Yale: The Nine Squares

New Haven, USA

A founding-history walk where two beginnings overlap: the Puritan town laid out in a nine-square grid in 1638, and the college that grew up on its edge. Centered on the New Haven Green \u2014 still holding thousands of colonial dead beneath it \u2014 the route takes in the three churches and the Center Church crypt, the Amistad Memorial, Phelps Gate and Connecticut Hall (with Nathan Hale and the plainly-told story of Elihu Yale's slave-trade wealth), and ends at Grove Street Cemetery, where the town moved its memory.

Stops on this walk

  1. The New Haven Green
  2. The Three Churches & the Center Church Crypt
  3. Amistad Memorial (City Hall)
  4. Phelps Gate
  5. Connecticut Hall & the Naming of Yale
  6. Grove Street Cemetery

Read the story: Nine Squares and a Secret: Why New Haven's Green Is the Strangest Founding Story in America →

Part of: Ivy League Campus Walking Tours

All free self-guided walking tours →

Browse the map of every tour →