John Kerry
American politician and diplomat (born 1943)
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the administration of Barack Obama. A member of the Forbes family and of the Democratic Party, he previously represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1985 to 2013 and later served as the first U.S. special presidential envoy for climate from 2021 to 2024. Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2004 election, narrowly losing to then-incumbent president George W. Bush.
Kerry grew up in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. In 1966, after graduating from Yale University, he enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve, ultimately attaining the rank of lieutenant. During the Vietnam War, Kerry served a brief tour in South Vietnam. While commanding a Swift boat, he sustained three wounds in combat with the Viet Cong, for which he earned three Purple Heart medals. Kerry was also awarded the Silver Star Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for conduct in separate military engagements. After completing his active military service, Kerry returned to the United States and became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He gained national recognition as an anti-war activist, serving as a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization. Kerry testified in the Fulbright Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he described the United States government's policy in Vietnam as the cause of war crimes.
In 1972, Kerry entered electoral politics as a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in Massachusetts's 5th congressional district, losing to Republican Paul W. Cronin in the general election. He subsequently worked as a radio talk show host and as the executive director of an advocacy organization while attending law school. After a period in private legal practice, he was elected the 66th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982. In 1984, Kerry was elected to the United States Senate. In 2004, Kerry won the Democratic presidential nomination alongside Senator John Edwards. He lost the Electoral College and the popular vote by slim margins, winning 251 electors to Bush's 286 and 48.3% of the popular vote to Bush's 50.7%.
In January 2013, Kerry was nominated by President Obama to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and was subsequently confirmed by his Senate colleagues. He was U.S. secretary of state throughout the second term of the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. During his tenure, he initiated the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks and negotiated agreements restricting the nuclear program of Iran, including the 2013 Joint Plan of Action and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In 2015, Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on behalf of the United States.
In January 2021, Kerry returned to government, becoming the first person to hold the position of U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, under President Joe Biden. On March 6, Kerry left this position to work on Biden's 2024 presidential campaign. Kerry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden in May 2024.
Early life and education (1943–1966).
John Forbes Kerry was born on December 11, 1943, at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado. He is the second of four children born to Richard John Kerry, a U.S. diplomat and lawyer, and Rosemary Forbes, a nurse and social activist. His father was raised Catholic (John's paternal grandparents were Austro-Hungarian Jewish immigrants who converted to Catholicism) and his mother was Episcopalian. He was raised with an elder sister Margaret, a younger sister Diana, and a younger brother Cameron. The children were raised in their father's Catholic faith, and John served as an altar boy.
Kerry was originally considered a military brat, until his father was discharged from the Army Air Corps in 1944. Kerry lived in Groton, Massachusetts his first year and Millis, Massachusetts afterwards before moving to the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. at age seven, when his father took a position in the Department of the Navy's Office of General Counsel and soon became a diplomat in the State Department's Bureau of United Nations Affairs.
As members of the Forbes and Dudley–Winthrop families, his maternal extended family enjoyed great wealth. Kerry's parents themselves were considered upper-middle class. They turned to his wealthy great-aunt, Clara Winthrop, who paid for his attendance at elite boarding schools, such as Institut Montana Zugerberg, in Zug, Switzerland. Through his maternal ancestry, Kerry also descends from Rev. James McGregor who was among the first 500 Scots-Irish immigrants to Boston Harbor in the 18th century.
At the age of ten, Kerry's father took a position as the U.S. Attorney for Berlin. When Kerry was twelve, he crossed into the Soviet Occupation Zone to visit Hitler's bunker and ride through the Brandenburg Gate.
In 1957, his father was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, and Kerry was sent back to the United States to attend boarding school. He first attended the Fessenden School in Newton, Massachusetts, and later St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where he learned skills in public speaking and began developing an interest in politics. Kerry founded the John Winant Society at St. Paul's to debate the issues of the day; the Society still exists there. In 1960, while at St. Paul's, he played bass in a minor rock band called The Electras with six of his classmates. The band had about five hundred copies of one album printed in 1961, which they sold some of at dances at the school; it was made available on streaming platforms many years later.
In 1962, Kerry attended Yale University, majoring in political science and residing in Jonathan Edwards College. By that year, his parents returned to Groton. While at Yale, Kerry briefly dated Janet Auchincloss, the younger half-sister of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Through Auchincloss, Kerry was invited to a day of sailing with then-President John F. Kennedy and his family.
Kerry played on the varsity Yale Bulldogs men's soccer team, earning his only letter in his senior year. He also played freshman and junior varsity hockey and, in his senior year, junior varsity lacrosse. In addition, he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and took flying lessons.
In his sophomore year, Kerry became the chairman of the Liberal Party of the Yale Political Union, and a year later he served as president of the union. Amongst his influential teachers in this period was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, who was himself a former president of the Political Union. His involvement with the Political Union gave him an opportunity to be involved with important issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and the New Frontier program. He also became a member of Skull and Bones Society, and traveled to Switzerland through AIESEC Yale.
Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor Rollin G. Osterweis, Kerry won many debates against other college students from across the nation. In March 1965, as the Vietnam War escalated, he won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in the junior class for a speech that was critical of U.S. foreign policy. In the speech he said, "It is the spectre of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism and thus, it is self-defeating."
Kerry graduated from Yale with a bachelor of arts degree in 1966. Overall, he had below-average grades, graduating with a cumulative average of 76 over his four years. His freshman-year average was a 71, but he improved to an 81 average for his senior year. He never received an "A" during his time at Yale; his highest grade was an 89.
Military service (1966–1970).
Duty on USS "Gridley".
On February 18, 1966, Kerry enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He began his active duty military service on August 19, 1966. After completing 16 weeks of Officer Candidate School at the U.S. Naval Training Center in Newport, Rhode Island, Kerry received his officer's commission on December 16, 1966. During the 2004 election, Kerry posted his military records at his website, and permitted reporters to inspect his medical records. In 2005, Kerry released his military and medical records to the representatives of three news organizations, but has not authorized full public access to those records.
During his tour on the guided missile frigate , Kerry requested duty in South Vietnam, listing as his first preference a position as the commander of a Fast Patrol Craft (PCF), also known as a "Swift boat". These boats have aluminum hulls and have little or no armor, but are heavily armed and rely on speed. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." However, his second choice of billet was on a river patrol boat, or "PBR", which at the time was serving a more dangerous duty on the rivers of Vietnam.
Military honors.
During the night of December 2 and early morning of December 3, 1968, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating near a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Bay together with a Swift boat (PCF-60). According to Kerry and the two crewmen who accompanied him that night, Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, they surprised a group of Vietnamese men unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began running and failed to obey an order to stop. As the men fled, Kerry and his crew opened fire on the sampans and destroyed them, then rapidly left. During this encounter, Kerry received a shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. It was for this injury that Kerry received his first Purple Heart Medal.
Kerry received his second Purple Heart for a wound received in action on the Bồ Đề River on February 20, 1969. The plan had been for the Swift boats to be accompanied by support helicopters. On the way up the Bo De, however, the helicopters were attacked. As the Swift boats reached the Cửa Lớn River, Kerry's boat was hit by a B-40 rocket (rocket propelled grenade round), and a piece of shrapnel hit Kerry's left leg, wounding him. Thereafter, enemy fire ceased and his boat reached the Gulf of Thailand safely. Kerry continues to have shrapnel embedded in his left thigh because the doctors that first treated him decided to remove the damaged tissue and close the wound with sutures rather than make a wide opening to remove the shrapnel. Although wounded like several others earlier that day, Kerry did not lose any time off from duty.
Silver Star.
Eight days later, on February 28, 1969, came the events for which Kerry was awarded his Silver Star Medal. On this occasion, Kerry was in tactical command of his Swift boat and two other Swift boats during a combat operation. Their mission on the Duong Keo River included bringing an underwater demolition team and dozens of South Vietnamese Marines to destroy enemy sampans, structures and bunkers as described in the story "The Death Of PCF 43". Running into heavy small arms fire from the river banks, Kerry "directed the units to turn to the beach and charge the Viet Cong positions" and he "expertly directed" his boat's fire causing the enemy to flee while at the same time coordinating the insertion of the ninety South Vietnamese troops (according to the original medal citation signed by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt). Moving a short distance upstream, Kerry's boat was the target of a B-40 rocket round; Kerry charged the enemy positions and as his boat hove to and beached, a Viet Cong ("VC") insurgent armed with a rocket launcher emerged from a spider hole and ran. While the boat's gunner opened fire, wounding the VC in the leg, and while the other boats approached and offered cover fire, Kerry jumped from the boat to pursue the VC insurgent, subsequently killing him and capturing his loaded rocket launcher.
Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander George Elliott, stated to Douglas Brinkley in 2003 that he did not know whether to court-martial Kerry for beaching the boat without orders or give him a medal for saving the crew. Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star, and Zumwalt flew into An Thoi to personally award medals to Kerry and the rest of the sailors involved in the mission. The Navy's account of Kerry's actions is presented in the original signed by Zumwalt. The engagement was documented in an after-action report, a press release written on March 1, 1969, and a historical summary dated March 17, 1969.
Bronze Star.
On March 13, 1969, on the Bái Háp River, Kerry was in charge of one of five Swift boats that were returning to their base after performing an Operation Sealords mission to transport South Vietnamese troops from the garrison at Cái Nước and MIKE Force advisors for a raid on a Vietcong camp located on the Rach Dong Cung canal. Earlier in the day, Kerry received a slight shrapnel wound in the buttocks from blowing up a rice bunker. Debarking some but not all of the passengers at a small village, the boats approached a fishing weir; one group of boats went around to the left of the weir, hugging the shore, and a group with Kerry's PCF-94 boat went around to the right, along the shoreline. A mine was detonated directly beneath the lead boat, PCF-3, as it crossed the weir to the left, lifting PCF-3 "about 2–3 ft out of water".
James Rassmann, a Green Beret advisor who was aboard Kerry's PCF-94, was knocked overboard when, according to witnesses and the documentation of the event, a mine or rocket exploded close to the boat. According to the documentation for the event, Kerry's arm was injured when he was thrown against a bulkhead during the explosion. PCF 94 returned to the scene and Kerry rescued Rassmann who was receiving sniper fire from the water. Kerry received the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" for "heroic achievement", for his actions during this incident; he also received his third Purple Heart.
Return from Vietnam.
After Kerry's third qualifying wound, he was entitled per Navy regulations to reassignment away from combat duties. Kerry's preferred choice for reassignment was as a military aide in Boston, New York City or Washington, D.C. On April 11, 1969, he reported to the Brooklyn-based Atlantic Military Sea Transportation Service, where he would remain on active duty for the following year as a personal aide to an officer, Rear Admiral Walter Schlech. On January 1, 1970, Kerry was temporarily promoted to full lieutenant. Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in order to perform Swift Boat duty. John Kerry was on active duty in the United States Navy from August 1966 until January 1970. He continued to serve in the Naval Reserve until February 1978.
"Swiftboating" controversy.
With the continuing controversy that had surrounded the military service of George W. Bush since the 2000 presidential election (when he was accused of having used his father's political influence to gain entrance to the Texas Air National Guard, thereby protecting himself from conscription into the United States Army, and possible service in the Vietnam War), John Kerry's contrasting status as a decorated Vietnam War veteran posed a problem for Bush's re-election campaign, which Republicans sought to counter by calling Kerry's war record into question. As the presidential campaign of 2004 developed, approximately 250 members of a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT, later renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) opposed Kerry's campaign. The group held press conferences, ran ads and endorsed a book questioning Kerry's service record and his military awards. The group included several members of Kerry's unit, such as Larry Thurlow, who commanded a swift boat alongside of Kerry's, and Stephen Gardner, who served on Kerry's boat. The campaign inspired the widely used political pejorative '"swiftboating," to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Most of Kerry's former crewmates have stated that SBVT's allegations are false.
Anti-war activism (1970–1971).
After returning to the United States, Kerry moved to Waltham, Massachusetts and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Then numbering about 20,000, VVAW was considered by some (including the administration of President Richard Nixon) to be an effective, if controversial, component of the antiwar movement. Kerry participated in the "Winter Soldier Investigation" conducted by VVAW of U.S. atrocities in Vietnam, and he appears in a film by that name that documents the investigation. According to Nixon Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, "I didn't approve of what he did, but I understood the protesters quite well", and he declined two requests from the Navy to court martial Reserve Lieutenant Kerry over his antiwar activity.
On April 22, 1971, Kerry appeared before a U.S. Senate committee hearing on proposals relating to ending the war. The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with thousands of other veterans in which he and other Vietnam War veterans threw their medals and service ribbons over a fence erected at the front steps of the United States Capitol building to dramatize their opposition to the war. Jack Smith, a Marine, read a statement explaining why the veterans were returning their military awards to the government. For more than two hours, almost 1,000 angry veterans tossed their medals, ribbons, hats, jackets, and military papers over the fence. Each veteran gave his or her name, hometown, branch of service and a statement. Kerry threw some of his own decorations and awards as well as some given to him by other veterans to throw. As Kerry threw his decorations over the fence, his statement was: "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."
Kerry was arrested on May 30, 1971, during a VVAW march to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam. The march was planned as a multi-day event from Concord to Boston, and while in Lexington, participants tried to camp on the village green. At 2:30a.m., local and state police arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry, for trespassing. All were given the Miranda Warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.
Early political career (1972–1985).
1972 congressional election.
