Best Web Design in New Haven, CT (2026)

Web Design for New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is Connecticut's second-largest city and home to Yale University, a Puritan planned town laid out in 1638 around a central Green in a grid of nine squares. Nicknamed "The Elm City" for its historic tree canopy, it is a nationally recognized pizza mecca and the birthplace of the American hamburger, the first commercial telephone exchange, and the Erector Set.

AppWT works with New Haven, CT businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About New Haven

Also known as. The Elm City. Cultural Capital of Connecticut. The Home of Yale.

History. The area was the land of the Quinnipiac people before English Puritans settled it in 1638, laying out the "Nine Square Plan" often called the first planned city in America. New Haven served as co-capital of Connecticut alongside Hartford from 1701 until 1873. Yale, founded in 1701, relocated to New Haven and became central to the city's identity for more than three centuries. The regicide judges Edward Whalley, William Goffe, and John Dixwell, who had condemned King Charles I, hid at Judges Cave on West Rock; three downtown streets are named for them. Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate, developed the cotton gin and built a firearms factory nearby, helping make the city a 19th-century manufacturing hub before postwar industrial decline.

Local economy. Yale University is the city's largest employer and biggest taxpayer. Yale New Haven Hospital anchors a major medical and biotech sector, giving the economy a strong "eds and meds" profile. The economy shifted from manufacturing to services, which now make up roughly 56% of activity, led by education and health care.

Culture and community. New Haven-style "apizza" is thin-crust, coal-fired, and charred; landmark pizzerias include Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, Sally's Apizza, and Modern Apizza, with the white clam pie a local signature. The city has the highest percentage of Italian American residents of any U.S. city, a heritage tied to its pizza tradition. Louis' Lunch, serving since around 1900, is credited by the Library of Congress with selling the first hamburger in the U.S.; it still cooks in vertical cast-iron grills and serves on toast. The city's arts scene includes the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the Shubert and Long Wharf theaters, Yale Repertory Theatre, and the music club Toad's Place.

What makes New Haven distinct. The world's first commercial telephone exchange opened here on January 28, 1878, and produced the first telephone directory. A.C. Gilbert invented the Erector Set in New Haven, manufactured at Erector Square starting in 1913. The Frisbee takes its name from the Frisbie Pie Company, whose tin pans Yale students tossed on the Green. The lollipop was popularized by New Haven's Bradley Smith Company. Three diagonal downtown streets are named Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell after the fugitive regicide judges.

New Haven Landmarks and Local Life

• The New Haven Green - a 16-acre central square dating to 1638, with three historic churches (Center Church, United Church, and Trinity Church)
• Yale Peabody Museum - home to Rudolph Zallinger's 110-foot mural "The Age of Reptiles."
• Yale Bowl - opened in 1914 as the first bowl-shaped stadium in the country, inspiring the Rose Bowl and others
• Grove Street Cemetery - one of the first private, nonprofit cemeteries in the world with a planned layout
• East Rock and West Rock parks - the latter home to Judges Cave