New Haven cultivates ... an ...

New Haven cultivates ... an open gloom that seems happy to acknowledge disrepair and the superfluity of appearance. ... I realized that what cramped the town was the weight of unwritten volumes: they scored lines of unfinished writing on every second face that walked the streets.
 Sara Suleri

Quotes from the same author

To mourn, perhaps, is simply to prolong a posture of astonishment.
 Sara Suleri