In 1970, Kerry had considered running for Congress in the Democratic primary against hawkish Democrat Philip J. Philbin of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district, but deferred in favor of Robert Drinan, a Jesuit priest and anti-war activist, who went on to defeat Philbin. In February 1972, Kerry's wife bought a house in Worcester, with Kerry intending to run against the 4th district's aging thirteen-term incumbent Democrat, Harold Donohue. The couple never moved in. After Republican Congressman F. Bradford Morse of the neighboring 5th district announced his retirement and then resignation to become Under-Secretary-General for Political and General Assembly Affairs at the United Nations, the couple instead rented an apartment in Lowell, so that Kerry could run to succeed him.
Including Kerry, the Democratic primary race had 10 candidates, including attorney Paul J. Sheehy, State Representative Anthony R. DiFruscia, John J. Desmond and Robert B. Kennedy. Kerry ran a "very expensive, sophisticated campaign", financed by out-of-state backers and supported by many young volunteers. DiFruscia's campaign headquarters shared the same building as Kerry's. On the eve of the September 19 primary, police found Kerry's younger brother Cameron and campaign field director Thomas J. Vallely, breaking into where the building's telephone lines were located. They were arrested and charged with "breaking and entering with the intent to commit grand larceny", but the charges were dropped a year later. DiFruscia alleged that the two were trying to disrupt his get-out-the vote efforts. Vallely and Cameron Kerry maintained that they were only checking their own telephone lines because they had received an anonymous call warning that the Kerry lines would be cut.
Despite the arrests, Kerry won the primary with 20,771 votes (27.56%). Sheehy came second with 15,641 votes (20.75%), followed by DiFruscia with 12,222 votes (16.22%), Desmond with 10,213 votes (13.55%) and Kennedy with 5,632 votes (7.47%). The remaining 10,891 votes were split amongst the other five candidates, with 1970 nominee Richard Williams coming last with just 1,706 votes (2.26%).
In the general election, Kerry was initially favored to defeat the Republican candidate, former State Representative Paul W. Cronin, and conservative Democrat Roger P. Durkin, who ran as an Independent. A week after the primary, one poll put Kerry 26-points ahead of Cronin. His campaign called for a national health insurance system, discounted prescription drugs for the unemployed, a jobs program to clean up the Merrimack River and rent controls in Lowell and Lawrence. A major obstacle, however, was the district's leading newspaper, the conservative "The Sun". The paper editorialized against him. It also ran critical news stories about his out-of-state contributions and his "carpetbagging", because he had only moved into the district in April. Subsequently, released "Watergate" Oval Office tape recordings of the Nixon White House showed that defeating Kerry's candidacy had attracted the personal attention of President Nixon. Kerry himself asserts that Nixon sent operatives to Lowell to help derail his campaign.
The race was the most expensive for Congress in the country that year and four days before the general election, Durkin withdrew and endorsed Cronin, hoping to see Kerry defeated. The week before, a poll had put Kerry 10 points ahead of Cronin, with Durkin at 13%. In the final days of the campaign, Kerry sensed that it was "slipping away" and Cronin emerged victorious by 110,970 votes (53.45%) to Kerry's 92,847 (44.72%). After his defeat, Kerry lamented in a letter to supporters that "for two solid weeks, ["The Sun"] called me un-American, New Left antiwar agitator, unpatriotic, and labeled me every other 'un-' and 'anti-' that they could find. It's hard to believe that one newspaper could be so powerful, but they were." He later felt that his failure to respond directly to "The Sun"'s attacks cost him the race.
Law career.
After Kerry's 1972 defeat, he and his wife bought a house in the Belvidere section of Lowell, Massachusetts, entering a decade which his brother Cameron later called "the years in exile". He spent some time working as a fundraiser for the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), an international humanitarian organization. In September 1973, he entered Boston College Law School. While studying, Kerry worked as a talk radio host on WBZ and, in July 1974, was named executive director of Mass Action, a Massachusetts advocacy association.
Kerry received his juris doctor (J.D.) from Boston College in 1976. While in law school he had been a student prosecutor in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, John J. Droney. After passing the bar exam and being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1976, he went to work in that office as a full-time prosecutor and moved to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
In January 1977, Droney promoted him to First Assistant District Attorney, essentially making Kerry his campaign and media surrogate because Droney was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease). As First Assistant, Kerry tried cases, which included winning convictions in a high-profile rape case and a murder. He also played a role in administering the office, including initiating the creation of special white-collar and organized crime units, creating programs to address the problems of rape and other crime victims and witnesses, and managing trial calendars to reflect case priorities. In 1978, Kerry launched a criminal investigation against Senator Edward Brooke, regarding "misstatements" in his first divorce trial. The inquiry ended with no charges being brought after investigators and prosecutors determined that Brooke's misstatements were pertinent to the case, but were not material enough to have affected the outcome.
Droney's health was poor and Kerry had decided to run for his position in the 1978 election should Droney drop out. However, Droney was re-elected and his health improved; he went on to re-assume many of the duties that he had delegated to Kerry. Kerry thus decided to leave, departing in 1979 with assistant DA Roanne Sragow to set up their own law firm. Kerry also worked as a commentator for WCVB-TV and co-founded a bakery, Kilvert & Forbes Ltd., with businessman and former Kennedy aide K. Dun Gifford.
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts.
In the 1982 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III declined to seek a third term, instead deciding to run for governor of Massachusetts. Kerry declared his candidacy, entering the primary election alongside Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs Evelyn Murphy, State Senator Samuel Rotondi, State Representative Lou Nickinello, and Lois Pines.
Kerry won the nomination with 325,890 votes (29%) to Murphy's 286,378 (25.48%), Rotondi's 228,086 (20.29%), Nickinello's 150,829 (13.42%) and Pines' 132,734 (11.81%). In the concurrent gubernatorial primary, former Governor Michael Dukakis defeated O'Neill and incumbent Governor Edward J. King. The Dukakis and Kerry ticket defeated the Republican ticket of John W. Sears and Leon Lombardi in the general election by 1,219,109 votes (61.92%) to 749,679 (38.08%).
As Lieutenant Governor, Kerry led meetings of the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Dukakis also delegated other tasks to Kerry, including serving as the state's liaison to the Federal government of the United States. He was also active on environmental issues, including combating acid rain.
1984 U.S. Senate election.
The junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas, announced in 1984 that he would be stepping down for health reasons. Kerry ran, and as in his 1982 race for Lieutenant Governor, he did not receive the endorsement of the party regulars at the state Democratic convention. Congressman James Shannon, a favorite of House Speaker Tip O'Neill, was the early favorite to win the nomination, and he "won broad establishment support and led in early polling". Again as in 1982, however, Kerry prevailed in a close primary.
In his general election campaign, Kerry promised to mix liberalism with tight budget controls. He defeated Republican Ray Shamie despite a nationwide landslide for the re-election of Republican President Ronald Reagan, for whom Massachusetts voted by a narrow margin. In his victory speech, Kerry asserted that his win meant that the people of Massachusetts "emphatically reject the politics of selfishness and the notion that women must be treated as second-class citizens".
Tsongas resigned on January 2, 1985, one day before the end of his term. Dukakis appointed Kerry to fill the vacancy, giving him seniority over other new senators who were sworn in on January 3, the scheduled start of their new terms.
U.S. Senate (1985–2013).
Iran–Contra hearings.
On April 18, 1985, a few months after taking his Senate seat, Kerry and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa traveled to Nicaragua and met the country's president, Daniel Ortega. Although Ortega had won internationally certified elections, the trip was criticized because Ortega and his leftist Sandinista government had strong ties to Cuba and the USSR and were accused of human rights abuses. The Sandinista government was opposed by the right-wing CIA-backed rebels known as the Contras. While in Nicaragua, Kerry and Harkin talked to people on both sides of the conflict. Through the senators, Ortega offered a cease-fire agreement in exchange for the U.S. dropping support of the Contras. The offer was denounced by the Reagan administration as a "propaganda initiative" designed to influence a House vote on a $14million Contra aid package, but Kerry said "I am willing... to take the risk in the effort to put to test the good faith of the Sandinistas." The House voted down the Contra aid, but Ortega flew to Moscow to accept a $200million loan the next day, which in part prompted the House to pass a larger $27million aid package six weeks later.
Meanwhile, Kerry's staff began their own investigations and, on October 14, issued a report that exposed illegal activities on the part of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had set up a private network involving the National Security Council and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). In effect, North and certain members of the President's administration were accused by Kerry's report of illegally funding and supplying armed militants without the authorization of Congress. Kerry's staff investigation, based on a year-long inquiry and interviews with fifty unnamed sources, is said to raise "serious questions about whether the United States has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past three years".
The Kerry Committee report found that "the Contra drug links included... payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." The U.S. State Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras. Kerry's findings provoked little reaction in the media and official Washington.
The Kerry report was a precursor to the Iran–Contra affair. On May 4, 1989, North was convicted of charges relating to the Iran/Contra controversy, including three felonies. On September 16, 1991, however, North's convictions were overturned on appeal.
George H. W. Bush administration.
On November 15, 1988, at a businessmen's breakfast in East Lynn, Massachusetts, Kerry made a joke about then-President-elect George H. W. Bush and his running mate, saying "if Bush is shot, the Secret Service has orders to shoot Dan Quayle." He apologized the following day.
During their investigation of General Manuel Noriega, the "de facto" ruler of Panama, Kerry's staff found reason to believe that the Pakistan-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering. This led to a separate inquiry into BCCI, and as a result, banking regulators shut down BCCI in 1991. In December 1992, Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, a Republican from Colorado, released "The BCCI Affair", a report on the BCCI scandal. The report showed that the bank was crooked and was working with terrorists, including Abu Nidal. It blasted the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Customs Service, the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as influential lobbyists and the CIA.
Kerry was criticized by some Democrats for having pursued his own party members, including former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, although Republicans said he should have pressed against some Democrats even harder. The BCCI scandal was later turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
Precursors to presidential bid.
In 1996, Kerry faced a difficult re-election fight against Governor William Weld, a popular Republican incumbent who had been re-elected in 1994 with 71% of the vote. The race was covered nationwide as one of the most closely watched Senate races that year. Kerry and Weld held several debates and negotiated a campaign spending cap of $6.9million at Kerry's Beacon Hill townhouse. Both candidates spent more than the cap, with each camp accusing the other of being first to break the agreement. During the campaign, Kerry spoke briefly at the 1996 Democratic National Convention. Kerry won re-election with 52 percent to Weld's 45 percent.
In the 2000 presidential election, Kerry found himself close to being chosen as the vice presidential running mate.
A release from the presidential campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Al Gore listed Kerry on the short list to be selected as the vice-presidential nominee, along with North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt, New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. Gore ultimately chose Lieberman.
"You get stuck in Iraq" controversy.
On October 30, 2006, Kerry was a headline speaker at a campaign rally being held for Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. Speaking to an audience composed mainly of college students, Kerry said, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
The day after he made the remark, leaders from both sides of the political spectrum criticized Kerry's remarks, which he said were a botched joke. Republicans including President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, said that Kerry's comments were insulting to American military forces fighting in Iraq. Democratic Representative Harold Ford Jr. called on Kerry to apologize.
Kerry initially stated: "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy". Kerry also responded to criticism from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Kerry said that he had intended the remark as a jab at President Bush, and described the remarks as a "botched joke", having inadvertently left out the key word "us" (which would have been, "If you don't, you get "us" stuck in Iraq"), as well as leaving the phrase "just ask President Bush" off of the end of the sentence. In Kerry's prepared remarks, which he released during the ensuing media frenzy, the corresponding line was "...you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush". He also said that from the context of the speech which, prior to the "stuck in Iraq" line, made several specific references to Bush and elements of his biography, that Kerry was referring to President Bush and not American troops in general.
After two days of media coverage, citing a desire not to be a diversion, Kerry apologized to those who took offense at what he called the misinterpretation of his comment.
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A "Washington Post" report in May 2011 stated that Kerry "has emerged in the past few years as an important envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan during times of crisis", as he undertook another trip to the two countries. The killing of Osama bin Laden "has generated perhaps the most important crossroads yet", the report continued, as the senator spoke at a press conference and prepared to fly from Kabul to Pakistan. Among matters discussed during the May visit to Pakistan, under the general rubric of "recalibrating" the bilateral relationship, Kerry sought and retrieved from the Pakistanis the tail-section of the U.S. helicopter which had had to be abandoned at Abbottabad during the bin Laden strike. In 2013, Kerry met with Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to discuss the peace process with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Voting record.
Overall.
Most analyses place Kerry's voting record on the left within the Senate Democratic caucus. During the 2004 presidential election he was portrayed as a staunch liberal by conservative groups and the Bush campaign, who often noted that in 2003 Kerry was rated the top Senate liberal by "National Journal". However, that rating was based only upon voting on legislation within that past year. In fact, in terms of career voting records, the "National Journal" found that Kerry is the 11th most liberal member of the Senate. Most analyses find that Kerry is at least slightly more liberal than the typical Democratic Senator. Kerry has stated that he opposes privatizing Social Security, supports abortion rights for adult women and minors, supports same-sex marriage, opposes capital punishment except for terrorists, supports most gun control laws, and is generally a supporter of trade agreements. In some of these, as in the case of abortion, Kerry distinguishes his personal views as in line with his Catholic faith, but believes that separation of church and state demands that he not legislate his religious beliefs upon those who do not share those beliefs. Kerry supported the North American Free Trade Agreement and Most Favored Nation status for China, but opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
In July 1997, Kerry joined his Senate colleagues in voting against ratification of the Kyoto Treaty on global warming without greenhouse gas emissions limits on nations deemed developing, including India and China. Since then, Kerry has attacked President Bush, charging him with opposition to international efforts to combat global warming.
