Allan Appel Photo
Clark with Schenck’s widow Ann beside the unveiled plaque.
LWT
The late C. Newton “Newt” Schenck III returned once more — this time for good — to the arts district he helped create from falling-apart historic factory buildings and surface parking lots.
No matter that Schenck (pictured at length), a congenial lawyer and civic leader who helped change the face of New Haven, had died in 2002
On Thursday afternoon dozens of the now grey and white-haired political and cultural leaders with whom Schenck had worked between 1965 and 1990 were on hand in the thriving arts district on Audubon Street.
They were there to unveil a plaque in his honor and to salute the man everyone cited as the indispensable and driving force not only on Audubon Street but in bustling pockets of arts activity throughout a once-beleaguered city.
Frances “Bitsie” Clark, longtime former director of the Arts Council, organized the event. Its centerpiece was the unveiling of the plaque, designed and installed by Westville sculptor Gar Waterman, on the exterior wall of the Educational Center for the Arts building, at Leeney Plaza, in the heart of the arts district.
Schenck was also instrumental in the founding of the Long Wharf Theatre, where he served as board president for 25 years. He was an attorney at the power law firm Wiggin & Dana who served on the city’s Development Commission. He symbolized an era of private-sector leaders who saw themselves as public citizens, as unelected leaders responsible for helping steer the city’s direction, devoting countless hours to volunteer board duty.
In 1965 the New Haven Symphony and the Neighborhood Music School — neither of which had permanent performance spaces — decided to form an arts council to locate and develop land for permanent homes. They decided they needed a savvy deal-maker to help them negotiate with the city.
That fellow was Newt Schenck.
His colleague at Wiggin & Dana and former Arts Council chair, Charles Kingsley, described Schenck as a “rare and special man, counselor, sage, quiet listener who can bring together perspectives both respectful and visionary.”
Clark reminded people that those traits, along with patience and an indomitable staying of the course, were essential from 1965 to 1990 period as planners assembled one building, one parcel at a time, to create the Audubon arts district.
Unlike today, she said, when developers are rushing in to throw money at projects and finish them quickly, then the city had open tracts and falling- apart historic structures waiting for re-purposing. It had often competing plans for how to spend federal dollars and people with differing visions. It was Schenck, she said, who brought the elements together, time after time.
For example, at the time the arts district was forming up, Mishkan Israel synagogue had vacated its building on Audubon and Orange to flee to suburban Hamden.
A Board of Ed staffer was looking to find an old historic building to repurpose for arts education. He had located a synagogue building in Westville. Schenck got wind of the plan.
“Have I got a synagogue for you,” Schenck was reported to have said, according to Clark’s recollection.
And that’s how the Educational Center for the Arts came to occupy the old Mishkan Israel building and ultimately create an addition, on whose lovingly restored wall Schenck’s brass plaque now hangs.
Clark said Schenck helped formulate and implement a master plan for the arts district that exemplified five principles:
• The arts center should not be a meaningless plaza, but a group of arts institutions that work together, where the whole is greater than the parts
• The center should be mixed use — with arts organizations, businesses, and residential housing
• The center should not be all non-profit but contain businesses that pay taxes to the city
• Older building should be preserved and if possible re-purposed
• Commercial development in the center return money to the arts
When the last piece of the district — the 70 Audubon building, which now houses the Arts Council — was completed in the late 1980s, Clark said, Newt had completed his task “with all principles intact.”
Former ECA Principal Bob Parker checked out his star before the proceedings began.
Clark herself is among a handful of arts leaders who have bronze stars set in the sidewalk of Leeney Plaza, the circular area between 70 Audubon and ECA. The plaza is named after the late New Haven Register Editor Robert Leeney, who loved the arts.
Clark said Schenck merited more of a tribute. “You can’t get a star for Newt,” she recalled thinking. “We’ve got to have something that will last.” And we do.
Describing Mishkan Israel's move to Hamden as "fleeing to the suburbs" makes it sound as if the congregation was acting out of stereotypical "white flight." In fact, the congregation had been told that their building would be seized and razed for the construction of I-91 and its interchanges. By the time the decision was reached to spare the building, the congregation had made the move to build a new synagogue in Hamden.