For the New Year

It seems like there's a lot of emphasis on the end of the year--looking back on things that happened, gathering together to party as the year ends in order to "ring in" the new year with plenty of drunken noise--but I've started developing a slightly different approach. Okay, yes, if my favorite bar (Boru's on West Main Street) were going to be open tonight, I'd go hang out there. But what I do on New Year's Eve isn't as important to me as what I do on New Year's Day. A couple of years ago, I started going to the beach (Hammonnasett - and boy is the beach different in winter!) on the first day of the year, and I use the day to think about my goals and plans for the new year. I don't think of myself as having "resolutions," since that sounds too cliched. Not to mention that I associate resolutions with self-improvement task lists that get abandonned after a few weeks.

In keeping with my tradition of New Year goals, I've put together a list of things I'd love to see happen in Waterbury (in no particular order). Feel free to add to the list!

1. More trees! There are many stretches of roadway that feel like barren wastelands, but would be pleasant and inviting with rows of tall trees (not those dinky little miniature trees they planted on West Main Street). East Main, Union and Silver Streets by the Brass Mill Mall are top candidates.

2. Improved sidewalks, more sidewalks, and more crossing lights. Waterbury is a dangerous city for pedestrians, not because of muggers, but because of speeding cars. At least half the sidewalks in the city are almost impassable to walkers and completely impassable to wheelchairs and strollers. There are a lot of busy streets where drivers go 40+ mph, but there are no crossing lights for pedestrians and nothing separating the nearly unusable sidewalks from the roadway.

3. Make the parking lot between Grand Street, Leavenworth Street and Center Street more inviting. This would involve cleaning up the backs on some of the Grand Street buildings, adding fresh paint, repaving the lot and planting a few trees and flowers.

3.5 (forgot to add this one) Bicycle racks downtown. This one might happen later this year.

4. Convert the building in front of the parking lot on Leavenworth Street into a visitors' center (with public restrooms!).

5. Spend the money to fix up City Hall. The money will have to be spent no matter what option the city takes, so let's spend it on our nationally-recognized treasure.

6. Start running the city like an efficient business. Create a maintenance program to prevent city buildings and other facilities from degrading. Fix the heating problems in the Chase building (from what I've seen, the radiators in some offices can't be regulated, so the only way to keep the room cool enough to use in the winter is to open the windows). Eliminate the chaos that seems to have been running rampant for decades; I bet there are efficiency experts who could help make big improvements on the way the city is run.

7. Make it easy to find information about the parks. What are the hours for the different swimming pools? What are the hours for ice skating? It's very easy to post that information online.

8. Make sure all sidewalks are shoveled when it snows.

9. Put in diagonal parking on Grand Street. The right hand lane is undrivable most of the time, because people are double-parked (especially in front of the dry cleaners). Diagonal parking would increase the number of parking spaces and make for a more inviting downtown.

10. We need more businesses downtown. I would love to see all the assorted antique shops around the city get together to create a single antique mall on Bank, South Main or Grand Street. I've heard from a successful Waterbury business owner who would like to move to Bank or Grand, but can't afford the rent and is also concerned about the lack of parking for his customers.

Parking downtown is already tight, filling up all the storefronts will make it impossible. Yes, there is the scary parking garage on the corner of Grand and Bank Streets, but even if it were fixed up to be more inviting, most shoppers still won't use it. This is true at the Brass Mill Mall as well. The parking garage is always at least half empty, while the parking lot is full of shoppers fighting over spaces. I always park on the top level of the garage (unless it's raining, and then I park in the sheltered area, where there are still hundreds of empty spaces), I never have trouble finding a spot, it's a short walk to get inside, and there's never any traffic to cross.

Okay, that last one digressed into a grumble about the psychology of parking garages.... I guess now's a good stopping point. Time to go work on my personal goals for the upcoming year.

Happy New Year!

Some Perspective

I pulled the first images off maps.google.com and the others off someone else's blog.

No Snow

The weather forecasters got it completely wrong again. Last night they were saying we would have snow and/or rain until midday. This morning there isn't even a cloudy sky. Blue sky, sunshine, a little windy and COLD. Winter is definitely here as far as the temperature is concerned.

