If past was present, New Haven, Connecticut would be an industrial leader. Post-revolution hit many small cities hard, but the need of manufacturing was slowly diminishing. Eventually, like in New Haven, industries were shut down, leaving behind the shell of the company, their factory.

 

New Haven, Connecticut today is not seen as an important city like it once was. With high crime rates, poverty ruining the city, and people from all over the world, a new image is what this city needs. With a current urban revitalization movement being developed today, there is still much work in New Haven to be done to bring back the beauty and prosperity it once had.

 

The New Haven Free Public Library, or NHFPL, will have a major role in this urban redevelopment. More importantly, the adaptive reuse project located on Ball Island, between Fair Haven and Wooster Square, will alleviate the lack of community spaces outside the Yale area. Its location provides a connection between two distinct, different communities, in hopes to make one safer community. Ball Island currently serves the community as a pass-through, but with the reuse project, this site would be more then that, seeing it as the destination for the area. This building means more then bringing the community back together, as its also an expansion of education within the city which has been a focus for the last few years.