We are truly a start-up with a 55-year history and a renewed commitment to continue a legacy. Here is our current history.

We are a 501(c)3 incorporated as the Friends of John Slade Ely House of Contemporary Art, Inc. (FJSEHCA) and we do business as the Ely Center of Contemporary Art (ECOCA). This nomenclature will support our mission and our identity/branding if and when FJSEHCA no longer leases its location at 51 Trumbull Street, New Haven, Connecticut, home of the John Slade Ely House Galleries.

The FJSEHCA was formed when Wells Fargo was attempting to sell the John Slade Ely House, the New Haven community’s more than fifty-five-year-old institution, and change it from an operational art center to a grant-making Trust. Former curators, Jeanne Criscola, Anna Bresnick, and Raymond Smith, teamed up with with artist and independent curator, Debbie Hesse, who led a campaign to halt the sale and took part in court status conferences to halt the sale of the building and preserve its use as a public art gallery.

The curators quickly incorporated as FJSEHCA in Connecticut in order to be recognized and heard on behalf of the arts community and general public in the matter by Probate Judge Frank J. Forgione. The outcome of the year-long proceedings was the establishment of FJSEHCA as a non-profit, volunteer board organization, sanctioned to reopen the closed John Slade Ely House of Contemporary Art building, which the Court allowed the Trust to sell to ACES/ECA, a regional arts school. FJSEHCA applied for and was awarded initial operational funding from the Trust to in turn pay rent and utilities to ACES/ECA in exchange for lease of parts of the building and property. On June 1, 2016, FJSEHCA signed a lease with ACES/ECA and reopened the building as the Ely Center of Contemporary Art (ECOCA). ACES/ECA has the intention to lease the building to FJSEHCA while ACES/ECA applies for and until it receives state funding to repurpose the building as an arts high school.

Prior to these events, the John Slade Ely Trust was managed by three Trustees. Upon their deaths, Union Trust Bank became the surviving entity, which due to mergers, is now Wells Fargo. Many people who are not familiar with the history of the beautiful Elizabethan mansion and the Trust often ask why arts community stakeholders in New Haven were not involved in its stewardship and management prior to the crisis. It is simply that the will of the donor—Grace T. Ely—did not provide for this possibility and that the Trustees would not sanction the involvement of independent or outside entities until the probate court sanctioned our stewardship in the public's interest in the matter.

A look back at the building

The John Slade Ely House is an English Elizabethan style house built in 1901 by S. G. Taylor. It was home to John Slade Ely (1860–1906) and Grace Taylor Ely, who came to New Haven in 1897. The two lived at 60 Wall Street prior to moving to 51 Trumbull Street in 1902. From 1897 up until his tragic death in 1906, he held the Theory and Practice of Medicine chair at Yale School of Medicine. Grace, an active community member and supporter of the arts, left the house in Trust as an art center for emerging contemporary art after her death in 1959. The first exhibition opened in April 1961 with works from New Haven Paint & Clay Club.