Police Academy

Every so often, late in the day (most recently around 7:30 p.m.), as I'm sitting in my apartment, I'll hear the distinctive sound of a group of men (and a lone caller) chanting while jogging through town. The first moment is usually surreal, since the sounds of a military base are so very foreign to this city. I think they must follow a lot of different routes, because months will go by before I hear them near my home. This is why it takes me a moment to remember that there's a police academy in Waterbury. Or, to be more correct, there's a "Recruit Training Facility" run by the Waterbury Police Department. It was started almost two years ago and trains new recruits for Waterbury and other cities in the state. I read about it in the newspaper back when it first opened, which is a lucky thing, otherwise I'd be completely mystified (I can just imagine the stories made up about the joggers by people who don't know we have a police academy!). The funny thing is, there's almost no information about its existence online. A google search pulled up no information; I had to go to the Waterbury police website (which really needs a new webmaster...) and click through a few pages before I found the information.

Ken Burns's "The War"

About six years ago, the Mattatuck Museum here in Waterbury was approached by researchers from Florentine Films, the Ken Burns documentary group, with questions about World War II. Burns had decided to do a documentary about the war effort on the homefront, and they were looking for representative cities. They needed an industrial northeastern city, and they needed a city whose historical society could help them gather up hundreds of still images and historic film strips, as well as residents with interesting stories about life in their city and factories during WWII. The Mattatuck, realizing what a great opportunity this was for the city and determined to do what they could to ensure that Burns chose Waterbury, supplied them with everything they needed, and Waterbury was chosen to be in the documentary. Three other cities, representing the south, the midwest and the west coast, were also chosen for the 14-hour maxiseries.

Burns has started playing teaser clips from the documentary at events around the country, and it was recently announced that the full documentary will air on PBS in September 2007. This is going to be a huge event for Waterbury. We'll be getting a lot of positive press, which I hope we can build on. I think a lot of city residents have a tendency to be very negative about Waterbury, because we've had so much bad publicity. Bad press is almost always more memorable than good press, but I think this is something that everyone will notice and remember.

Now Chickadees

Today my bird feeder attracted a pair of chickadees. At least, I think it was a pair. I'm fairly certain there was more than one. Chickadees, I discovered, flit about rapidly, swooping back and forth, stopping a moment here, a moment there. The cats were delighted.


The chickadee knew the cats were in the window; at one point the orange tabby punched the glass in an effort to get the bird, but the chickadee didn't care.


The chickadee never sat still, but he did keep returning to the same set of perches.


I think he was teasing the cats...


The sparrows turned up in a large group after a while. It's interesting to see the different behaviors. The sparrows are never the first to arrive; they always wait until someone else is eating the bird seed, then they flock down and devour as much as they can before something startles them and they fly away.

Oldest House in Waterbury

There's a house on North Main Street in Buck's Hill that was built in 1703/04, which means it almost certainly is the oldest house still standing in Waterbury. I think there are one or two others in Waterbury built in the 18th century, but I don't think they are as old as this one. Eventually I'll do some investigating, but for now I think it's safe to assume that the Buck's Hill house is the oldest. The photo is taken from the assessor's website, which incorrectly says that the house was built in 1829. The house now has vinyl siding, but the interior still has the fabulous original exposed timbers. It's been modernized a couple of times--once in the late 19th or early 20th century, when new wood flooring and a staircase were put in; and then at least once recently, when it was converted to two apartments--but it's still very cool.

Right now, the house is for sale. If my finances were more stable (I decided to try self-employment last year), I would make a serious effort to buy it. As it is, I'm still tempted... if I could find a friend to go in with me on it, I'd be even more tempted... but maybe it will be back on the market in a few years, when I'm in a better position to buy a home. Then again, maybe in a few years I will have found an even better house to buy.

The truth is that I sort of have love affairs with houses. It's turning out to be an annual event. Waterbury is full of beautiful old homes, most of which are within a reasonable price range. It's like being a kid in a candy store. Every year I come across another house for sale that I absolutely fall in love with, even though I'm still in love with the previous houses... I'm a house-lotharia!

Country Club Neighborhood

The "nicest" neighborhoods can be the most unfriendly, and it seems like people become less charitable when they have more money.

