With a little left over for highway signs and a first-class visitor center, he promises, New Haven could then begin to become the true
tourist destination that its attractions warrant. Like a cultural Jonathan Edwards brandishing (in photo) a genuine hunk of East Rock basalt in his hand, Executive Director Bill Hosley preached a volcanic — well, inspired — sermon, albeit to a sparse congregation of true cultural believers. He delivered the sermon, entitled “Destination City: Raising the Bar on Cultural Tourism,” to an audience gathered at his museum Wednesday night. “We often overlook,” he thundered, “the remarkable things in our own backyard. Like charity, tourism should begin at home.” He cited as New Haven’s greatest iconic image the Biblically and geographically charged Green, with its three churches, all flanked by the great rocks. He said a coordinated policy might have as one of its themes the many local destinations for those intrigued with American religion. “And do you know,” he said, “that if the Knights founder, is canonized as a saint, I am told hundreds of thousands of visitors will pilgrimage to town.” In addition, of course, to religion, Hosley cited several other potential organizing themes in evidence in New Haven’s buildings and history around which to develop tours, signage, and local events.
These included America’s founding in the little Puritan theocracy that was colonial New Haven, the freedom narrative of the Amistad episode and the suffragists’ struggle, and the invention of the cotton gin and the city’s chronicle of industry .