On October 1, 2008, Kerry voted for Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the TARP bailout.
Iraq.
In the lead up to the Iraq War, Kerry said on October 9, 2002; "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Bush relied on that resolution in ordering the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Kerry also gave a January 23, 2003, speech to Georgetown University saying "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator; leading an oppressive regime he presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." Kerry did, however, warn that the administration should exhaust its diplomatic avenues before launching war: "Mr. President, do not rush to war, take the time to build the coalition, because it's not winning the war that's hard, it's winning the peace that's hard."
After the invasion of Iraq, when no weapons of mass destruction were found, Kerry strongly criticized Bush, contending that he had misled the country: "When the President of the United States looks at you and tells you something, there should be some trust."
Libya.
In 2011, Kerry supported American military action in Libya.
Leadership.
Kerry chaired the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs from 1991 to 1993. The committee's report, which Kerry endorsed, stated there was "no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia". In 1994 the Senate passed a resolution, sponsored by Kerry and fellow Vietnam veteran John McCain, that called for an end to the existing trade embargo against Vietnam; it was intended to pave the way for normalization. In 1995, President Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations with the country of Vietnam.
Kerry was the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 1987 to 1989. He was reelected to the Senate in 1990, 1996 (after winning re-election against the then-Governor of Massachusetts Republican William Weld), 2002, and 2008. In January 2009, Kerry replaced Joe Biden as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As a role model for campus leaders across the nation and strong advocate for global development, Kerry was honored by the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) as a Global Generation Award winner in 2011.
Committee assignments.
During his tenure, Kerry served on four Senate committees and nine subcommittees:
Seniority.
From the beginning of the 113th United States Congress until his resignation, Kerry ranked as the 7th most senior U.S. Senator. Due to the longevity of Ted Kennedy's service, Kerry was the most senior "junior Senator" in the 111th United States Congress. On Tuesday, August 25, 2009, Kerry became the senior senator from Massachusetts following Ted Kennedy's death.
Sponsorship of legislation.
Areas of concern in the bills Kerry introduced into the Senate included small business concerns, education, terrorism, veterans' and POW/MIA issues, and marine resource protection. A full list of Kerry's sponsored legislation was available on his Senate web site.
During his Senate career, Kerry was primary sponsor of the following bills (excluding resolutions and amendments sponsored). This table does not count bills which Kerry co-sponsored.
A chronological list of various bills and resolutions sponsored by Kerry follows.
2004 presidential campaign.
In the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, John Kerry defeated several Democratic rivals, including Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and retired Army General Wesley Clark. His victory in the Iowa caucuses is widely believed to be the tipping point where Kerry revived his sagging campaign in New Hampshire and the February 3, 2004, primary states like Arizona, South Carolina and New Mexico. Kerry then went on to win landslide victories in Nevada and Wisconsin. Kerry thus won the Democratic nomination to run for President of the United States against incumbent George W. Bush. On July 6, 2004, he announced his selection of John Edwards as his running mate. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who was Kerry's 2004 campaign adviser, wrote an article in "Time" magazine claiming that after the election, Kerry had said that he wished he had never picked Edwards, and that the two have since stopped speaking to each other. In a subsequent appearance on ABC's "This Week", Kerry refused to respond to Shrum's allegation, calling it a "ridiculous waste of time".
During his bid to be elected president in 2004, Kerry frequently criticized President George W. Bush for starting the Iraq War. While Kerry had initially voted in support of authorizing President Bush to use force in dealing with Saddam Hussein, he voted against an $87billion supplemental appropriations bill to pay for the subsequent war. His statement on March 16, 2004, "I actually did vote for the $87billion before I voted against it", helped the Bush campaign to paint him as a flip-flopper and has been cited as contributing to Kerry's defeat.
On November 3, 2004, Kerry conceded the race. Kerry won 59.03 million votes, or 48.3 percent of the popular vote; Bush won 62.04 million votes, or 50.7 percent of the popular vote. Kerry carried states with a total of 252 electoral votes. One Kerry elector voted for Kerry's running mate, Edwards, so in the final tally Kerry had 251 electoral votes to Bush's 286. He was the first Democrat since Michael Dukakis in 1988 to lose the popular vote in a presidential election, and until Kamala Harris's loss in 2024, he was the most recent Democrat to do so.
Subsequent presidential-election activities.
Immediately after the 2004 election, some Democrats mentioned Kerry as a possible contender for the 2008 Democratic nomination. His brother had said such a campaign was "conceivable", and Kerry himself reportedly said at a farewell party for his 2004 campaign staff, "There's always another four years".
Kerry established a separate political action committee, Keeping America's Promise, which declared as its mandate "A Democratic Congress will restore accountability to Washington and help change a disastrous course in Iraq", and raised money and channeled contributions to Democratic candidates in state and federal races. Through Keeping America's Promise in 2005, Kerry raised over $5.5million for other Democrats up and down the ballot. Through his campaign account and his political action committee, the Kerry campaign operation generated more than $10million for various party committees and 179 candidates for the U.S. House, Senate, state and local offices in 42 states focusing on the midterm elections during the 2006 election cycle. "Cumulatively, John Kerry has done as much if not more than any other individual senator", Hassan Nemazee, the national finance chairman of the DSCC said.
On January 10, 2008, Kerry endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama for president. He was mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate for Senator Obama, although fellow Senator Joe Biden was eventually chosen. After Biden's acceptance of the vice presidential nomination, speculation arose that John Kerry would be a candidate for Secretary of State in the Obama administration. However, Senator Hillary Clinton was offered the position.
During the 2012 Obama reelection campaign, Kerry participated in one-on-one debate prep with the president, impersonating the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
Secretary of State (2013–2017).
Nomination and confirmation.
On December 15, 2012, several news outlets reported that President Barack Obama would nominate Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, after Susan Rice, widely seen as Obama's preferred choice, withdrew her name from consideration citing a politicized confirmation process following criticism of her response to the 2012 Benghazi attack. On December 21, Obama proposed the nomination, which received positive commentary. His confirmation hearing took place on January 24, 2013, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the same panel where he first testified in 1971. The committee unanimously voted to approve him on January 29, 2013, and the same day the full Senate confirmed him on a vote of 94–3. In a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Kerry announced his resignation from the Senate effective February 1.
Tenure.
Kerry was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, 2013.
While serving as the Secretary of State, Kerry spoke in the French language on several occasions in his official capacity.
After six months of rigorous diplomacy within the Middle East, Kerry was able to have Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree to start the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. Senior U.S. officials stated the two sides were able to meet on July 30, 2013, at the State Department without American mediators following a dinner the previous evening hosted by Kerry.
On September 27, 2013, he met with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the P5+1 and Iran summit, which eventually led to the JCPOA nuclear agreement. It was the highest-level direct contact between the United States and Iran in the last six years, and made him the first U.S. Secretary of State to have met with his Iranian counterpart since 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In the State Department, Kerry quickly earned a reputation "for being aloof, keeping to himself, and not bothering to read staff memos". Career State Department officials complained that power became too centralized under Kerry's leadership, which slowed department operations when Kerry was on frequent overseas trips. Others in State described Kerry as having "a kind of diplomatic attention deficit disorder" as he shifted from topic to topic instead of focusing on long-term strategy. When asked whether he was traveling too much, he responded, "Hell no. I'm not slowing down." Despite Kerry's early achievements, morale at State was lower than under Hillary Clinton, according to department employees. However, after Kerry's first six months in the State Department, a Gallup poll found he had high approval ratings among Americans as Secretary of State. After a year, another poll showed Kerry's favorability continued to rise. Less than two years into Kerry's term, the Foreign Policy Magazine's 2014 Ivory Tower survey of international relations scholars asked, "Who was the most effective U.S. Secretary of State in the past 50 years?"; John Kerry and Lawrence Eagleburger tied for 11th place out of the 15 confirmed Secretaries of State in that period.
In January 2014, having met with Vatican Secretary of State Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Kerry said: "We touched on just about every major issue that we are both working on, that are issues of concern to all of us. First of all, we talked at great length about Syria, and I was particularly appreciative for the Archbishop's raising this issue, and equally grateful for the Holy Father's comments – the Pope's comments yesterday regarding his support for the GenevaII process. We welcome that support. It is very important to have broad support, and I know that the Pope is particularly concerned about the massive numbers of displaced human beings and the violence that has taken over 130,000 lives."
Kerry expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.
Kerry said the United States supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen because Saudi Arabia, an ally, was threatened "very directly" by the takeover of neighboring Yemen by the Houthis, but noted that the United States would not reflexively support Saudi Arabia's proxy wars against Iran.
On December 28, 2016, soon after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 passed 14–0 with the U.S. abstaining, Kerry joined the rest of the U.N. Security Council in strongly criticizing Israel's settlement policies in a speech. His speech and criticisms met negative reactions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while UK Prime Minister Theresa May distanced the UK from Kerry's strongly worded speech in what appeared to be an attempt to build bridges with the incoming Trump administration. Kerry's speech received positive reactions from Arab nations, but some criticized his remarks as too little, too late from the outgoing administration.
Syria.
Following the August 21, 2013, chemical weapons attack on the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus attributed to Syrian government forces, Kerry became a leading advocate for the use of military force against the Syrian government for what he called "a despot's brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons".
On September 9, in response to a reporter's question about whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avert a military strike, Kerry said "He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done, obviously." This unscripted remark initiated a process that would lead to Syria agreeing to relinquish and destroy its chemical weapons arsenal, as Russia treated Kerry's statement as a serious proposal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would work "immediately" to convince Syria relinquish and destroy its large chemical weapons arsenal. Syria quickly welcomed this proposal and on September 14, the UN formally accepted Syria's application to join the convention banning chemical weapons, and separately, the U.S. and Russia agreed on a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons by the middle of 2014, leading Kerry to declare on July 20, 2014: "we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out". On September 28, the UN Security Council passed a resolution ordering the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons and condemning the August 21 Ghouta attack.
Latin America.
In a speech before the Organization of American States in November 2013, Kerry remarked that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over. He went on to explain, "The relationship that we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It's about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests that we share."
Environmentalism.
In April 2016, he signed the Paris Climate Accords at the United Nations in New York.
On November 11, 2016, Kerry became the first Secretary of State and highest-ranking U.S. official to date to visit Antarctica. Kerry spent two days on the continent meeting with researchers and staying overnight at McMurdo Station.
In 1994, Kerry led opposition to continued funding for the Integral Fast Reactor, which resulted in the end of funding for the project. However, in light of increasing concerns regarding climate change, in 2017 Kerry reversed his position on nuclear power, saying "Given this challenge we face today, and given the progress of fourth generation nuclear: go for it. No other alternative, zero emissions."
Global Connect initiative.
In September 2015, the U.S. Department of State unveiled a new initiative called "Global Connect" which sought to provide internet access to more than 1.5 billion people around the world within five years. In 2016, in partnership with OPIC, Kerry announced an investment of $171million to enable "a low-cost and rapidly scalable wireless broadband network in India". OPIC's financing is aimed at helping its Indian Partner, Tikona Digital Networks, to provide Internet through wireless technology.
Out of government (2017–2021).
Kerry retired from his diplomatic work following the end of the Obama administration on January 20, 2017. He did not attend Donald Trump's inauguration on that day, and the following day took part in the 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C.
Kerry has taken a strong stand against Trump policies and joined in filing a brief arguing against Trump's executive order banning entry of persons from seven Muslim countries. In November 2018, in a "Guardian Live" conversation with Andrew Rawnsley, sponsored by "The Guardian" at London's Central Hall, Kerry discussed several issues which have developed further since his tenure as Secretary of State, including migration into Europe and climate change.
On December 5, 2019, Kerry endorsed Joe Biden's bid for the Democratic nomination for president, saying "He'll be ready on day one to put back together the country and the world that Donald Trump has broken apart" and asserting that "Joe will defeat Donald Trump next November. He's the candidate with the wisdom and standing to fix what Trump has broken, to restore our place in the world, and improve the lives of working people here at home."
Following retirement from government service, Kerry signed an agreement with Simon & Schuster for publishing his planned memoirs, dealing with his life and career in government. In September 2018, he published "Every Day Is Extra".
Leaked audiotape.
On April 25, 2021, "The New York Times" published content from a leaked audiotape of a three-hour taped conversation between economist Saeed Leylaz and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The taped conversation was connected to an oral history project, known as "In the Islamic Republic the military field rules", which documents the work of Iran's current administration. The tape was obtained by the London-based news channel Iran International.
In the tape, which the "Times" referred to as "extraordinary", Zarif reveals that then-Secretary of State Kerry told him that Israel attacked Iranian assets in Syria, "at least 200 times". Although the tape has not been verified, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry did not deny its validity.
Nineteen Republican senators signed a letter asking President Biden to investigate Zarif's claim. On April 27, 2021, Republicans called on Kerry to resign from the Biden administration's National Security Council. In a tweet, Kerry denied Zarif's account, writing, "I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened — either when I was Secretary of State or since."
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (2021–2024).
On November 23, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced that Kerry would be taking a full-time position in the administration, serving as a special envoy for climate; in this role he will be a principal on the National Security Council. Kerry assumed office on January 20, 2021, following Biden's inauguration.