The Republican-American ran another article today ("Praying for Acceptance") about the on-going wrangling over the new home for mentally retarded people on Country Club Woods Circle. This time they interviewed one of the people living in the home. He seems like a nice kid, not really all that different from any other boy his age. I like a point his father makes--the opponents of the home have said that it will bring down their property values, which is pretty much the same as saying this boy will bring down property values simply by standing in the yard (essentially the same argument made by white residents a few decades ago if blacks tried to move into their neighborhood). The opponents are better organized than they were at first; now they insist that they never said anything like that. Someone must have warned them against being openly bigoted.

They can't legally chase out their new neighbors on the grounds that they might commit crimes (one opponent was quoted as saying that one of the retarded residents could prove to be a rapist--well, gee, so could someone who isn't retarded, for example, John Regan, who would have been warmly welcomed to the neighborhood three years ago). Instead, they've got the state attorney general trying to determine if proper bidding procedures were followed in the purchase of the house, and they claim that this is their only complaint. Yeah, right. If that really is their only gripe, then why hasn't anyone bothered to say hello to the new neighbors? Why ignore them? Why treat them like they don't exist, or have a plague? I can certainly understand the desire to preserve the character of your neighborhood, but you don't do it by banning people who are different. If they are worried about the group home becoming overcrowded, then find a way to address that issue without forcing them to move. Develop some human compassion. Try talking to the people who live in the home. Get to know them. Find out what they really are like before making bigoted generalizations.

Waterbury City Hall

Waterbury's City Hall building is one of our great treasures. It was designed by Cass Gilbert (architect of NYC's Woolworth Building and the U.S. Supreme Court building) and built in 1914. Along with the four other Cass Gilbert buildings surrounding it, City Hall is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building, however, is now yet another victim of our unpleasant recent past. Maintenance of the building was neglected for a long time, and it was further damaged by flooding from a sabotaged water pipe.


The ceiling of the front lobby. This looks like it mostly needs some fresh paint.

A proposal to appropriate and issue bonds for $48 million, to be used for the renovation of the building and the construction of a new firehouse on East Main Street, was rejected by voters on election day. I can certainly understand why some voters are afraid that the funds will be misappropriated, since that sort of thing happened frequently when Giordano was mayor. However, Giordano is long gone, and current-mayor Jarjura has not done anything to suggest he would misappropriate funds.


The ceiling of the stairwell... more fresh paint needed.

When the Palace Theater was still in worse shape than City Hall is now, there were plenty of people in Waterbury who didn't want to see it restored. They said it would cost too much, that it wasn't worth the effort, that the money would just get stolen by crooked developers, that we would be better off tearing it down (this idea makes me angry--we have these fabulous, beautiful, historic buildings; replacing them with something of equal quality would cost more than renovation; replacing them with something cheaper would be a tragedy).


A view up the main stairwell of Waterbury's city hall. How could anyone in their right mind suggest tearing this down???

All the same arguments against restoring the Palace are now being put forth against renovating City Hall. The Palace Theater was successfully renovated and is something we are all proud of. We should do the same for City Hall.


The bottom of a flag pole in front of City Hall.


The clock tower--it looks like the columns need to be scraped and repainted, and the dome might need some fresh gilding.


The window in the main stairwell. Again, how could anyone suggest destroying this? I'm very relieved that Jarjura has flatly stated that tearing it down is not going to happen. It would be such a nightmare if that were to happen! Waterbury would once again be ridiculed by the entire nation, and there would probably be a prolonged legal battle to prevent it from being destroyed.

The mayor will be meeting with the Board of Aldermen and the state oversight board on Tuesday next week to discuss options for saving city hall. At the very least, they need to bring it up to code so that it can be reoccupied. Renting office space is predicted to run as high as $800,000 a year. I don't like proposals to go ahead with the bonding even though it was voted down. Overriding the election results sets a bad precedent. If bonding really is the only way to go forward, then Jarjura should put some of his considerable funds into a campaign to save city hall and hold another referendum.

UPDATE 1/2/2011: Here are a few more shots I took the same day as the preceding images. For whatever reason, I didn't include them at the time.

Here's hoping we never see those vending machines return to the hallways!

For the Birds

A couple weeks ago, I set up a bird feeder outside my living room window. It took almost a week before any birds noticed it. And, as it turned out, it wasn't a bird that found it first. The birds didn't notice the food until after a squirrel had started tearing into the seed bell. At first I was annoyed at the squirrel, but then I realized that he was eating only one type of seed and scattering the rest onto the roof for the birds to eat.



