York Square Trustees records

At a meeting on March 15, 1834, a deed of trust was drawn up which divided "a tract of land containing 12 ¾ acres situated between Broadway and Ashmun Street...into lots with an ornamental square or park called 'York Square....'" This park was formed for the exclusive enjoyment of the owners and occupants of residences surrounding the park and was maintained by an annual assessment paid by the owners of the lots. A group of trustees was elected to take charge of the park and its maintenance, and they met on an irregular basis. The York Square Trustees Records document the activities of this board from 1848-1926.

The York Square Trustees and Proprietors undertook action against the New Haven School District in 1893, when the school district announced its intention to take over certain lots around York Square for the Manual Training School and high school buildings, arguing that such a use violated the original deed. However, the school district undertook condemnation proceedings against the owners of the lots and successfully gained control of the land.

In 1910, the York Square Trustees lost a suit against the Hebrew Ladies' Orphan Society, which the trustees were attempting to expel from the square for also violating the deed of trust. The trustees appealed the decision in 1912, but to no avail. A protest against a hospital located at No. 67 York Square between 1914 and 1915 never went to court.

In the ensuing years construction of the Tower Parkway destroyed most of the park and the north end of the square and Yale acquired the remaining land, on which the Payne Whitney Gymnasium was built in the early 1930s and Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges in the early 1960s, the latter being erected on the sites of former schools.

The records were removed from the Yale Treasurer's Records, YRG5-B. It is unclear whether the Associate Treasurer, Thomas Wells Farnam, who was a trustee in 1924 when the minutes suddenly end, was serving on the board as Yale Treasurer or as a resident of the area.