Why Snowbirds Fly To New Haven

Note: Here at the Independent we don’t often publish news stories from the future, but we have made an exception today, as this one in the New York Times, dated February 2033, deals with a crucial topic.

NEW HAVEN, CT – Back a decade ago, in the mild winter of 2023, the Times stunned the travel world by including this Connecticut city in its list of 52 destinations around the entire world to visit.

In response, readers sent us a variety of affirmative responses, such as, ​“What– are you nuts?” and ​“Please cancel my subscription.” Yet, little did we know how right we were to include what was then referred to as the Elm City in the same pages as Palm Springs, Guadalajara, and Kangaroo Island.

Just look at what happened to Avelo Airlines in the wake of our rankings. It had to ditch its modest-sized 737s and purchase most of the last jumbo 747s to roll off Boeing’s assembly line.

This, we admit, is not merely because of the Times’s report on international paradises, but what happened to the climate in the years that followed.

Until then, the subject of global warming had been one that in Washington, D.C., was up for debate. On stormy winter days, senators from red states brought snowballs to Congress to toss at Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, as hard proof that a climate related doomsday was nothing but hot air.

But now we know how wrong they were, as there are only 49 remaining states in the good old USA ever since 2029, when Florida sunk beneath the Atlantic Ocean, causing some inconvenience to the state’s 20 million residents.

By contrast, what happened in New Haven is nothing less than astonishingly positive. In the last few winters, Tweed airport has become busier than JFK. In fact, the facility had to expand its formerly puny runway not only through downtown East Haven but through Branford, Guilford, and Madison over objections from homeowners whose backyards suddenly contained Dunkin’ outlets.

And who are these passengers bombarding New Haven, causing, for example, the Hotel Marcel to purchase the IKEA mega-store and turn it into additional guest rooms, as well as meeting spaces for conventions of dentists, and extending the lines at Pepe’s pizza from one block to nearly five miles?

Snow birds from Canada, of course.

Frustrated with their own winter temperatures that have only ranged into the 70s, they are fleeing Montreal and Quebec in hoards.

Many are dressed smartly in madras shorts, flowery tank tops, baseball caps that say MCGA and oversized sunglasses. They unanimously express their astonishment when they see New Haven’s tall new trees bearing coconuts – the reason the Elm City’s Board of Alders has officially changed the community’s nickname to the Palm City.

Some new visitors, as they deplane, shout ​“Supere!” and ​“Formidable!” and then, in English, ​“I have dreamed my whole life of coming to New Haven.” Some tell airport personnel about escaping a thing called a ​“blizzard,” and try to describe it, but are invariably distracted by breathing in the sub-tropical air.

Note: Sorry at this critical point to interrupt the flow of this report, but we have just received an objection from one of our own Independent scribes. Lary Bloom, who recently released a book titled I’ll Take New Haven: Tales of Discovery and Rejuvenation, is offended by the Times’s mocking tone, ​“bordering on sarcasm,” about his beloved city, and asked us to remove this account from our site. But we humored him, promising a plug for that collection of urban essays.

So, where were we? Yes. The arriving hoards. In response, Yale University, previously a place of marginal distinction, became only the second Ivy League school (Cornell being the other) to offer a degree in Hotel Administration and Hospitality. One of its courses has already replaced Professor Laurie Santos’s Happiness curriculum as the most popular on campus: Introduction to Managing Obnoxious Tourists Without Punching Them in the Nose.

The New Haven town green, which in the old days became the site of concerts that drew audiences of a mere 2,500, was host to more than 100,000 when Mick Jagger and the remaining Stones rolled their wheelchairs onto the stage.

The list goes on, including –

Note: Somehow the rest of the account has disappeared. We apologize. And instead, after our scribe Lary Bloom begged us to do so, provide a mention of his two upcoming book talks featuring I’ll Take New Haven. One is the LEAP! Benefit, on Thursday Feb. 23, see here, and the Institute Library, 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25.