There seem to be only two types of birds here: sparrows and one blue jay. The blue jay sits in the tree and yells at the sparrows until they make room for him. The squirrel pretty much ignores the birds and focusses on getting his prefered type of seed out of the little cage they're in. I had to use a metal twist tie to keep him from opening the cage door. I tried a string, but he pulled that open.



When the bird seed was all gone, the squirrel climbed up on the metal bar, looked at me somewhat insistently, and made a loud knocking noise. Pushy little critter. Smart too. He knew that the cats couldn't get him through the glass, and he certainly seemed to know that I was supplying the food. The birds were just opportunists, but the squirrel makes things happen.

Palace Marquee

Here's another thing I would have missed out on if I were driving instead of walking. On my way home from work last Friday, I wandered into the opening ceremony for the new Palace Theater marquee.


Here is the crowd waiting patiently through half an hour (or more!) of speeches. I had trouble with the acoustics where I was standing. The speakers' voices were loud enough (and Jarjura's was overly loud), but it was difficult to make out the individual words. I think that one of the speakers said something about gathering here again on New Year's Eve. I hope that's true. I would love to see a NYE celebration in downtown Waterbury.


Just after 7 p.m., the sign was turned on. Bright lights on East Main Street! It was very cool.


I was amused by the number of people, at least 30, taking photos of the sign with their cell phones. Plenty of news cameras were present as well.

Pine Grove Cemetery

I'm walking a lot more than I used to, and I'm seeing things that I would miss if I were driving. For example, this sign posted at the entrance to Pine Grove Cemetery. It sounds like there are plans to build a "telecommunications facility" (a 60x60 foot compound, including a cell phone tower) in the center of the cemetery. There is a public hearing scheduled for November 21st at City Hall. Full information is online at the CT Sitting Council website.





Here's the plan for the compound from the CSC website.


I wonder how many other things I miss when I drive instead of walk?

We Need a Better System

I did my duty and voted this afternoon. With two exceptions, I did not feel good about any of the candidates I voted for. Put simply, I did not like my choices. I was talking to someone about this yesterday, and we came up with an idea (for all I know, someone else has already put forth this idea) that might result in a better quality of public servants.

For each candidate, we should be able to vote Yes or No. Any candidate receiving more No than Yes votes is automatically disqualified. For each of the remaining candidates, should there be any, subtract the total number of No votes from the total number of Yes votes. Whoever ends up with the most number of Yes votes wins. If no candidate has more Yes than No votes, then we go find some new candidates.

In addition, there should be a clear job description for each position. The job description should be posted online and in the newspapers, accessible to everyone. The candidates would apply for the jobs in more-or-less the same way everyone else applies for a job--post resumes and references on their websites and in their mailings, and answer interview questions on television.

I think this would be a much more professional, responsible and civilized approach to elections. Any candidate trying to run a smear campaign against their opponants would be penalized.

Whoops!

The Republican-American has an election website up with some information about candidates, polling places, etc. I decided to give it a look this morning before going to to vote, just to make sure I'm decided about who I'm voting for. The website has an Election Day Countown clock, letting you know how many days left until Election Day. Today, which is election day (and it's only 10:15 in the morning, so I know the polls are still open), the clock reads "You missed it!"

Lieberman, Lamont & Schlesinger

We're a week away from the election, so things are starting to get ugly. Lieberman is retaining a significant lead in the polls over Lamont, and Schlesinger barely even registers, with only 8 percent of the presumed votes. For reasons that are completely a mystery to me, Waterbury is now being "blamed" for Lieberman's success, with Lamont supporters citing our recent history of convicted criminal politicians (ref. today's issue of the Republican-American).

I don't know what the demographics are for Lieberman's district, but it seems highly unlikely that all of his supporters are in this one city. Maybe there is a higher percentage of Lieberman supporters here than elsewhere in his district. The polls indicate that he has 73 percent of the Republican vote, and Waterbury probably does have more Republicans than the suburbs do. However, I think the real issue is that the Republican party, at least around here, never seems to have a viable candidate. How many people know or remember that Schlesinger is running? Come to think of it, remember when Giordano was the Republican candidate running against Lieberman? Even before his corruption charges, everyone knew that was a joke. It's not just Lieberman, either. Joan Hartley never has competition from the Republicans. Most years there isn't even a Republican candidate at all. In the Waterbury region, the Republican party is pretty much dead, even though there are plenty of registered Republicans (and in this case, I suspect most of them are voting for Lieberman in order to maintain the status quo). Is it like this in other places?

