Gessler

I think I first started hearing Tom Gessler's name a year or two ago. I don't know a lot about him directly, except the "buzz" that he's a New York real estate investor who owns a few properties in downtown Waterbury. The other major downtown property owner is Phil Nargi, who lives in Waterbury and hangs out downtown. While I certainly don't agree with everything Nargi's said and done, at least he's involved in the community. I don't know that I've ever seen Gessler around, and I have no idea where he lives. He has a couple of companies for his investments, but when I try to research them online, it's like they don't exist. Gessler's name appears nowhere in the city assessor's website.

I did a little further digging, and found that Gessler, through the guise of "Leavenworth & West Main, LLC", based in Hamden, is the owner of the former Mattatuck Museum building at 119 West Main Street. Gessler purchased the building many years ago and almost immediately replaced the beautiful wrought iron fence with a chain link fence nailed a board over the front door, effectively defacing the oldest building on the Green. Nothing has been done with the building since then. I can't help but wonder what he did with the original fence. Is it stored on site or did he sell it?

Gessler also owns the property where the city Health Department currently rents space (on a side note: why are city departments renting space? this makes no economic sense at all!). When their lease was about to expire, they naturally started looking for cheaper rent. They found it on Bank Street, in the former Jones Morgan building, which is owned by Phil Nargi. The city agreed to lease office and clinic space from Nargi. When Gessler found out he was losing his tenant, he threw a fit and started complaining to everyone he could. This launched the enormous public debate over the location of the health clinic earlier this year. (Please don't take my chronology as hard fact--this is my second and third hand reconstruction of what happened.) Gessler's supporters insisted that moving the health clinic from Scovill Street to Bank Street would destroy downtown development. Lynnette Letsky-Piombo addressed the Board of Aldermen and said that Gessler is planning to invest $7.5 million in downtown Waterbury, therefore we should do what he wants. This was the most chilling, disturbing thing I had heard in a long time. I know I'm exaggerating here, but how is this different from prostitution? Do whatever he wants, because he says he's going to pay enough money later on?

This past week, the Board of Aldermen finally voted to honor the contract with Nargi for the Health Center to move to Bank Street. In my mind, that debate boiled down to a couple of key ingredients: the vast majority of downtown business owners spoke out in favor of the move; and the city had already entered into an agreement for the new lease. Gessler responded to the BoA vote by throwing a staged tantrum. He claims that the relocation of the Health Clinic to Bank Street makes the Lombard Building, at Exchange Place, a bad investment for him. Therefore, he will no longer continue his negotiations to purchase, renovate and enlarge (with two new floors) that building. Seventy-five downtown merchants believe the relocation will improve business downtown. And, as the Republican-American pointed out, Gessler's negotiations to purchase the Lombard Building were already in jeopardy, given that the building is chock-full of asbestos and other toxins. Sounds to me like he's using the clinic move as an excuse to back out of his deal. Just as well, as far as I'm concerned. Downtown Waterbury is full of empty upper stories. Adding two more floors to the Lombard Building is not what downtown needs.

Gessler doesn't seem to be doing any good for Waterbury. He's defaced a well-loved historic building, attempted to manipulate the proper course of government through sleazy tactics, and there's no indication that he's involved with or cares about the community. Maybe I'm completely wrong about him, but I really have not seen or heard anything about him to make me think that he's worth having in town. Hm. Okay, I take that back. He does seem to hire good property managers. Much better than Sy Management, which is constantly in the news for not maintaining the basic necessities in their buildings. But decent property management doesn't make up for Gessler's low points. Waterbury deserves better.

Smoke Free

The latest bar buzz in town is that the new owners of T-Pic's have declared the bar to be smoke-free. For all of us non-smokers who like no-frills, cheap bars that aren't overpopulated with 21-year-olds, this is great news. The smokers are feeling a little sad about it, but there probably are a couple of other places in the region that still ignore the no-smoking law. If not, well, I guess they'll have to stay home or curb their habit.

