The following article appeared in the Centennial Newsletter on February 3rd, 2025.
Beginnings – Pizza and Albertus Magnus College
The year was 1925. The mayor of New Haven was David E. Fitzgerald. The presence of Yale University in the center of the city made New Haven a college town. Winchester and U.S. Repeating Arms had factories in New Haven that supplied sporting arms and ammunition to the entire U.S. and beyond. Carriage shops were giving over to automobile sales, and trolleys were the main means of public transportation. By 1925, New Haven had become a host to thousands of Western European immigrants. While the New Haven Green had been available for common use since colonial times, Lighthouse Point Park on the Long Island Sound had just become part of New Haven’s municipal park system.
In this setting, in 1925, Italian immigrant Frank Pepe established Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana on Wooster Street, east of the center of New Haven. Also in 1925, the Dominican Sisters of Saint Mary of the Springs, Ohio, now known as the Dominican Sisters of Peace, founded Albertus Magnus College, the first Catholic, residential, liberal arts college for women in New England. During its beginning, Albertus Magnus College consisted of one major building, once a private residence, located on Prospect Street, up the hill from the other existing liberal arts college in New Haven at the time, Yale University. Both Pepe’s Pizzeria and Albertus Magnus College continue to thrive and to grow during this, their centennial year.
Both Pepe’s and Albertus Magnus College remain in their original locations, although Pepe’s moved next door to their original building in 1935. Over the years, Albertus has purchased other mansions on Prospect Street, and has built additional buildings. Its original building, Rosary Hall, is the signature structure of Albertus. Pepe’s remains in the hands of the founder’s family; a granddaughter currently is co-owner. Albertus Magnus College continues to be sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of Peace.
When Frank Pepe founded his pizzeria, his purpose was to establish a business that would be popular among the many Italian immigrants living in the Wooster Street area, as well as to introduce to all New Haveners pizza made from an original Neapolitan recipe, baked in a coal-fired oven. He achieved his purpose. Just as his business flourished then and continues to flourish, his pizza now attracts entire New Haven area communities, and visitors to New Haven from all over the United States and the world.
When the Dominican Sisters began the process of founding Albertus Magnus College, their purpose was to offer a strong, Catholic, liberal arts education to women, one that compared well academically with the established women’s liberal arts colleges in the northeast. They particularly wished to offer such an education to women of immigrant parents, who might not otherwise have this opportunity. In 1985, Albertus Magnus expanded to offer the same education to male students.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican saint after whom Albertus’ major classroom building is named, tells us this: Those who hear the word of God by truth are fed.
The founding of Pepe’s Pizzeria and of Albertus Magnus College in 1925 provides food for both body and soul!