After reading today's article (about an article in the Providence Journal blasting Waterbury), I have the unpleasant feeling that Lieberman's win, should it happen, will be attributed to the support of "that evil city" Waterbury. It's unfair, not to mention irresponsible. If a journalist wants to talk about this being a politically corrupt city, then he should do some research and attack our current situation and politicians, not the ghosts of our past.

More Neighborhood Comparison

My first Halloween in my new neighborhood, just north of Hamilton Park, was a disappointment. The first trick-or-treater showed up at 6:45--just a boy and his dad, not even wearing real costumes, just wigs. A little after 7pm, a pack of twelve kids, plus parents, swooped up the street and made a good dent in my candy supply. I wish I had put out more in the bowl for them, because that was all I got for trick-or-treaters. Heck, there was only one other house on the street with any decorations up, and most of the houses were doing a good job of looking empty. There's no Halloween spirit here.

By contrast, my old neighborhood, near downtown, full of drug dealers and prostitutes, had tons of kids out trick-or-treating. They started at dusk, with the youngest kids out mostly between 5 and 7, followed by increasingly older kids. The younger kids always had on great costumes. It was a lot of fun. I miss my old neighborhood. It was noisy and had serious traffic problems, but people were a lot friendlier there. (Okay, some of them were a bit too friendly... my neighbor came home one day to find a crackhead sleeping on his couch...).

Palace Marquee

The new marquee for the Palace Theater in Waterbury is being installed today, replacing the flat metal sign that has been up since they reopened (although there was one day this summer when I saw the metal sign being reinstalled, which seemed odd). The new sign has an electronic display on the sides for promoting upcoming events.

Palace Theater's website: palacetheaterct.com

11/10/06 - Here's another photo from about a week later; banners have been bolted to the sides of the building, and pine trees have been placed out front... here comes Christmas!

Library books

I checked a book out of the Silas Bronson library at the start of the month. I need to read the book for my next book club meeting in November, but so far I haven't even started reading it yet. I started reading something else first (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay), and I want to finish reading that before starting Paris to the Moon. I started getting panicky about the library book--it's due back on November 1st--and I don't want to pay two weeks' worth of overdue fees just to get it read before my club meeting. Luckily for me, I had a vague memory about online library book renewals. I went to the library website, logged in using my card number, and I was able to renew my book in a few seconds. Yay! Modern technology is great!

Waterbury Brew Fest

The Brass City Brew Fest was held yesterday in Library Park. There were 180 different types of beer, both domestic (including Connecticut) and international (Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Chinese, Austrian, Belgian, and so on). Also good music, courtesy of Carnegie Clapp, and good food from several Waterbury restaurants.

I'm still learning how to use the camera in my new cell phone, so unfortunately these aren't the best-quality images.


The beer was served under the tents. The crowd tended to gravitate towards the sun, where it was warmer.


This is always one of my favorite things: a van with a tap on the side.


A good beer from China.


Another good beer; this one seems to be named after my cat, only he's more evil than saintly.


More crowds of people having a good time.


Clapp & Friends playing great music for the beer drinkers. I think the seats and tables were empty because it was so extremely cold out and they were in the shade.

At one point I saw someone pour a beer they didn't like onto the ground. My first reaction was annoyance (litterbug!), but then I decided it was a nice libation for the people buried there (little known fact: the area immediately in front and behind the library was the first cemetery for Waterbury; when they built the library in the 1890s, most of the burials were left in place, either because the coffins were too deteriorated to move or because there were no family members left willing to spend the money to relocate the remains).

Chris Murphy

At the moment, I don't know much about Chris Murphy. I usually wait until closer to the election to do my research about who I will vote for. What I do know about Chris Murphy is that somebody really hates him. He must be doing well in the polls, making his opponants nervous. Twice a day, I receive recorded phone calls telling my that Chris Murphy has dark secrets suggesting that he might be a corrupt politician so don't vote for him.

I'm really really tired of getting called twice a day to hear recorded messages. At this point, I'm planning on voting for Murphy, just to get back at the harrassing phone calls.

Unsolicited political messages should be included on the "do not call" lists that block phone solicitations.