New Haven: the pizza born at Yale

An Ivy League university city, New Haven also claims the birthplace of American pizza, still cooked today in the wood-fired ovens of historic city pizzerias.

The center, where the pizza style made famous by ovens near Yale is explored, is comfortably walkable.

The campus of Yale University, with its neogothic architecture and closed courtyards in English college style, remains one of the most photographed university complexes in the United States.

A short walk away, the Yale University Art Gallery, the oldest university art museum in the American continent, displays works ranging from ancient art to the contemporary, with free admission.

Continuing on, you visit Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, opened in 1925 by Italian immigrants, often cited as one of the pizzerias that invented American pizza style.

Toward evening, the New Haven Green, the central square designed in the seventeenth century, closes the day surrounded by three historic churches overlooking the same lawn.

New Haven's pizza style, with a thin, crispy crust cooked in charcoal ovens at extremely high temperatures, is claimed by the city as the direct predecessor of modern American pizza.

New Haven Green was designed according to the Puritan urban grid from the original seventeenth century, one of the first examples of public urban planning in the American colonies.