Climate cooperation with China.
In July 2023, John Kerry visited China for advance climate cooperation. The main achievement of the visit was some progress in the fields of: "methane reduction commitments; reducing China's reliance on coal; China's objections to trade restrictions on solar panel and battery components; and climate finance." This was obtained despite many currently existing obstacles to cooperation. The visit was made in the middle of the 2023 Asia heat wave that set a new record of in Sanbu, Xinjiang, China, which Kerry mentioned in particular.
Climate cooperation with India.
At the end of July 2023, John Kerry visited India. Among others he declared, the US will be committed to the target of delivering 100 billion dollars for climate action to low income countries and no future US president can retreat from climate commitment. He criticized Donald Trump for leaving the Paris agreement before.
Climate cooperation with countries in the Middle East.
In June 2023, Kerry made visits to Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. In Israel, he emphasized the need for climate legislation to reach climate targets and reached an agreement about the renewal of "Memorandum of understanding between Israel and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Israel is one of the few developed countries which have still not approved a climate law and lags behind other OECD countries in climate action. Israeli environmental protection minister Idit Silman said that Israel intended to go to COP28 "with an ambitious and applicable climate law and put the State of Israel on the same level as the developed countries of the OECD."
Departure.
On January 13, 2024, at least three sources close to Kerry revealed that he would step down as U.S. climate envoy by the upcoming spring. He told the "Financial Times" he planned to stay active in the climate finance space. He officially resigned from his position on March 6, 2024.
Personal and family life.
Ancestry.
Kerry's paternal ancestors came from the Fränkel family, which owned a textile factory in Neustadt, Upper Silesia (now Prudnik, Poland), founded by Samuel Fränkel. The Fränkels originated from Hotzenplotz, Austria (now Osoblaha, Czech Republic) and Zülz, Prussia (now Biała Prudnicka, Poland). Kerry's paternal great-grandmother, Mathilda Fränkel, was born in Oberglogau (now Głogówek, near Prudnik) and married Benedikt Kohn from Bennisch (now Horní Benešov). His grandparents, shoe businessman Frederick A. "Fred" Kerry and musician Ida Löwe, immigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the U.S. Fred, his wife, and his brother converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1901, and changed their names from Kohn to Kerry. Ida was of remote ancestry of Rabbi Sinai Loew of Worms, brother of Judah Loew ben Bezalel. Fred and Ida Kerry emigrated to the United States in 1905, living at first in Chicago and eventually moving to Brookline, Massachusetts, by 1915. According to "The New York Times", "[the] brother and sister of John Kerry's paternal grandmother, Otto and Jenni Lowe, died in concentration camps". Kerry's Jewish ancestry was publicly revealed during his 2004 presidential campaign; he has stated that he was unaware of it until a reporter informed him of it in 2003.
Kerry's maternal ancestors were of Scottish and English descent, and his maternal grandparents were James Grant Forbes II of the Forbes family and Margaret Tyndal Winthrop of the Dudley–Winthrop family. Margaret's paternal grandfather Robert Charles Winthrop served as the 22nd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Robert's father was Governor Thomas Lindall Winthrop. Thomas' father John Still Winthrop was a great-great-grandson of Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop and great-grandson of Governor Thomas Dudley. Through his mother, Kerry is a first cousin once removed of French politician Brice Lalonde.
Marriages and children.
Kerry was married to Julia Thorne in 1970, and they had two daughters together: documentary filmmaker Alexandra Kerry (born September 5, 1973) and physician Vanessa Kerry (born December 31, 1976).
Alexandra was born days before Kerry began law school. In 1982, Julia asked Kerry for a separation while she was suffering from severe depression. They were divorced on July 25, 1988, and the marriage was formally annulled in 1997. "After 14 years as a political wife, I associated politics only with anger, fear and loneliness", she wrote in "A Change of Heart", her book about depression. Thorne later married Richard Charlesworth, an architect, and moved to Bozeman, Montana, where she became active in local environmental groups such as the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Thorne supported Kerry's 2004 presidential run. She died of cancer on April 27, 2006.
Kerry and his second wife—Portuguese-born businesswoman and philanthropist Teresa Heinz, the widow of Kerry's late Pennsylvania Republican Senate colleague John Heinz—were introduced to each other by Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. Early the following year, Senator Heinz was killed in a plane crash near Lower Merion. Teresa has three sons from her marriage to Heinz, Henry John IV, André, and Christopher. Heinz and Kerry were married on May 26, 1995, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Net worth.
The "Forbes 400" survey estimated in 2004 that Teresa Heinz Kerry had a net worth of $750million. However, estimates have frequently varied, ranging from around $165million to as high as $3.2billion, according to a study in the "Los Angeles Times". Regardless of which figure is correct, Kerry was the wealthiest U.S. Senator while serving in the Senate. Independent of Heinz, Kerry is wealthy in his own right, and is the beneficiary of at least four trusts inherited from Forbes family relatives, including his mother, Rosemary Forbes Kerry, who died in 2002. "Forbes" magazine (named for the Forbes family of publishers, unrelated to Kerry) estimated that if elected, and if Heinz family assets were included, Kerry would have been the third-richest U.S. president in history, when adjusted for inflation. This assessment was based on Heinz's and Kerry's combined assets, but the couple signed a prenuptial agreement that keeps their assets separate. Kerry's financial disclosure form for 2011 put his personal assets in the range of $230,000,000 to $320,000,000, including the assets of his spouse and any dependent children. This included slightly more than $3,000,000 worth of H. J. Heinz Company assets, which increased in value by over $600,000 in 2013 when Berkshire Hathaway announced their intention to purchase the company.
In April 2017, Kerry purchased an 18-acre property on the northwest corner of Martha's Vineyard overlooking Vineyard Sound in the town of Chilmark, Massachusetts. The property is located in Seven Gates Farm and according to property records, cost $11.75million for the seven bedroom home.
Religious beliefs.
Kerry is a Roman Catholic, and is said to have carried a religious rosary, a prayer book, and a St. Christopher medal (the patron saint of travelers) when he campaigned. Discussing his faith, Kerry said: "I thought of being a priest. I was very religious while at school in Switzerland. I was an altar boy and prayed all the time. I was very centered around the Mass and the church." He also said that the Letters of Paul (Apostle Paul) moved him the most, stating that they taught him to "not feel sorry for myself".
Kerry told "Christianity Today" in October 2004:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />I'm a Catholic and I practice, but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions... I've spent some time reading and thinking about religion and trying to study it, and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences, but a sense of the similarities in so many ways.
He said that he believed that the Torah, the Quran, and the Bible all share a fundamental story which connects with readers.
Health.
In 2003, Kerry was diagnosed with and successfully treated for prostate cancer. On May 31, 2015, Kerry broke his right leg in a biking accident in Scionzier, France, and was flown to Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital for recovery. MGH Hip and Knee Replacement Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Dennis Burke, who had met Kerry in France and had accompanied him in the plane from France to Boston, set Kerry's right leg on Tuesday, June 2, in a four-hour operation.
Athletics and sailing.
In addition to the sports he played at Yale, Kerry is described by "Sports Illustrated", among others, as an "avid cyclist", primarily riding on a road bike. Prior to his presidential bid, Kerry had participated in several long-distance rides. During his many campaigns, he was reported to have visited bicycle stores in both his home state and elsewhere. His staff requested recumbent stationary bikes for his hotel rooms. He has also been a snowboarder, windsurfer, and sailor.
The "Boston Herald" reported on July 23, 2010, that Kerry commissioned construction on a new $7million yacht (a Friendship 75) in New Zealand and moored it in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where the Friendship yacht company is based. The article claimed this allowed him to avoid paying Massachusetts taxes on the property including approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $500. On July 27, Kerry stated he would voluntarily pay $500,000 in Massachusetts taxes on his yacht.
Honors.
John Kerry was awarded:
Honorary degrees.
John Kerry has received several honorary degrees in recognition of his service to the United States, These include:
References.
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Further reading.
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New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport and Stamford, the largest city in the South Central Connecticut Planning Region, and the principal municipality of Greater New Haven, which had a total population of 864,835 in 2020.
New Haven was one of the first planned cities in the U.S. A year after its founding by English Puritans in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid, creating the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is the New Haven Green, a square at the center of Downtown New Haven. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmark.
New Haven is the home of Yale University, New Haven's biggest taxpayer and employer, and an integral part of the city's economy. Health care, professional and financial services and retail trade also contribute to the city's economic activity.
The city served as co-capital of Connecticut from 1701 until 1873, when sole governance was transferred to the more centrally located city of Hartford. New Haven has since billed itself as the "Cultural Capital of Connecticut" for its supply of established theaters, museums, and music venues. New Haven had the first public tree planting program in the U.S., producing a canopy of mature trees (including some large elms) that gave the city the nickname "The Elm City".
History.
Pre-colonial foundation as an independent colony.
Before Europeans arrived, the New Haven area was the home of the Quinnipiac tribe of Native Americans, who lived in villages around the harbor and sustained an economy of local fisheries and the farming of maize. The area was briefly visited by Dutch explorer Adriaen Block in 1614. Dutch traders set up a small trading system of beaver pelts with the local inhabitants, but trade was sporadic and the Dutch did not settle permanently in the area.
In 1637, a small party of Puritans did a reconnaissance of the New Haven harbor area and wintered over. In April 1638, the main party of five hundred Puritans, who had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of Reverend John Davenport and London merchant Theophilus Eaton, sailed into the harbor. It was their hope to set up a theological community with the government more closely linked to the church than that in Massachusetts, and to exploit the area's potential as a port. The Quinnipiacs, who were under attack by neighboring Pequots, sold their land to the settlers in return for a pledge of protection.
By 1640, "Quinnipiac's" theocratic government and nine-square grid plan were in place, and the town was renamed New Haven, with 'haven' meaning harbor or port. However, the area to the north remained Quinnipiac until 1678, when it was renamed Hamden. The settlement became the headquarters of the New Haven Colony, distinct from the Connecticut Colony previously established to the north centering on Hartford. Reflecting its theocratic roots, the New Haven Colony forbade the establishment of other churches, whereas the Connecticut Colony permitted them.
Economic disaster struck New Haven in 1646, when the town sent its first fully loaded ship of local goods (the "Great Shippe") back to England. It never reached its destination, and its disappearance hindered New Haven's development as compared to the rising trade powers of Boston and New Amsterdam (modern day New York City).
In 1660, Colony founder John Davenport's wishes were fulfilled, and Hopkins School was founded in New Haven with money from the estate of Edward Hopkins.
In 1661, the Regicides who had signed the death warrant of Charles I of England were pursued by Charles II. Two of them, Colonel Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, fled to New Haven for refuge. Davenport arranged for them to hide in the West Rock hills northwest of the town. A third judge, John Dixwell, later joined the others. None of the three were ever returned to England for trial; Dixwell died of old age in New Haven, the others likewise elsewhere in New England.
As part of the Connecticut Colony.
In 1664, New Haven became part of the Connecticut Colony when the two colonies were merged under political pressure from England. Seeking to establish a new theocracy elsewhere, some members of the New Haven Colony went on to establish Newark, New Jersey.
New Haven was made co-capital of Connecticut in 1701, a status it retained until 1873.
In 1716, the Collegiate School relocated from Old Saybrook to New Haven, establishing it as a center of learning. In 1718, in response to a large donation from East India Company merchant Elihu Yale, former Governor of Madras, the Collegiate School was renamed Yale College.
For over a century, New Haven citizens had fought in the colonial militia alongside regular British forces, including the French and Indian War. As the American Revolution approached, General David Wooster and other influential residents hoped that the conflict with the British parliament could be resolved short of rebellion. On April 23, 1775, Captain Benedict Arnold commanded the Second Company, Governor's Foot Guard, of New Haven to break into the powder house to arm themselves for a three-day march to Cambridge, Massachusetts, an event still celebrated in New Haven as Powder House Day. Other New Haven militia members were on hand to escort George Washington from his overnight stay in New Haven on his way to Cambridge. Contemporary reports, from both sides, remark on the New Haven volunteers' professional military bearing, including uniforms.
On July 5, 1779, 2,600 loyalists and British regulars under General William Tryon, governor of New York, landed in New Haven Harbor and raided the town of 3,500. A militia of Yale students had been preparing for battle, and former Yale president and Yale Divinity School professor Naphtali Daggett rode out to confront the Redcoats. Yale president Ezra Stiles recounted in his diary that while he moved furniture in anticipation of battle, he still couldn't quite believe the revolution had begun. New Haven was not torched as the invaders did with Danbury in 1777, or Fairfield and Norwalk a week after the New Haven raid, preserving many of the town's colonial features.
Post-colonial period and industrialization.
New Haven was incorporated as a city in 1784, and Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Constitution and author of the "Connecticut Compromise", became the new city's first mayor.
The city struck fortune in the late 18th century with the inventions and industrial activity of Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate who remained in New Haven to develop the cotton gin and establish a gun-manufacturing factory in the northern part of the city near the Hamden town line. That area is still known as Whitneyville, and the main road through both towns is known as Whitney Avenue. The factory is now the Eli Whitney Museum, which has a particular emphasis on activities for children and exhibits pertaining to the A. C. Gilbert Company. His factory, along with that of Simeon North, and the lively clock-making and brass hardware sectors, contributed to making early Connecticut a powerful manufacturing economy; so many arms manufacturers sprang up that the state became known as "The Arsenal of America". It was in Whitney's gun-manufacturing plant that Samuel Colt invented the automatic revolver in 1836. Many other talented machinists and firearms designers would go on to found successful firearms manufacturing companies in New Haven, including Oliver Winchester and O.F. Mossberg & Sons.
