in the modest backyard of hallie morgan ' s 1890 - era estate , about a ¾ - mile from brown university , there is a miniature buddha , azalea and forsythia , mexican cherry and maple trees , and an amish - made chicken garage with five residents — four will laying eggs and gloria , who is virgin but that heck of a commission . the poultry are technically illegal under new haven ' s zoning code , which prohibited raising rabbits and other animals when it was unchanged during the 1950s . but these years , many dozens of backyard chickens are generally tolerated under the city ' s informal interpretation program — call it " don ' t grousing , don ' t tell " — that mainly looks the other directions . with urban fowl increasingly endangered , alderman adrian lemar has introduced measures that would permit villagers to raise up to six hens .
The Morgans have lived near Yale University since the 1950s.