The story centers around Mayor Richard C. Lee and his ambitious plans for his creaky old industrial Elm City. After Interstate 95 was opened in the late 1950s (and with I-91 under construction), the Oak Street Connector was built to take cars downtown, and also to the Boulevard, Route 34 and (in the future) to Route 8 in the Valley.
"They built the Route 34 Connector and didn't know what to do with it. It all starts with that road," says Hanley.
Actually, Hanley's story begins at the old New Haven Arena, where hockey's Blades played, and the ice palace that preceded it, the Center Freeze Arena. Some details of those buildings will only be in the two-hour DVD version, which will be privately screened Monday night at Quinnipiac University, where Hanley teaches.
With Lee scoring piles of federal urban-renewal money and trying to create a model city from its humble neighborhoods, it was determined that New Haven needed a large-scale venue and gathering place, built in unison with the Knights of Columbus headquarters, on the last empty lot between the connector and the Green.
Federal planning funds were arranged; Lee had a law changed to allow city bonding for such a structure.
Hanley, who attended St. Boniface School near the Arena in the late 1960s, and then in the early '70s covered rock concerts at the Coliseum for the University of New Haven student newspaper, said Lee brought in a "fantasy team" of architects, including Kevin Roche, who would later win architecture's top honor, the Pritzker Prize, for his work.
"Lee wanted to make New Haven the architectural capital of the world," Hanley said.
Roche designed the Coliseum to the scale of the freeway that it bordered -- muscular and modernistic. The city had also brought in the Chapel Square Mall, the Temple Street Parking Garage, Malley's and Macy's as destinations. Only the garage endures today.
Construction started in 1968, and the Coliseum opened in September 1972.
With families migrating to suburbia and television taking over their evenings, the Coliseum was seen as a savior for downtown.
Hanley said he was surprised where his research on this project took him.
"I started out thinking the story would be about what took place there, but as I got deeper and deeper into the papers of Mayor Lee and others, it became clear to me that the story was about the generational chasm between what Lee wanted and what was actually happening."
It was a tumultuous time, and Hanley says that going in, "I didn't know that all these national and cultural upheavals were converged and compressed in New Haven."
City fathers and Yale sought to keep out "dangerous" new rock 'n' roll from their modern city (Lee banned an Alan Freed show at one point, the Beatles were blocked from playing Yale Bowl by a Yale benefactor, and Jim Morrison was arrested at the Arena). Lee envisioned Glen Campbell and Mantovani music; baby boomers increasingly wanted more compelling entertainment, and eventually "rock 'n' roll ended up saving the Coliseum," says Hanley.
Photos, footage and interviews with area concert-goers recall acts from Queen to Billy Joel to Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.
But as Young once observed in song, "Rust never sleeps." Roche wasn't able to build to his vision, and limited acreage required the garage to be placed on top of the arena, accessible by two helixes (who can forget driving up or down those?). The effects of road salt ate away at the concrete and untreated rebar/steel matting, causing an eventual shutdown and budget crisis.
TROUBLED FROM THE START
When construction bids came in too high, budget cuts took away Roche's plan for drop ceilings, an exhibition hall, restaurant, surrounding glass and panels. Incredibly, the long escalators were left to operate on the outside of the building (another unforgettable element for patrons).
Inside, the concrete and duct work was left exposed; Roche is quoted in the special as saying the Coliseum was never finished. Most of us felt that way about it and and Roche's K of C tower, too.
"At every point, there were warnings that the building was going to have problems," says Hanley, a former newspaper reporter also skilled in Internet research.
The Coliseum closed in 2002.
The special interweaves the words of Register columnist Tom McCormack, who wrote that the Coliseum "presents a face only a steel worker would love."
Which is not to say that there aren't moments of sheer joy and appreciation expressed about the place. Much time is spent on the longtime tenants, the New Haven Nighthawks, and (later, less successful) New Haven Senators, The Beast and the New Haven Knights, and their fans.
