The district is located immediately west of the center of Downtown New Haven and is generally bounded by Elm Street on the north, Park Street on the east, North Frontage Road on the south, and Sherman Avenue on the west.

Beginning in 1825, the construction of the Farmington Canal drew many laborers to the city, and the Dwight area, located just west of downtown New Haven, began its transformation into a densely built urban area with a grid of streets.

In the 1830s, several carriage factories were located in the area to capitalize on the available labor, contributing to the development of that industry as a major economic force in the city's 19th-century development.

Today, only a few buildings survive from the carriage industry in the neighborhood.

Although there is a broad diversity of residential architecture, from modest Federal period single-family houses to early 20th-century apartment buildings, the district has an unusually high concentration of late 19th-century Victorian-era residences, typically in vernacular renditions of the then-popular Italianate, Second Empire, and Queen Anne styles.