hanover. I was dead wrong.</p>

44

<p>Excellent post, riverrunner. We live in a suburb of Philadelphia, and starting at age 14 or so our kids began taking the commuter train into the city and exploring. At 16, D began going to NYC regularly on her own to visit friends and relatives there. She now knows how to navigate a subway/bus system, find her way home if lost, and has developed some street smarts. It’s understandable that someone from a rural area wouldn’t know about city life, but I’m constantly amazed at the number of D’s suburban peers who don’t even know how to take their local train into the city, which is all of a 15-20 minute ride.</p>

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<p>my husband went to college in new haven, law school in cambridge, and worked in NYC for 6 yrs … I viewed this as a plus when we first dated, as he was familiar with and comfortable in big cities, though he chose to live in a small city… one of my summer sitters never wanted to leave Maine… but went to a college outside of Albany… did a semester in London… and now lives outside of Boston… it can be hard to stretch oneself, but you will only improve your own understanding of what is really important to you when you do stretch. New Haven is safe if you are smart. Boston is safe if you are smart. NYC is safe if you are smart… it is all relative… our oldest did 4 yrs in New Haven… and our youngest is going to be there for 4 years… we are delighted we get to visit again for 4 yrs also… we would have been happy with other locations if our youngest had chosen differently, but New Haven is a great place to spend time. Resource rich location, great restaurants, fun shopping… free museums that you can roam for an hour and feel better coming out than going in… its all good…</p>

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<p>Booklady, for a while my kids’ school ran a program for 8th graders on a couple Saturdays, teaching them how to take the trains into Center City and use the busses and subways to get around once there. Some kids didn’t need it, but lots did. Unfortunately, not every kid who needed it chose to participate. When my son was in 10th grade, the parents of one of his close friends – basically, the most protective parents we know – asked my son to teach theirs how to use public transportation. They lived a block from a bus line and three from a commuter rail station, and their kid had never gone anywhere without being driven by someone.</p>

<p>I agree completely that one of the benefits of going to college in a city is learning how to navigate cities and to take advantage of their resources. But some kids aren’t ready for that, even at 18 or 20. A cousin of mine from an isolated midwestern college town went to the University of Chicago and spent four years practically petrified with anxiety. He only left Hyde Park six or seven times in his undergraduate career, and never alone. He went to grad school at Cornell, and Ithaca (which is a lot like his home town, but much nicer) was a huge relief to him; he started to have fun and to enjoy his life again. Now, in his early 30s, he lives in a big city and enjoys it thoroughly, but he wasn’t able to get to that point in college.</p>

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<p>Lol I remember Lorelai saying something like “You don’t want to go to New Haven, you can just look at the bottom of the coffeepot.” </p>

<p>I am kind of wondering about this too, though. I was really excited to go to a school in a small city, I figured I could get the feel for urban life but still have Yale to go back to and also not be overwhelmed like in NYC. But I saw in the Yale '13 thread that a student heard a gunshot right outside their residential college? That worries me more than anything else, that violence does penetrate the bubble.</p>

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<p>^^Those gunshots were a huge anomaly; the Yale campus itself is generally very safe and after that bizarre incident, security is paying more attention to the area.</p>

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<p>You will not hear gunshots if you go to Yale!!! That was almost certainly a ■■■■■/liar if you really saw a post like that or, as stated, a HUGE “anomaly”!</p>

<p>New Haven has really cleaned up its act in the past 10 years. The areas around campus are really nice, albeit a little pricey for students. The Pizza/Burgers are unprecedented though and the clubs are awesome. More hotels are opening up besides the Omni, Mariott, etc e.g. [The</a> Study at Yale](<a href=“http://studyhotels-px.trvlclick.com/]The”>http://studyhotels-px.trvlclick.com/) … New Haven is thriving, not collapsing.</p>

<p>People trash New Haven because they don’t have better things to attack Yale for. This question basically opened the door for nonstudents to make ignorant comments and pervade inaccurate statements. That said, New Haven is very nice (I come from one of the wealthiest areas in the US in CA – multiple billionaires live within a block or so – and I feel SAFE and HAPPY in New Haven).</p>