The Farmington Canal, created in the early 19th century, was a short-lived transporter of goods into the interior regions of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and ran from New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts.
New Haven was to be the site of the first college for African Americans in the United States, but the plan was obstructed by efforts led by Yale Law School founder and former New Haven Mayor David Daggett, who went on to serve as a U.S. Senator and judge on Connecticut's highest court. Daggett denigrated African Americans, denied they were citizens, and presided over the trial of a woman persecuted for trying to admit an African American girl to her boarding school and, having that effort blocked, running a boarding school for African American girls.
New Haven was home to one of the important early events in the burgeoning anti-slavery movement when, in 1839, the trial of mutineering Mende tribesmen being transported as slaves on the Spanish slaveship "Amistad" was held in New Haven's United States District Court. There is a statue of Joseph Cinqué, the informal leader of the slaves, beside City Hall. See "Museums" below for more information. Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech on slavery in New Haven in 1860, shortly before he secured the Republican nomination for President.
The American Civil War boosted the local economy with wartime purchases of industrial goods, including that of the New Haven Arms Company, which would later become the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. (Winchester would continue to produce arms in New Haven until 2006, and many of the buildings that were a part of the Winchester plant are now a part of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company Historic District). After the war, population grew and doubled by the start of the 20th century, most notably due to the influx of immigrants from southern Europe, particularly Italy. Today, roughly half the populations of East Haven, West Haven, and North Haven are Italian-American. Jewish immigration to New Haven has left an enduring mark on the city. Westville was the center of Jewish life in New Haven, though today many have fanned out to suburban communities such as Woodbridge and Cheshire. Lowell House, the city's first settlement, opened in 1900.
Post-industrial era and urban redevelopment.
New Haven's expansion continued during the two World Wars, with most new inhabitants being African Americans from the American South, and Puerto Ricans. The city reached its peak population after World War II. The area of New Haven is only , encouraging further development of new housing after 1950 in adjacent, suburban towns. Moreover, as in other U.S. cities in the 1950s, New Haven began to suffer white flight of middle-class workers. One author suggested that aggressive redlining and rezoning made it difficult for residents to obtain financing for older, deteriorating urban housing stock, thereby condemning such structures to deterioration.
In 1954, then-mayor Richard C. Lee began some of the earliest major urban renewal projects in the United States. Certain sections of downtown New Haven were redeveloped to include museums, new office towers, a hotel, and large shopping complexes. Other parts of the city, particularly the Wooster Square and Fair Haven neighborhoods were affected by the construction of Interstate 95 along the Long Wharf section, Interstate 91, and the Oak Street Connector. The Oak Street Connector (Route 34), running between Interstate 95, downtown, and The Hill neighborhood, was originally intended as a highway to the city's western suburbs but was only completed as a highway to the downtown area, with the area to the west becoming a boulevard (See "Redevelopment" below).
In 1970, a series of criminal prosecutions against various members of the Black Panther Party took place in New Haven, inciting mass protests on the New Haven Green involving twelve thousand demonstrators and many well-known New Left political activists. (See "Political Culture" below for more information). From the 1960s through the early 1990s, some areas of New Haven continued to decline both economically and in terms of population despite attempts to resurrect certain neighborhoods through renewal projects. In conjunction with its declining population, New Haven experienced a steep rise in its crime rate.
Since approximately 2000, many parts of downtown New Haven have been revitalized with new restaurants, nightlife, and small retail stores. In particular, the area surrounding the New Haven Green has experienced an influx of apartments and condominiums. In addition, two new supermarkets opened to serve downtown's growing residential population: a Stop & Shop opened just west of downtown, while Elm City Market, located one block from the Green, opened in 2011. The recent turnaround of downtown New Haven has received positive press from various periodicals.
Major projects include the current construction of a new campus for Gateway Community College downtown, and also a 32-story, 500-unit apartment/retail building called 360 State Street. The 360 State Street project is now occupied and is the largest residential building in Connecticut. A new boathouse and dock is planned for New Haven Harbor, and the linear park Farmington Canal Trail is set to extend into downtown New Haven within the coming year. Additionally, foundation and ramp work to widen I-95 to create a new harbor crossing for New Haven, with an extradosed bridge to replace the 1950s-era Q Bridge, has begun. The city still hopes to redevelop the site of the New Haven Coliseum, which was demolished in 2007.
In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination brought by 18 white firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no black firefighters scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. In the subsequent "Ricci v. DeStefano" decision the court found 5–4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test results violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As a result, a district court subsequently ordered the city to promote 14 of the white firefighters.
In 2010 and 2011, state and federal funds were awarded to Connecticut (and Massachusetts) to construct the Hartford Line, with a southern terminus at New Haven's Union Station and a northern terminus at Springfield's Union Station. According to the White House, "This corridor [currently] has one train per day connecting communities in Connecticut and Massachusetts to the Northeast Corridor and Vermont. The vision for this corridor is to restore the alignment to its original route via the Knowledge Corridor in western Massachusetts, improving trip time and increasing the population base that can be served." Set for construction in 2013, the "Knowledge Corridor high speed intercity passenger rail" project will cost approximately $1 billion, and the ultimate northern terminus for the project is reported to be Montreal in Canada. Train speeds between will reportedly exceed and increase both cities' rail traffic exponentially.
Geography.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 6.67%, is water.
New Haven's best-known geographic features are its large, shallow harbor, and two reddish basalt trap rock ridges which rise to the northeast and northwest of the city core. These trap rocks are known respectively as East Rock and West Rock, and both serve as extensive parks. West Rock has been tunneled through to make way for the east–west passage of the Wilbur Cross Parkway (the only highway tunnel through a natural obstacle in Connecticut), and once served as the hideout of the "Regicides" (see: Regicides Trail). Most New Haveners refer to these men as "The Three Judges". East Rock features the prominent Soldiers and Sailors war monument on its peak as well as the "Great/Giant Steps" which run up the rock's cliffside.
The city is drained by three rivers; the West, Mill, and Quinnipiac, named in order from west to east. The West River discharges into West Haven Harbor, while the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers discharge into New Haven Harbor. Both harbors are embayments of Long Island Sound. In addition, several smaller streams flow through the city's neighborhoods, including Wintergreen Brook, the Beaver Ponds Outlet, Wilmot Brook, Belden Brook, and Prospect Creek. Not all of these small streams have continuous flow year-round.
Climate.
According to the Köppen classification, New Haven experiences a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa"), bordering a hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dfa"). The city has hot, humid summers and cool to cold winters. From May to late September, the weather is typically hot and humid, with average temperatures exceeding on 70 days per year. In summer, the Bermuda High creates as southern flow of warm and humid air, with frequent (but brief) thundershowers. October to early December is normally mild to cool late in the season, while early spring (April) can be cool to warm. Winters are more variable, with cool to cold temperatures, mixed with warmer spells, with both rain and snow fall.
While the weather patterns that affect New Haven result from a primarily offshore direction, thus reducing the marine influence of Long Island Sound, the location on Long Island Sound often influences the weather along the coastline compared to inland. During summer heat waves, temperatures may reach or higher on occasion with heat-index values of over . Tropical cyclones have struck New Haven in the past, including 1938 Hurricane (Long Island Express), Hurricane Carol in 1954, Hurricane Gloria in 1985. The hardiness zone is 7a.
Streetscape.
New Haven has a long tradition of urban planning and a purposeful design for the city's layout. The city could be argued to have some of the first preconceived layouts in the country. Upon founding, New Haven was laid out in a grid plan of nine square blocks; the central square was left open, in the tradition of many New England towns, as the city green (a commons area). The city also instituted the first public tree planting program in America. As in other cities, many of the elms that gave New Haven the nickname "Elm City" perished in the mid-20th century due to Dutch elm disease, although many have since been replanted. The New Haven Green is currently home to three separate historic churches which speak to the original theocratic nature of the city. The Green remains the social center of the city today. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
Downtown New Haven, occupied by nearly 7,000 residents, has a more residential character than most downtowns. The downtown area provides about half of the city's jobs and half of its tax base and in recent years has become filled with dozens of new upscale restaurants, in addition to shops and thousands of apartments and condominium units which subsequently help overall growth of the city.
Neighborhoods.
The city has many distinct neighborhoods. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the Green, are the following neighborhoods: the west central neighborhoods of Dixwell and Dwight; the southern neighborhoods of The Hill, historic water-front City Point (or Oyster Point), and the harborside district of Long Wharf; the western neighborhoods of Beaver Hills, Edgewood, West River, Westville, Amity, and West Rock-Westhills; East Rock, Cedar Hill, Prospect Hill, and Newhallville in the northern side of town; the east central neighborhoods of Mill River and Wooster Square, an Italian-American neighborhood; Fair Haven, an immigrant community located between the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers; Quinnipiac Meadows and Fair Haven Heights across the Quinnipiac River; and facing the eastern side of the harbor, The Annex and East Shore (or Morris Cove).
Demographics.
Census data.
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2010 census.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports a 2010 population of 129,779, with 47,094 households and 25,854 families within the city of New Haven. The population density was . There were 52,941 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 42.6% White, 35.4% African American, 0.5% Native American, 4.6% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 12.9% from other races, and 3.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 27.4% of the population. Non-Hispanic Whites were 31.8% of the population in 2010, down from 69.6% in 1970. The city's Latino population is growing rapidly. Previous influxes among ethnic groups have been African-Americans in the postwar era, and Irish, Italian and (to a lesser degree) Slavic peoples in the prewar period.
As of the 2010 census, of the 47,094 households, 29.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.5% include married couples living together, 22.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.1% were non-families. 36.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size 3.19.
The ages of New Haven's residents were 25.4% under the age of 18, 16.4% from 18 to 24, 31.2% from 25 to 44, 16.7% from 45 to 64, and 10.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29 years, which was significantly lower than the national average. There were 91.8 males per 100 females. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.6 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $29,604, and the median income for a family was $35,950. Median income for males was $33,605, compared with $28,424 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,393. About 20.5% of families and 24.4% of the population were living below the poverty line, including 32.2% of those under age 18 and 17.9% of those age 65 or over.
Other data.
It is estimated that 14% of New Haven residents are pedestrian commuters, ranking it number four by highest percentage in the United States. This is primarily due to New Haven's small area and the presence of Yale University.
New Haven is noted for having the highest percentage of Italian American residents of any US city, and is noted for its local style of pizza.
A study of the demographics of the New Haven metro area, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity, found that they were the closest of any American city to the national average.
Economy.
New Haven's economy originally was based in manufacturing, but the postwar period brought rapid industrial decline; the entire Northeast was affected, and medium-sized cities with large working-class populations, like New Haven, were hit particularly hard. Simultaneously, the growth and expansion of Yale University further affected the economic shift. Today, over half (56%) of the city's economy is now made up of services, in particular education and health care; Yale is the city's largest employer, followed by Yale – New Haven Hospital. Other large employers include Southern Connecticut State University, Assa Abloy lock manufacturing, the Knights of Columbus headquarters, Higher One, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Covidien and United Illuminating. Clothing stores Gant and Ann Taylor were founded in the city.
In 2017, New Haven was ranked by a Verizon study as one of the top 10 cities in America for launching tech startups, and top two in New England.
Industry sectors: Agriculture (.6%), Construction and Mining (4.9%), Manufacturing (2.9%), Transportation and Utilities (2.9%), Trade (21.7%), Finance and Real Estate (7.1%), Services (55.9%), Government (4.0%)
Headquarters.
The Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization and a Fortune 1000 company, is headquartered in New Haven. Amphenol, based in Greater New Haven (Wallingford), is a Fortune 100 company. Eight Courant 100 companies are based in Greater New Haven, with four headquartered in New Haven proper. New Haven-based companies traded on stock exchanges include NewAlliance Bank, the second largest bank in Connecticut and fourth-largest in New England (NYSE: NAL), Higher One Holdings (NYSE: ONE), a financial services firm, United Illuminating, the electricity distributor for southern Connecticut (NYSE: UIL), and Transpro Inc. (AMEX: TPR). The American division of Assa Abloy (one of the world's leading manufacturers of locks) is located in the city. The Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET) began operations in the city as the District Telephone Company of New Haven in 1878; the company remains headquartered in New Haven as a subsidiary of Frontier Communications and provides telephone service for all but two municipalities in Connecticut. SeeClickFix was founded and has been headquartered in the city since 2007. Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company (a candy-making division of the Hershey Company) was formerly located in the city. Achillion Pharmaceuticals and Alexion Pharmaceuticals were also formerly headquartered in New Haven.
Law and government.
Political structure.
New Haven is governed via the mayor-council system. Connecticut municipalities (like those of neighboring states Massachusetts and Rhode Island) provide nearly all local services (such as fire and rescue, education, snow removal, etc.), as county government has been abolished since 1960.
New Haven County merely refers to a grouping of towns and a judicial district, not a governmental entity. New Haven is a member of the South Central Connecticut Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG), a regional agency created to facilitate coordination between area municipal governments and state and federal agencies, in the absence of county government.
Justin Elicker is the mayor of New Haven. He was sworn in as the 51st mayor of New Haven on January 1, 2020.
The city council, called the Board of Alders, consists of thirty members, each elected from single-member wards. Each of the 30 wards consists of slightly over 4,300 residents; redistricting takes place every ten years.
