Copyright Hartford Courant
A new exhibit about New Haven apizza at New Haven Museum has all the traditional toppings and really captures the hometown flavor. The museum describes “Pronounced Ah-Beetz” as “a new exhibit exploring the evolution of pizza, our most popular food.” That’s true enough, but the best thing about the exhibit is how New Haven-focused it is. It covers the city’s Italian immigrant neighborhoods in the 19th century, the areas where pizza is served today and the real people who toss the dough and spread the sauce. Separate sections of the exhibit are devoted to the “big three” of Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, Sally’s Apizza and Modern Apizza, but there are also shout-outs to the Big Green Truck mobile pizza restaurant, Ernie’s on Whalley Avenue, Grand Apizza in the Fair Haven neighborhood and Zuppardi’s Apizza in West Haven. One corner nook is also devoted to Foxon Park soda, the East Haven-bottled beverage of choice at any reputable pizzeria. One thing “Pronounced Ah-Beetz” makes clear is how recent some of this history is. Pepe’s Pizza was founded 100 years ago this year — a long time, but not all that long in a city that is 387 years old and is home to a hamburger joint that began in 1895. The idea of New Haven apizza being a widely known delicacy is fairly recent. Frank Sinatra and other celebrities visiting Wooster Street goes back to the big band era of the 1930s, but according to this exhibit, the phenomenon of long lines outside the eateries didn’t kick in until the 1970s. A lot of New Haven pizza’s international notoriety comes from the age of the internet and social media. So for half of its century-long history, pizza was more of a local delicacy. It’s that hometown history where this exhibit shines. “Pronounced Ah-Beetz” has a strong community feel, particularly in the work by local artists that help make the show behave more like a museum exhibit. There’s a painting of the Crown Street pizza institution BAR on Crown Street by Kevin Sanchez Walsh, the artist who did chalk murals all around BAR when it opened in 1991. There are watercolor paintings of local pizzerias by Amy McNamara and Bryan Madden. The paintings share the walls with signs and menu boards from the historic pizza places and video screens that play excerpts from pizza-themed documentaries directed by Hamden filmmaker and longtime Modern Apizza evangelist Gorman Bechard. There is a handy “History of New Haven Apizza in 74 Seconds” clip from Bechard’s 2024 “Slice of America” documentary about a New Haven-style pizza restaurant in Florida, as well as footage of New Haven historian/foodie Colin Caplan bringing a plane full of locals to Washington D.C. in a quest to have pizza designated as Connecticut’s official state food. Inside glass cases are historic artifacts such as a discolored fragment of a Frank Pepe’s pizza box from 1936, which the curators suggest could be the oldest extant pizza box while noting that the photo on the box shows Frank Pepe himself holding a pizza box of an even earlier design. Another case has Modern Apizza boxes signed by the likes of Conan O’Brien, Gwyneth Paltrow, Yogi Berra, the cast of a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, the band Anthrax and former New Haven resident Hillary Clinton. There’s a facsimile of the front of a pizza oven but also an actual cash register used at Frank Pepe’s around 1950. “Pronounced Ah-Beetz” has a lot in common with New Haven Museum’s permanent local culture exhibit “From Clocks to Lollipops — Made in New Haven,” which also mentions apizza. “Pronounced Ah-Beetz” is not on permanent display, but it will be up for two years. It scheduled to close in October 2027. It’s hard not to crave pizza as you walk around “Pronounced Ah-Beetz.” Luckily, New Haven Museum is two miles or less from several of the places it immortalizes. See the exhibit before mealtime, you’ll have an appetite.