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<p>I’m sorry if I somehow offended you, but I was asking, not trying to make a comment. Questions are meant to find answers, so I suppose you can call them ignorant, but I was looking to clear up what another poster said previously. I love Yale, that does not mean that I don’t want to hear from another student that the campus IS safe, when one is insinuating (because of one incident) that it is not. I come here to find another, less administration-slanted point of view. I want to know what Yale is really like, so I questioned if the claim meant much.</p>

51

<p>Hey Boo,</p>

<p>I reckon you should check out the New Haven police blotter - my gf’s a first year law student and during the first week of class some girl got her hand shot during a mugging. When she returned after Thanksgiving she called me at 1 AM to let me know that there was a gun fight happening in the street - and she lives 1/2 a block off campus!</p>

<p>Frankly, sometimes I’m terrified for her, New Haven isn’t safe. Two students also got mugged right in front of (within sight) of the Law School over winter break, so make no mistake - it’s a dangerous place.</p>

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<p>If New Haven was so dangerous, don’t you think all the people who work at Yale, attend school at Yale and return to Yale, would have baled a long time ago? Yet Yale
continues to prosper so that tells me that the city is not significantly better or worse than most other urban campus settings. New Haven may not be your cup of tea and you may prefer any number of other settings for any number of valid reasons. Stuff happens everywhere.</p>

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<p>chuffchuff your information is false if it applies to the last two years. We’re emailed by the police about any and all of the crimes that happen in New Haven related to Yale. None of those events (at least in the way you describe them) have happened in my stay at Yale (last two years). Muggings and safety threats are extremely rare for the Yale campus itself.</p>

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<p>No direct comparisons, but you simply can’t rule out top schools based on the city or area they happen to be located in. I know some friends who worry about Columbia or USC. In truth, you go to the school to be trained for life. If location was key everyone would be knocking on the doors of Pepperdine in Malibu. LOL.</p>

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<p>Hey! I did a six-week summer program at Yale this summer and I got well acquainted with Yale and New Haven. The campus is simply gorgeous! If you are doing the sciences, its a hike to science hill, but buses are awesome for that journey! I live on a farm in a rural/ suburban area so New Haven was interesting at first. But the campus feels really safe and you can walk like 4 blocks in each direction and not feel threatened. The train station is in a rougher area, but just take a cab, really easy. The campus really is like Hogwarts, especially inside Brandford/Saybrook. The producers of Harry Potter visited Branford dining hall to see how to create a magical cafeteria aka The Great Hall. The train ride to New York was a piece of cake and New Haven’s train station is very secure and safe. New Haven can be rough but like any city, just keep your eyes open, stay on top of things and you will be perfectly fine!</p>

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<p>i genuinely love new haven- i lived there for two years in my early 20s, and had a blast- awesome nightlife, amazing restaurants, great cultural opportunities (museums, theater, live music) the streets are always full of pedestrians at all hours of day/night. I never felt unsafe, even walking alone at night. You just need to be careful, like you do in any city.</p>

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<p>I’m sure crimes don’t occur every day there, but check out this recent shooting:
[Yale</a> Daily News - Shots fired close to heart of campus](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27267]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27267)</p>

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<p>My daughter is a Junior and has never felt unsafe in New Haven. She and her friends do most of their socializing in restaurants and clubs off campus, and no one in her wide group of friends and acquaintances has ever been mugges, robbed, or otherwise made to feel unsafe. New Haven is a city, though, and if you don’t exercise the kind of common sense you would in any city in the country, you might have a bad experience. You shouldn’t walk home alone at 2:00 in the morning from off campus, but we live in a “nice” part of Los Angeles and I would apply that same rule here. And yes, there was a shooting near campus last week, but it made the newspaper because it is so unusual. And again, something that could happen in any city. If you think you can’t muster up some city smarts, then a LAC out in the country might be more to your liking.</p>

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<p>As with any place in America, you have to be careful. This is from today’s YDN…</p>

<p>Shots fired close to heart of campus</p>

<p>At approximately 2 a.m. early Saturday morning, shots were fired near the intersection of High and Crown streets, according to a press release from City Hall spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga. One man — a non-student — was injured.</p>