The city is overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2017, of the town's 83,694 voters, 66% were registered as Democrats (−4% since 2015), 4% were registered as Republicans (+1%), and 29% were unaffiliated (+3). The board of alders is dominated by Democrats; a Republican has not served as a New Haven alder since 2011.
New Haven is served by the New Haven Police Department, which had 443 sworn officers in 2011. The city is also served by the New Haven Fire Department.
New Haven lies within Connecticut's 3rd congressional district and has been represented by Rosa DeLauro since 1991. Martin Looney and Gary Holder-Winfield represent New Haven in the Connecticut State Senate, and the city lies within six districts (numbers 92 through 97) of the Connecticut House of Representatives.
The Greater New Haven area is served by the New Haven Judicial District Court and the New Haven Superior Court, both headquartered at the New Haven County Courthouse. The federal District Court for the District of Connecticut has a New Haven facility, the Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse.
Political history.
New Haven is the birthplace of former president George W. Bush, who was born when his father, former president George H. W. Bush, was living in New Haven while a student at Yale. In addition to being the site of the college educations of both Presidents Bush, as Yale students, New Haven was also the temporary home of former presidents William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton, as well as Secretary of State John Kerry. President Clinton met his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while the two were students at Yale Law School. Former vice presidents John C. Calhoun and Dick Cheney also studied in New Haven (although the latter did not graduate from Yale). Before the 2008 election, the last time there was not a person with ties to New Haven and Yale on either major party's ticket was 1968. James Hillhouse, a New Haven native, served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate in 1801.
New Haven voters overwhelmingly supported Al Gore in the 2000 election, Yale graduate John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In the 2008 election, New Haven County was third among all Connecticut counties in campaign contributions, after Fairfield and Hartford counties. (Connecticut, in turn, was ranked 14th among all states in total campaign contributions.)
New Haven was the subject of " Who Governs? Democracy and Power in An American City", a very influential book in political science by preeminent Yale professor Robert A. Dahl, which includes an extensive history of the city and thorough description of its politics in the 1950s. New Haven's theocratic history is also mentioned several times by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic volume on 19th-century American political life, "Democracy in America". New Haven was the residence of conservative thinker William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1951, when he wrote his influential "God and Man at Yale". William Lee Miller's "The Fifteenth Ward and the Great Society" (1966) similarly explores the relationship between local politics in New Haven and national political movements, focusing on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and urban renewal.
George Williamson Crawford, a Yale Law School graduate, served as the city's first black corporation counsel from 1954 to 1962, under Mayor Richard C. Lee.
In 1970, the New Haven Black Panther trials took place, the largest and longest trials in Connecticut history. Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and ten other party members were tried for murdering an alleged informant. Beginning on May Day, the city became a center of protest for 12,000 Panther supporters, college students, and New Left activists (including Jean Genet, Benjamin Spock, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and John Froines), who amassed on the New Haven Green, across the street from where the trials were being held. Violent confrontations between the demonstrators and the New Haven Police occurred, and several bombs were set off in the area by radicals. The event became a rallying point for the New Left and critics of the Nixon Administration.
During the summer of 2007, New Haven was the center of protests by anti-immigration groups who opposed the city's program of offering municipal ID cards, known as the Elm City Resident Card, to illegal immigrants. In 2008, the country of Ecuador opened a consulate in New Haven to serve the large Ecuadorean immigrant population in the area. It is the first foreign mission to open in New Haven since Italy opened a consulate (now closed) in the city in 1910.
In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination brought by 20 white and Hispanic firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no blacks scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. On June 29, 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the firefighters, agreeing that they were improperly denied promotion because of their race. The case, "Ricci v. DeStefano", became highly publicized and brought national attention to New Haven politics due to the involvement of then-Supreme Court nominee (and Yale Law School graduate) Sonia Sotomayor in a lower court decision.
Garry Trudeau, creator of the political "Doonesbury" comic strip, attended Yale University. There he met fellow student and later Green Party candidate for Congress Charles Pillsbury, a long-time New Haven resident for whom Trudeau's comic strip is named. During his college years, Pillsbury was known by the nickname "The Doones". A theory of international law, which argues for a sociological normative approach in regards to jurisprudence, is named the New Haven Approach, after the city. Connecticut US senator Richard Blumenthal is a Yale graduate, as is former Connecticut US Senator Joe Lieberman who also was a New Haven resident for many years, before moving back to his hometown of Stamford.
Crime.
Crime increased in the 1990s, with New Haven having one of the ten highest violent crime rates per capita in the United States. In the late 1990s New Haven's crime began to stabilize. The city, adopting a policy of community policing, saw crime rates drop during the 2000s.
Violent crime levels vary dramatically among New Haven's neighborhoods, with some areas having crime rates in line with the state of Connecticut average, and others having extremely high rates of crime. A 2011 New Haven Health Department report identifies these issues in greater detail.
In 2010, New Haven ranked as the 18th most dangerous city in the United States (albeit below the safety benchmark of 200.00 for the second consecutive year). However, according to a completely different analysis conducted by the "24/7 Wall Street Blog", in 2011 New Haven had risen to become the fourth most dangerous city in the United States, and was widely cited in the press as such.
However, an analysis by the Regional Data Cooperative for Greater New Haven, Inc., has shown that due to issues of comparative denominators and other factors, such municipality-based rankings can be considered inaccurate. For example, two cities of identical population can cover widely differing land areas, making such analyses irrelevant. The research organization called for comparisons based on neighborhoods, blocks, or standard methodologies (similar to those used by Brookings, DiversityData, and other established institutions), not based on municipalities.
Education.
Colleges and universities.
New Haven is a notable center for higher education. Yale University, at the heart of downtown, is one of the city's best known features and its largest employer. New Haven is also home to Southern Connecticut State University, part of the Connecticut State University System, and Albertus Magnus College, a private institution. Gateway Community College has a campus in downtown New Haven, formerly located in the Long Wharf district; Gateway consolidated into one campus downtown into a new state-of-the-art campus (on the site of the old Macy's building) and was open for the Fall 2012 semester.
There are several institutions immediately outside of New Haven, as well. Quinnipiac University and the Paier College of Art are located just to the north, in the town of Hamden. The University of New Haven is located not in New Haven but in neighboring West Haven.
Primary and secondary schools.
New Haven Public Schools is the school district serving the city. Wilbur Cross High School and Hillhouse High School are New Haven's two largest public secondary schools.
Hopkins School, a private school, was founded in 1660 and is the fifth-oldest educational institution in the United States. New Haven is home to a number of other private schools as well as public magnet schools, including Metropolitan Business Academy, High School in the Community, Hill Regional Career High School, Co-op High School, New Haven Academy, Edgewood Magnet School, ACES Educational Center for the Arts, the Foote School and the Sound School, all of which draw students from New Haven and suburban towns. New Haven is also home to two Achievement First charter schools, Amistad Academy and Elm City College Prep, and to Common Ground, an environmental charter school.
The city is renowned for its progressive school lunch programs, and participation in statewide bussing efforts toward increased diversity in schools.
Culture.
Cuisine.
Livability.com named New Haven as the Best Foodie City in the country in 2014. There are dozens of Zagat-rated restaurants in New Haven, the most in Connecticut and the third most in New England (after Boston and Cambridge). More than 120 restaurants are located within two blocks of the New Haven Green. The city is home to an eclectic mix of ethnic restaurants and small markets specializing in various foreign foods. Represented cuisines include Malaysian, Ethiopian, Spanish, Belgian, French, Greek, Latin American, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Cuban, Peruvian, Syrian/Lebanese, and Turkish.
New Haven's greatest culinary claim to fame may be its pizza, which has been claimed to be among the best in the country, or even in the world. New Haven-style pizza, called "apizza", made its debut at the iconic Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (known as Pepe's) in 1925. Apizza is baked in coal- or wood-fired brick ovens, and is notable for its thin crust. Apizza may be red (with a tomato-based sauce) or white (with a sauce of garlic and olive oil), and pies ordered "plain" are made without the otherwise customary mozzarella (originally smoked mozzarella, known as "scamorza" in Italian). A white clam pie is a well-known specialty of the restaurants on Wooster Street in the Little Italy section of New Haven, including Pepe's and Sally's Apizza (which opened in 1938). Modern Apizza on State Street, which opened in 1934, is also well-known.
A second New Haven gastronomical claim to fame is Louis' Lunch, which is located in a small brick building on Crown Street and has been serving fast food since 1895. Though fiercely debated, the restaurant's founder Louis Lassen is credited by the Library of Congress with inventing the hamburger and steak sandwich. Louis' Lunch broils hamburgers, steak sandwiches and hot dogs vertically in original antique 1898 cast iron stoves using gridirons, patented by local resident Luigi Pieragostini in 1939, that hold the meat in place while it cooks.
A third New Haven gastronomical claim to fame is Miya's, the first sustainable sushi restaurant in the world. Miya's, founded by Chef Yoshiko Lai in 1982, featured the first sustainable seafood-based sushi menu, the first plant-based sushi menu, and the first invasive species menu in the world. Second generation Miya's chef, Bun Lai, is the 2016 White House Champions of Change for Sustainable Seafood and a James Beard Foundation Award nominee. Chef Bun Lai is credited as the first chef in the world for implementing a sustainability paradigm to the cuisine of sushi.
During weekday lunchtime, over 150 lunch carts and food trucks cater to diners around the city. The carts and food trucks cluster at four main points: on Long Wharf Drive, along the city's shoreline with quick access off Interstate 95, by Yale – New Haven Hospital in the center of the Hospital Green (Cedar and York streets), by Yale's Trumbull College (Elm and York streets), and on the intersection of Prospect and Sachem streets by the Yale School of Management.
Popular farmers' markets, managed by the local non-profit CitySeed, set up shop weekly in several neighborhoods, including Westville/Edgewood Park, Fair Haven, Upper State Street, Wooster Square, and Downtown/New Haven Green.
A large grocery store, the Elm City Market, opened on 360 State Street in New Haven in early fall 2011 and served local produce and groceries to the community. Originally, the market was a member-owned co-op, but debt defaults in August 2014 forced a sale of the business. It is now an employee-owned business; the co-op's previous owners received no equity in the new business.
In the past several years, two separate Downtown food tour companies have started offering popular restaurant tours on weekends.
Taste of New Haven Tours offers several different weekly restaurant/bar tours and a popular pizza, bike, and pints tour. Culinary Walking Tours offers monthly restaurant tours and sponsors an annual Elm City Iron Chef competition.
Theatre and film.
The city hosts numerous theatres and production houses, including the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Long Wharf Theatre, and the Shubert Theatre. There is also theatre activity from the Yale School of Drama, which works through the Yale University Theatre and the student-run Yale Cabaret. Southern Connecticut State University hosts the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. The shuttered Palace Theatre (opposite the Shubert Theatre) was renovated and reopened as the College Street Music Hall in May 2015. Smaller theatres include the Little Theater on Lincoln Street. Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School also has a theatre on College Street. The theatre is used for student productions, and is the home to weekly services to a local non-denominational church, the City Church New Haven.
The Shubert Theatre once premiered many major theatrical productions before their Broadway debuts. Productions that premiered at the Shubert include "Oklahoma!" (which was also written in New Haven), "Carousel", "South Pacific", "My Fair Lady", "The King and I", and "The Sound of Music", and the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire".
Bow Tie Cinemas owns and operates the Criterion Cinemas, the first new movie theater to open in New Haven in over 30 years and the first luxury movie complex in the city's history. The Criterion has seven screens and opened in November 2004, showing a mix of upscale first run commercial and independent film.
Museums.
New Haven has a variety of museums, many of them associated with Yale. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library features an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible. There is also the Connecticut Children's Museum; the Knights of Columbus museum near that organization's world headquarters; the Peabody Museum of Natural History; the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments; the Eli Whitney Museum (across the town line in Hamden, Connecticut, on Whitney Avenue); the Yale Center for British Art, which houses the largest collection of British art outside the U.K., and the Yale University Art Gallery, the western hemisphere's oldest college art museum. New Haven is also home to the New Haven Museum and Historical Society on Whitney Avenue, which has a library of many primary source treasures dating from Colonial times to the present.
Artspace on Orange Street is one of several contemporary art galleries around the city, showcasing the work of local, national, and international artists. Others include City Gallery and A. Leaf Gallery in the downtown area. Westville galleries include Kehler Liddell, Jennifer Jane Gallery, and The Hungry Eye. The Erector Square complex in the Fair Haven neighborhood houses, the Parachute Factory gallery along with numerous artist studios, and the complex serves as an active destination during City-Wide Open Studios held yearly in October.
New Haven is the home port of a life-size replica of the historical "Freedom Schooner Amistad", which is open for tours at Long Wharf pier at certain times during the summer. Also at Long Wharf pier is the "Quinnipiack" schooner, offering sailing cruises of the harbor area throughout the summer. The "Quinnipiack" also functions as a floating classroom for hundreds of local students.
Music.
The New Haven Green is the site of many free music concerts, especially during the summer months. These have included the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the July Free Concerts on the Green, and the New Haven Jazz Festival in August. The Jazz Festival, which began in 1982, is one of the longest-running free outdoor festivals in the U.S., until it was canceled for 2007. Headliners such as Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles and Celia Cruz have historically drawn 30,000 to 50,000 fans, filling up the New Haven Green to capacity. The New Haven Jazz Festival was revived in 2008 and has been sponsored since by Jazz Haven.