Hamlet in the Park

The annual performance in Library Park by Shakesperience Productions, Inc. begins this Thursday, June 19. They do a different performance every year--this time it's Hamlet. I tried to persuade them to cast me in the lead role, but Dan wouldn't have it, so instead I will content myself with being in the audience.

Picnic dinners can be purchased from the JoBa Cafe. Performances will be held June 19-21 and June 26-28. Picknicking at 6pm, performance at 6:30.

Full details available from the Shakesperience website.

Here are some photos from the June 19 performance:

Wash Out!

Long Hill Road has never been great for pedestrians. Only half the road has sidewalks, and most of the sidewalks are barely wide enough for one person, never mind someone in a wheelchair. The road isn't really wide enough for a shoulder, so pedestrians, whether on the sidewalk or the side of the road, are walking only a foot or two away from traffic that often goes much faster than the posted speed limit.

As if all of that weren't hazardous enough, now there are giant gouges where the road has washed out, primarily because the road was built without adequate drainage.

















This next image is a storm drain (is that what they're called?) on Oak Street, next to Long Hill. I don't know how well you can see in the photo, but it is large enough for a young child to fall in.

Sin City

Waterbury finally has a night life! Sin City's grand opening is July 3rd. Check them out at myspace.com/sincityct.

Indoor Water Park

The indoor water park at what is now the Holiday Inn waaay out East Main Street is nearing completion. Every time I drive by, I'm startled to see the construction.



I believe its name is/will be Coco Key Water Resort. The corporation has similar indoor water parks in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati and several other cities.

I guess we can add this to the list of things that make Waterbury a good place to be a kid!

Meanwhile.... While you wait for the water park to open, don't forget about Quassy Amusement Park, on the lake in Middlebury. They have a beach, paddle boats, a water slide, and a "saturation station" to keep you waterlogged all summer!

Open House Day

Saturday, June 14, is Connecticut Open House Day. Museums and other arts organizations around the state will be free to all visitors this day. Many will be offering special programs. Participating organizations here in Waterbury include:

House on the Hill B&B (this is one of the great old homes of the Hillside neighborhood--definitely worth a visit!)
Mattatuck Museum
Palace Theater
Seven Angels Theatre
Timex Museum
Waterbury Symphony Orchestra

Be sure to check for their hours before dropping by!

State of the Groceries

Waterbury's down another grocery store with the closing of Price Chopper this month. According to the company, they are closing the store because it has been "under performing." That seems a little fishy, considering that it's been voted best grocery store in Waterbury. Perhaps not coincidentally, there have apparently been ongoing squabbling between Waterbury's Price Chopper and the United Food & Commercial Workers Union (Local 371). Maybe a month before Price Chopper announced that they would be closing the Waterbury store, Waterbury residents received a postcard mailing from the union asking us not to shop at Price Chopper, because the store "pays non-union substandard wages." I vaguely remember the union doing a similar mailing and newspaper advertising roughly a year ago. Maybe the union protest had more to do with the store closing than anything else.

Meanwhile, a new grocery store has opened downtown in the Colonial Plaza on Thomaston Avenue. Compare Foods is really great. The prices are low and the selection is fantastic. An article in the Republican-American about their opening stated the the manager spent a year studying Waterbury's communities and shopping habits, and has tried to meet the grocery needs of everyone. I can't speak for anyone else, but the store definitely does what I need. There are only one or two things I buy that they don't carry, and there are things they carry that I like and can't find anywhere else. The grocery store that preceded Compare Foods at the same site was very poorly managed (raw fish being sold from display stands in the middle of the store, rotting away). Compare Foods is nothing at all like that store--it's clean, well-stocked, and has great customer service.

Another new grocery topic is at Stop & Shop. They've gone "green" with their bags. If you purchase a green shopping bag for 99¢, every time you use it, you get five cents back. It doesn't take long for the bags to pay for themselves, and they are much better for carrying groceries than standard bags. The only glitch is that they aren't really all that green: they're made out of polypropylene. They're durable, but they're made from a substance that is not biodegradable and are not considered ecofriendly. Oops.