<p>Although the shooting did not occur on campus, more than 100 Yale undergraduates live in off-campus housing located within a block of the shooting. Many more Yale students were in the area early Saturday morning attending parties at apartments and fraternities located along High Street, less than a block away from on-campus properties.</p>

<p>Based on an initial investigation, police said they believe the victim was an innocent bystander who was shot as a nearby robbery attempt went awry. The suspect approached a male from Bridgeport and tried to rob him, Mayorga said. The male from Bridgeport fled, and the suspect fired a handgun, aiming for the man he was trying to rob.</p>

<p>Police said he missed and hit the unintended victim, whom the New Haven Register identified as 28-year-old Nelson Caro. According to the press release, the victim — who is neither a student nor someone affiliated with the University — was shot in the leg. The injury was not life threatening.</p>

<p>Just two of the 13 students interviewed who live in the area said the incident would make them more hesitant to walk around at night. The rest said the incident did not make them feel any less safe.</p>

<p>“At the time I was a little freaked out,” Bradford Williams ’10 said, “but stuff happens.”</p>

<p>“I thought it was kind of a typical thing in New Haven,” Stephen Sherrill ’09 added.</p>

<p>One Yale student witnessed the shooting — at least another two heard the shots. A Yale senior who was walking back to his room on High Street at the time of the shooting said he saw a man in a car yelling profanity out the window. Someone got out of the passenger side of the car, he said, and started shooting. The senior said he ducked into an alley and watched as the car sped off.</p>

<p>“The amazing thing to me is that the cops were there within 20 seconds and the guy still got away,” Tyler Guse ’09, who saw the scene from his apartment, said.</p>

<p>By 2:30 a.m., roughly half an hour after the shooting, High Street was unusually quiet for a weekend evening. The street was closed to cars, as yellow crime-scene tape was draped across High Street by Crown Street and halfway down the block.</p>

<p>The incident near campus was not the only shooting that occurred in the city Friday night. Less than half an hour after the High Street shooting, a New Haven resident in his early 20s was fatally shot near Water and Brown streets, Mayorga said.</p>

<p>It was the city’s first homicide of 2009.</p>

<p>The suspect in the second incident fled the scene in a dark-colored vehicle.</p>

<p>Police are asking that anyone with information about either of these two incidents contact the New Haven Police Department.</p>

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<p>Any place that has a 36 story luxury apartment tower under construction (now halfway completed – pretty impressive to look at) with a fancy grocery store, in the middle of the worst recession in the past 70 years, can’t be that bad: [360</a> State Street | The Project](<a href=“http://www.360statestreet.com/]360”>http://www.360statestreet.com/). In most American cities, like Chicago and New York, projects like these have been sitting around as open pits.</p>

<p>The fact is that New Haven is one of the safest major cities (and it is a major city by any standard measurement) in the country. That doesn’t mean it is Sweden or a rich enclave/gated snoozeville like Wellesley, Princeton or Winnetka, but it compares pretty well to just about anywhere else in the world. </p>

<p>There is a big problem in that some websites and people try to compare the City of New Haven (i.e., the political boundaries of the municipality, not the actual “city”) with other cities. These people are making invalid comparisons- the Census Bureau and FBI websites both have sections about this common mistake. The municipality of New Haven is one of the three oldest local political jurisdictions in the United States, and therefore doesn’t include a large number of suburban (post-World War One) areas within its boundaries like virtually all other American cities do. That means that statistically speaking, if you try to do a comparison using the municipal boundaries, 1) relative to other cities, you have a extremely large commuter population (80,000 workers) during the day but they don’t count in the denominator when you do a per-capita calculation of crime rates per resident, and 2) you are only counting central neighborhoods with high-density housing stock, which tends to consist of lower-income residents, young singles, students and immigrants rather than families with kids who want suburban tract homes.</p>

<p>If you use standard city comparisons (MSAs or commuting radii) from the Census Bureau, New Haven – just like other cities in prosperous states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota – is one of the safest cities in the country. Obviously, like other cities, there are areas with higher crime and lower crime. The area around Yale would definitely count as the latter: it is safer than most suburban shopping malls. If it were even a moderate crime area, you wouldn’t see hundreds of restaurants there.</p>