New Haven is home to the concert venue Toad's Place, and a new venue, College Street Music Hall. The city has retained an alternative art and music underground that has helped to influence post-punk era music movements such as indie, college rock and underground hip-hop.
The Yale School of Music contributes to the city's music scene by offering hundreds of free concerts throughout the year at venues in and around the Yale campus. Large performances are held in the 2,700-seat Woolsey Hall auditorium, which contains the world's largest symphonic organs, while chamber music and recitals are performed in Sprague Hall.
Hardcore band Hatebreed are from Wallingford, but got their start in New Haven under the name Jasta 14. The band Miracle Legion formed in New Haven in 1983. Folk musicians from New Haven include Loren Mazzacane Connors and Kath Bloom.
The Hillhouse Opera Company is a U.S. non-profit opera company based in New Haven that performs in the New Haven area. Founded in 2008 by Victoria Leigh Gardner, Nicole Rodriguez and Jim Coatsworth Hillhouse Opera Company has performed operas as well as opera scenes programs, master classes and concert series. In 2011, the Company professionally staged the works created through the Riverview Opera Project. The Riverview Opera Project created workshops for children and adolescents at Riverview Hospital, Connecticut's only state-funded psychiatric hospital for youth, and helped them to successfully create, produce, and perform four original operas.
Festivals.
In addition to the Jazz Festival (described above), New Haven serves as the home city of the annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas. New Haven's Saint Patrick's Day parade, which began in 1842, is New England's oldest and draws the largest crowds of any one-day spectator event in Connecticut. The St. Andrew the Apostle Italian Festival has taken place in the historic Wooster Square neighborhood every year since 1900. Other parishes in the city celebrate the Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua and a carnival in honor of St. Bernadette Soubirous. New Haven celebrates Powder House Day every April on the New Haven Green to commemorate the city's entrance into the Revolutionary War. The annual Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1973 planting of 72 Yoshino Japanese cherry blossom trees by the New Haven Historic Commission in collaboration with the New Haven Parks Department and residents of the neighborhood. The Festival now draws well over 5,000 visitors. The Film Fest New Haven has been held annually since 1995.
Nightlife.
In the past decade downtown has seen an influx of new restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Large crowds are drawn to the Crown Street area downtown on weekends where many of the restaurants and bars are located. Crown Street between State and High Streets has dozens of establishments, as do nearby Temple and College Streets. Away from downtown, Upper State Street has a number of restaurants and bars popular with local residents and weekend visitors.
Newspapers and media.
New Haven is served by the daily "New Haven Register", the weekly "alternative" "New Haven Advocate" (which is run by Tribune, the corporation owning the "Hartford Courant"), the online daily "New Haven Independent", and the monthly "Grand News Community Newspaper." Downtown New Haven is covered by an in-depth civic news forum, Design New Haven. The "Register" also backs "PLAY" magazine, a weekly entertainment publication. The city is also served by several student-run papers, including the "Yale Daily News", the weekly "Yale Herald" and a humor tabloid, "Rumpus Magazine".
WTNH Channel 8, the ABC affiliate for Connecticut, WCTX Channel 59, the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the state, Connecticut Public Television station WEDY channel 65, a PBS affiliate, and WTXX Channel 34, the IntrigueTV affiliate, broadcast from New Haven. All New York City news and sports team stations broadcast to New Haven County.
Sports and athletics.
New Haven has a history of professional sports franchises dating back to the 19th century and has been the home to professional baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer teams—including the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1973 to 1974, who played at the Yale Bowl. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, New Haven consistently had minor league hockey and baseball teams, which played at the New Haven Arena (built in 1926, demolished in 1972), New Haven Coliseum (1972–2002), and Yale Field (1928–present).
When John DeStefano, Jr., became mayor of New Haven in 1995, he outlined a plan to transform the city into a major cultural and arts center in the Northeast, which involved investments in programs and projects other than sports franchises. As nearby Bridgeport built new sports facilities, the brutalist New Haven Coliseum rapidly deteriorated. Believing the upkeep on the venue to be a drain of tax dollars, the DeStefano administration closed the Coliseum in 2002; it was demolished in 2007. New Haven's last professional sports team, the New Haven County Cutters, left in 2009. The DeStefano administration did, however, see the construction of the New Haven Athletic Center in 1998, a indoor athletic facility with a seating capacity of over 3,000. The NHAC, built adjacent to Hillhouse High School, is used for New Haven public schools athletics, as well as large-scale area and state sporting events; it is the largest high school indoor sports complex in the state.
New Haven was the host of the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games; then-President Bill Clinton spoke at the opening ceremonies. The city is home to the Pilot Pen International tennis event, which takes place every August at the Connecticut Tennis Center, one of the largest tennis venues in the world. New Haven biannually hosts "The Game" between Yale and Harvard, the country's second-oldest college football rivalry. Numerous road races take place in New Haven, including the USATF 20K Championship during the New Haven Road Race.
Greater New Haven is home to a number of college sports teams. The Yale Bulldogs play Division I college sports, as do the Quinnipiac Bobcats in neighboring Hamden. Division II athletics are played by Southern Connecticut State University and the University of New Haven (actually located in neighboring West Haven), while Albertus Magnus College athletes perform at the Division III level.
New Haven is home to many New York Yankees, New York Mets, & Boston Red Sox fans due to the proximity of New York City & Boston.
Walter Camp, deemed the "father of American football", was a New Havener.
The New Haven Warriors rugby league team play in the AMNRL. They have a large number of Pacific Islanders playing for them. Their field is located at the West Haven High School's Ken Strong Stadium. They won the 2008 AMNRL Grand Final.
Structures.
Architecture.
New Haven has many architectural landmarks dating from every important time period and architectural style in American history. The city has been home to a number of architects and architectural firms that have left their mark on the city including Ithiel Town and Henry Austin in the 19th century and Cesar Pelli, Warren Platner, Kevin Roche, Herbert Newman and Barry Svigals in the 20th. The Yale School of Architecture has fostered this important component of the city's economy. Cass Gilbert, of the Beaux-Arts school, designed New Haven's Union Station and the New Haven Free Public Library and was also commissioned for a City Beautiful plan in 1919. Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Alexander Jackson Davis, Philip C. Johnson, Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, James Gamble Rogers, Frank Gehry, Charles Willard Moore, Stefan Behnisch, James Polshek, Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen and Robert Venturi all have designed buildings in New Haven. Yale's 1950s-era Ingalls Rink, designed by Eero Saarinen, was included on the "America's Favorite Architecture" list created in 2007.
Several residential homes in New Haven were designed by Alice Washburn, a noted female architect whose Colonial Revival style set a standard for homes in the region.
Many of the city's neighborhoods are well-preserved as walkable "museums" of 19th- and 20th-century American architecture, particularly by the New Haven Green, Hillhouse Avenue and other residential sections close to Downtown New Haven. Overall, a large proportion of the city's land area is National (NRHP) historic districts. One of the best sources on local architecture is "New Haven: Architecture and Urban Design", by Elizabeth Mills Brown.
The five tallest buildings in New Haven are:
Historic points of interest.
Many historical sites exist throughout the city, including 59 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Of these, nine are among the 60 U.S. National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut. The New Haven Green, one of the National Historic Landmarks, was formed in 1638, and is home to three 19th-century churches. Below the First Church of Christ in New Haven (referred to as the Center Church on the Green) lies a 17th-century crypt, which is open to visitors. Some of the more famous burials include the first wife of Benedict Arnold and the aunt and grandmother of President Rutherford B. Hayes; Hayes visited the crypt while President in 1880. The Old Campus of Yale University is located next to the Green, and includes Connecticut Hall, Yale's oldest building and a National Historic Landmark. The Hillhouse Avenue area, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a part of Yale's campus, has been called a walkable museum, due to its 19th-century mansions and street scape; Charles Dickens is said to have called Hillhouse Avenue "the most beautiful street in America" when visiting the city in 1868.
In 1660, Edward Whalley (a cousin and friend of Oliver Cromwell) and William Goffe, two English Civil War generals who signed the death warrant of King Charles I, hid in a rock formation in New Haven after having fled England upon the restoration of Charles II to the English throne. They were later joined by a third regicide, John Dixwell. The rock formation, which is now a part of West Rock Park, is known as Judges' Cave, and the path leading to the cave is called the Regicides Trail.
After the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, the Connecticut colonial government ordered the construction of Black Rock Fort (to be built on top of an older 17th-century fort) to protect the port of New Haven. In 1779, during the Battle of New Haven, British soldiers captured Black Rock Fort and burned the barracks to the ground. The fort was reconstructed in 1807 by the federal government (on orders from the Thomas Jefferson administration), and rechristened Fort Nathan Hale, after the Revolutionary War hero who had lived in New Haven. The cannons of Fort Nathan Hale were successful in defying British war ships during the War of 1812. In 1863, during the Civil War, a second Fort Hale was built next to the original, complete with bomb-resistant bunkers and a moat, to defend the city should a Southern raid against New Haven be launched. The United States Congress deeded the site to the state in 1921, and all three versions of the fort have been restored. The site is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and receives thousands of visitors each year.
Grove Street Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark which lies adjacent to Yale's campus, contains the graves of Roger Sherman, Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Charles Goodyear and Walter Camp, among other notable burials. The cemetery is noted for its Egyptian Revival gateway, and is the oldest planned burial ground in the United States. The Union League Club of New Haven building, located on Chapel Street, is notable for not only being a historic Beaux-Arts building, but also is built on the site where Roger Sherman's home once stood; George Washington is known to have stayed at the Sherman residence while President in 1789 (one of three times Washington visited New Haven throughout his lifetime).
Two sites pay homage to the time President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft lived in the city, as both a student and later Professor at Yale: a plaque on Prospect Street marks the site where Taft's home formerly stood, and downtown's Taft Apartment Building (formerly the Taft Hotel) bears the name of the former president who resided in the building for eight years before becoming Chief Justice of the United States.
Lighthouse Point Park, a public beach run by the city, was a popular tourist destination during the Roaring Twenties, attracting luminaries of the period such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. The park remains popular among New Haveners, and is home to the Five Mile Point Lighthouse, constructed in 1847, and the Lighthouse Point Carousel, constructed in 1916. Five Mile Point Light was decommissioned in 1877 following the construction of Southwest Ledge Light at the entrance of the harbor, which remains in service to this day. Both of the lighthouses and the carousel are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Other historic sites in the city include the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which stands at the summit of East Rock, the Marsh Botanical Garden, Wooster Square, Dwight Street, Louis' Lunch, and the Farmington Canal, all of which date back to the 19th century. Other historic parks besides the Green include Edgerton Park, Edgewood Park, and East Rock Park, each of which is included on the National Register of Historic Places.
Transportation.
Rail.
New Haven has two railroad stations, connected to New York City and points along the Northeast Corridor by commuter rail, regional rail and inter-city rail. Service is provided by:
The city's main railroad station is the historic Beaux-Arts Union Station, which serves Metro-North, Hartford Line, and Shore Line East commuter trains. Approximately 175 trains serve Union Station on weekdays. Union Station is also served by four Amtrak lines: the "Northeast Regional" and the high-speed "Acela Express" provide service to New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston, and rank as the first and second busiest routes in the country; the New Haven–Springfield Line provides service to Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts; and the "Vermonter" provides service to both Washington, D.C., and Vermont, from the Canada–US border.
An additional station, State Street Station, was opened in 2002, providing passengers easier access to downtown New Haven. State Street Station is currently serviced by Shore Line East and Hartford Line trains, plus some peak-hour Metro-North trips.
Bus.
The New Haven Division of Connecticut Transit (CT Transit), the state's bus system, is the second largest division in the state with 24 routes. All routes originate from the New Haven Green, making it the central transfer hub of the city. Service is provided to 19 different municipalities throughout Greater New Haven. Bus routes were formerly identified by letters, but as of October 8, 2017, all service was renamed using 200-series numbers, in accordance with a renumbering of CTtransit's statewide services.
CT Transit's Union Station Shuttle provides free service from Union Station to the New Haven Green and several New Haven parking garages. Peter Pan and Greyhound bus lines have scheduled stops at Union Station, and connections downtown can be made via the Union Station Shuttle. A private company operates the New Haven/Hartford Express which provides commuter bus service to Hartford. The Yale University Shuttle provides free transportation around New Haven for Yale students, faculty, and staff.
The New Haven Division buses follow routes that had originally been covered by trolley service. Horse-drawn streetcars began operating in New Haven in the 1860s, and by the mid-1890s all the lines had become electric. In the 1920s and 1930s, some of the trolley lines began to be replaced by bus lines, with the last trolley route converted to bus in 1948. The City of New Haven is in the very early stages of considering the restoration of streetcar (light-rail) service, which has been absent since the postwar period.
Bicycle.
Bikeshare.
On February 21, 2018, New Haven officially launched its Bike New Haven bikeshare program. based on dockless technology powered by Noa Technologies At time of launch, the program features 10 docking stations and 100 bikes, spread throughout the urban core; there are plans to reach 30 bike stations and 300 bikes by the end of April 2018. The launch of the New Haven bikeshare program coincided with the launch of Yale University's own bikeshare program, which uses the same technology powered by Noa.
Bike lanes.
In 2004, the first bike lane in the city was added to Orange Street, connecting East Rock Park and the East Rock neighborhood to downtown. Since then, bike lanes have also been added to sections of Howard Ave, Elm St, Dixwell Avenue, Water Street, Clinton Avenue and State Street. The city has created recommended bike routes for getting around New Haven, including use of the Canal Trail and the Orange Street lane. As of the end of 2012, bicycle lanes have also been added in both directions on Dixwell Avenue along most of the street from downtown to the Hamden town line, as well as along Howard Avenue from Yale New Haven Hospital to City Point.
The city has plans to create two additional bike lanes connecting Union Station with downtown, and the Westville neighborhood with downtown. The city has added dozens of covered bike parking spots at Union Station, in order to facilitate more bike commuting to the station.
Farmington Canal Greenway.
The Farmington Canal Trail is a rail trail that will eventually run continuously from downtown New Haven to Northampton, Massachusetts. The scenic trail follows the path of the historic New Haven and Northampton Company and the Farmington Canal. Currently, there is a continuous stretch of the trail from downtown, through Hamden and into Cheshire, making bicycle commuting between New Haven and those suburbs possible. The trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, a proposed bike path that would link every major city on the East Coast from Florida to Maine.
Roads.
New Haven lies at the intersection of Interstate 95 on the coast—which provides access southwards and/or westwards to the western coast of Connecticut and to New York City, and eastwards to the eastern Connecticut shoreline, Rhode Island, and eastern Massachusetts—and Interstate 91, which leads northward to the interior of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont and the Canada–US border. I-95 is notorious for traffic jams increasing with proximity to New York City; on the east side of New Haven it passes over the Quinnipiac River via the Pearl Harbor Memorial, or "Q Bridge", which often presents a major bottleneck to traffic. I-91, however, is relatively less congested, except at the intersection with I-95 during peak travel times.
The Oak Street Connector (Connecticut Route 34) intersects I-91 at exit 1, just south of the I-95/I-91 interchange, and runs northwest for a few blocks as an expressway spur into downtown before emptying onto surface roads. The Wilbur Cross Parkway (Connecticut Route 15) runs parallel to I-95 west of New Haven, turning northwards as it nears the city and then running northwards parallel to I-91 through the outer rim of New Haven and Hamden, offering an alternative to the I-95/I-91 journey (restricted to non-commercial vehicles). Route 15 in New Haven is the site of the only highway tunnel in the state (officially designated as Heroes Tunnel), running through West Rock, home to West Rock Park and the Three Judges Cave.
The city also has several major surface arteries. U.S. Route 1 (Columbus Avenue, Union Avenue, Water Street, Forbes Avenue) runs in an east–west direction south of downtown serving Union Station and leading out of the city to Milford, West Haven, East Haven and Branford. The main road from downtown heading northwest is Whalley Avenue (partly signed as Route 10 and Route 63) leading to Westville and Woodbridge. Heading north towards Hamden, there are two major thoroughfares, Dixwell Avenue and Whitney Avenue. To the northeast are Middletown Avenue (Route 17), which leads to the Montowese section of North Haven, and Foxon Boulevard (Route 80), which leads to the Foxon section of East Haven and to the town of North Branford. To the west is Route 34, which leads to the city of Derby. Other major intracity arteries are Ella Grasso Boulevard (Route 10) west of downtown, and College Street, Temple Street, Church Street, Elm Street, and Grove Street in the downtown area.
Traffic safety is a major concern for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists in New Haven. In addition to many traffic-related fatalities in the city each year, since 2005, over a dozen Yale students, staff and faculty have been killed or injured in traffic collisions on or near the campus.
Airport.
Tweed New Haven Airport is located within the city limits east of the business district, straddling the border with neighboring East Haven. Service to approximately 25 cities is provided by Avelo Airlines, which established its first East Coast base at the airport in 2021. Breeze Airways plans to begin operations at Tweed in December 2024, and will provide service to 10 destinations. The airport is currently planning a runway lengthening and new terminal on the East Haven side of the airport.
Bus service between Downtown New Haven and Tweed is available via the CT Transit New Haven Division.
Seaport.
New Haven Harbor is home to the Port of New Haven, a deep-water seaport with three berths capable of hosting vessels and barges as well as the facilities required to handle break bulk cargo. The port has the capacity to load 200 trucks a day from the ground or via loading docks. Providence and Worcester Railroad provides freight rail transportation to the port, with the railroad operating a switch engine for yard movements, a private siding for loading and unloading, and trackage over the Tomlinson Lift Bridge toward the Northeast Corridor. Approximately of inside storage and of outside storage are available at the site. Five shore cranes with a 250-ton capacity and 26 forklifts, each with a 26-ton capacity, are also available.
On June 17, 2013, the city commissioned the "Nathan Hale", a port security vessel capable of serving search and rescue, firefighting, and constabulary roles.
Infrastructure.
Hospitals and medicine.
The New Haven area supports several medical facilities that are considered some of the best hospitals in the country. There are two major medical centers downtown: Yale – New Haven Hospital has four pavilions, including the Yale – New Haven Children's Hospital and the Smilow Cancer Hospital; the Hospital of Saint Raphael is several blocks north, and touts its excellent cardiac emergency care program. Smaller downtown health facilities are the Temple Medical Center located downtown on Temple Street, Connecticut Mental Health Center/ across Park Street from Y-NHH, and the Hill Health Center, which serves the working-class Hill neighborhood. A large Veterans Affairs hospital is located in neighboring West Haven. To the west in Milford is Milford Hospital, and to the north in Meriden is the MidState Medical Center.
In recent years, Yale and the City of New Haven have been working to build a medical and biotechnology research hub in the city and Greater New Haven region. The city, state and Yale together run Science Park, a large site three blocks northwest of Yale's Science Hill campus. This multi-block site, approximately bordered by Mansfield Street, Division Street, and Shelton Avenue, is the former home of Winchester's and Olin Corporation's 45 large-scale factory buildings. Currently, sections of the site are large-scale parking lots or abandoned structures, but there is also a large remodeled and functioning area of buildings (leased primarily by a private developer) with numerous Yale employees, financial service and biotech companies.
A second biotechnology district is being planned for the median strip on Frontage Road, on land cleared for the never-built Route 34 extension. As of late 2009, a Pfizer drug-testing clinic, a medical laboratory building serving Yale – New Haven Hospital, and a mixed-use structure containing parking, housing and office space, have been constructed on this corridor. A former SNET telephone building at 300 George Street is being converted into lab space, and has been quite successful so far in attracting biotechnology and medical firms.
Power supply facilities.
Electricity for New Haven is generated by a 448 MW oil and gas-fired generating station located on the shore at New Haven Harbor. PPL Corporation operates a 220 MW peaking natural gas turbine plant in nearby Wallingford.
Near New Haven there is the static inverter plant of the HVDC Cross Sound Cable.
There are three PureCell Model 400 fuel cells placed in the city of New Haven—one at the New Haven Public Schools and newly constructed Roberto Clemente School, one at the mixed-use 360 State Street building, and one at City Hall. According to Giovanni Zinn of the city's Office of Sustainability, each fuel cell may save the city up to $1 million in energy costs over a decade. The fuel cells were provided by ClearEdge Power, formerly UTC Power. Additional fuel cells are located at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and at the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA). Ikea's New Haven facility also utilizes a 250 kW fuel cell and 940.8 kW solar array.
New Haven recently installed solar panels at 11 city schools with a combined power generation capacity of 1.8 MW. Owned and maintained by Greenskies, the panels allow New Haven to purchase electricity at a discounted rate through a power-purchasing agreement. The panels bring New Haven's solar capacity to 2.8 MW and will help New Haven meet its commitment to powering 100% of its municipal operations through clean energy, which it made in Summer 2017 and reaffirmed in the 2018 New Haven Climate and Sustainability Framework.
In popular culture.
Several movies have been filmed in New Haven since 2000, including "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003), with Julia Roberts, "The Life Before Her Eyes" (2007), with Uma Thurman, and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008) directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf. The filming of "Crystal Skull" involved an extensive chase sequence through the streets of New Haven. Several downtown streets were closed to traffic and received a "makeover" to look like streets of 1957, when the film is set. 500 locals were cast as extras for the film. In "Everybody's Fine" (2009), Robert De Niro has a close encounter in what is supposed to be the Denver train station; the scene was filmed in New Haven's Union Station.
 New Haven is mentioned in the song Peace Frog by the Doors, referencing a 1967 incident where vocalist Jim Morrison was arrested for "attempting to incite a riot" in the middle of a concert at the New Haven Arena.
Sister cities.
New Haven's sister cities are:
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Some of these were selected because of historical connection—Freetown because of the "Amistad" trial. Others, such as Amalfi and Afula, reflect ethnic groups in New Haven.
In 1990, the United Nations named New Haven a "Peace Messenger City".
References.
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Further reading.
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Loren Mazzacane Connors
Loren Mazzacane Connors (born October 22, 1949) is an American guitarist who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors. His music has touched on many genres, but often features an abstract or experimental version of blues and folk styles.
Biography.
Connors was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, and studied art at Southern Connecticut State University and the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s, before deciding to pursue music rather than painting.
Best known as a composer and improviser on acoustic and electric guitar, Connors has released over 50 albums, on commercial record labels such as Family Vineyard, Table of the Elements, Recital and Father Yod as well as on his own Black Label, St. Joan and Daggett self-publishing imprints. They include spare solo and duo blues, ensemble experimental jazz, noise, drones, and avant garde rock.
An early champion of his music was Dr. William Ferris, noted blues historian who served as head of the National Endowment for the Arts under the Clinton Administration. Connors made contact with him in the late 1970s, while Dr. Ferris was teaching at Yale University. Although Ferris did not know it at the time, Connors was the janitor who cleaned his office. Many years later, Ferris wrote the liner notes for a sweeping compilation CD set of Connors's seven-inch recordings, called "Night Through."
From 1978 to 1984, Connors recorded a series of mostly solo blues abstractions, releasing them in limited amounts on his Daggett label, later reissued in a joint effort by Byron Coley, Thurston Moore on the Ecstatic Peace label in 1999, mastered by Jim O’Rourke, in part to celebrate Connors's 50th birthday. Cadence Magazine noted at the time that he was “similar to others in the Advanced Guard of improvising guitarists in that he is trying to extend the boundaries of sound and pitch of acoustic guitar, but he is unique in the utilization of Blues in his work, one could almost say this is Avant Garde Blues.” From 1981 to 1984, Connors released six limited edition albums with folksinger Kath Bloom, including traditional songs and Bloom originals.
In the mid-1980s, Connors took a partial break from music and honed his compositional skills by focusing on the art of haiku. He received the 1987 Lafcadio Hearn Award, and he and life partner Suzanne Langille also co-wrote an article on blues and haiku, "The Dancing Ear," published in the Haiku Society of America's journal. (A book of Connors's work from this period, "Autumn Sun," was re-released by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley a couple decades later.) He wrote under the name Loren Mattei, and a music recording from this period, "Ribbon o' Blues," was also released under that name.
Soon after returning to music, Connors began working with layered tracks. The first of this period was the "In Pittsburgh" album, released in 1989, later reissued by the Dexter's Cigar label in 1996. He moved to New York City in 1990, where he continued using the multi-track approach through the 1990s. Langille's vocals were featured on several recordings, and she also helped edit his suites. Many of these releases were on the RoadCone label, managed by Mike Hinds. During this period Connors introduced an abstracted undercurrent of Irish themes and melodic influences, while eschewing formal structure, with the "Hell’s Kitchen Park" CD being a hallmark of this added influence.
Such 1990s recordings were interspersed with recordings of live performances of guitar duets. The first of those recordings was with Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino, introduced to Connors by WFMU DJ David Newgarten, who then produced the recording, released in 1995. This was followed by the first of several recordings with guitarist Alan Licht in 1996, and with Thurston Moore and others.
In the mid-to-late 1990s he led the blues-rock group Haunted House with Langille, Andrew Burnes (of the band San Agustin), and percussionist Neel Murgai. Connors and Langille also joined with San Agustin's David Daniell and Burnes for a recording on the Secretly Canadian label.
In the late 1990s, Connors and John Fahey met at a Chicago event, introduced by guitarist Jim O'Rourke. Fahey, who died in 2001, included on his last CD, released posthumously in 2003, a piece called, "Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today (for Guitar Roberts)," referring to Connors's nickname. In the mid-2000s, Connors met and performed with Jandek, a long-time improviser whose unique independence and originality had often been compared to Connors's. He worked very closely with poet Steve Dalachinsky (who died in 2019) and also with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter.
From 1999 through the present, Connors has focused on extended solo improvisational recordings, including the Departing of a Dream series, his tribute to Miles Davis. His main record label for these recordings has been Family Vineyard, managed by Eric Weddle.
In 2003, he composed and recorded a score for the film "Why Can’t I Stop This Uncontrollable Dancing?". In 2009, Connors's piece, “Airs No. 3,” appeared in the soundtrack for the French-language film, Le Premier Cercle (“The Ultimate Heist), by director Laurent Tuel, featuring Jean Reno.
In 2012, his composition, "The Murder of Joan of Arc," was used as one of two alternative soundtracks for a reissue by Criterion Collection and Eureka Entertainment of Carl Dreyer's silent film, "The Passion of Joan of Arc".
In the mid-to-late 2010s, Connors took up painting again, while continuing his music composing and performing. An art show of a series of acrylic paintings on Belgium linen canvas was hosted at the Artists Space in Manhattan in the fall of 2018.
Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992. He continues to perform and record. Some of Connors' works are archived at the Blues Archive of the University of Mississippi. The University of South Carolina has a comprehensive archive of Connors' recordings and materials.
References.
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