Bank Street Facades

A couple of buildings on Bank Street downtown are getting facade renovations. If you haven't been there lately, you should go check it out. If you can't get there, I've included some photos. Ideal Jewelers has removed their circa 1970 storefront facade and will be replacing with something that is a little more in keeping with the rest of the building's design (at least, that's the plan I saw a year ago). Maybe Goldsmith's facade will be next. 

I don't know what the plan is for the other building (on the corner of Bank and Center Streets), but it's nifty to see the decorative medallions that have been hidden by cement slabs for many decades.

Best Places--the kid's point of view

The recent ranking of Waterbury as one of the best places to raise a family got me thinking about the kid's view. Parents look for low crime rates, affordability, good schools. Kids, I think, just want to have plenty of fun things to do.

I lived in a lot of different places when I was growing up. The place I liked the least was Watertown. We lived in a lovely suburban neighborhood, where everyone had a large house and a large yard. And that was it. There was no where to go, nothing to do. In the winter, we sometimes went sledding over at Taft, but only if there was enough snow. Going downtown wasn't a lot of fun, since it was pretty much just a dangerous highway (there was one time when my friend and I were walking somewhere along Route 63, no sidewalk, and my dog got run over; the driver never slowed down or stopped, even though he had to have seen two young girls running across the street after the dog he just hit; the dog, miraculously, was fine).

I spent a fair amount of time in Waterbury and always had a good time. It was relatively easy to walk or bicycle to wherever I wanted to go, and there were places I wanted to go!

Thinking back, here are the things that I think make for a good place to be raised: parks and playgrounds; skating rinks; sledding hills; swimming pools; ample sidewalks; ice cream trucks; malls (I hate to admit to that one, but it's true); trees to climb; history and science museums; libraries with good children's departments; festivals and fairs; plenty of trees to keep the streets shaded during the hot summer months; and just enough adult supervision to keep the bullies in check and to help you when you fall out of the tree you were climbing.

Family Friendly

Waterbury has recently been ranked among the best places in the country to raise a family by BestLife magazine. We came in at number 43, after Stamford (#15). No other city or town from Connecticut made the list.

View more on MSN's website.

Grand Street Block Party

The Hops n Rock party is this Saturday, May 24, 7 to 11 pm. Admission is now free, so don't miss out!

Duck Season!

The third annual duck race on the Naugatuck River is coming up--the race begins at 2pm on June 1st, from the Whittemore bridge in Naugatuck. For full information and to buy your duck(s), visit www.duckday.org.

Block Party!

There was a party on my street last night that was organized as a fundraiser cookout for the daughter of Julius Sockwell, who was shot by a friend one year ago. It's a very tragic motivation for a party, but it's also a great memorial.

The party didn't really get going until around 5pm (and was over by 10pm). There was a DJ playing dance music, and probably close to a hundred people either sitting on their porches watching, dancing in the street, or hanging out on the sidewalk with friends. Maybe half the people were little kids--after a couple hours, I remembered that I had some left over chalk, so I brought that out for some of the kids to play with. I wound up talking to an older kid (maybe 10 or 11) about how guns are dangerous. He gave me the low-down on gangs in our neighborhood (I can now identify Crips and Bloods), and we talked about how there are better choices than joining a gang. It sounded like his mom and his aunt have been working hard to keep him out of trouble. It sounded like he was almost reciting what they had taught him.

The only real downside to the party is that they didn't shut down the street. There were a lot of drivers using the street as a cut-through to get somewhere else. Fortunately, the dancers were blocking the middle of the street--some of the drivers started out going too fast and might have hit one of the little kids running around, but they were forced to slow down and stop because of the crowd. The cops came by at one point and told the dancers to stay out of the middle of the road, which they did for a little while. Next year, the party organizers should get permission to shut the street down completely.

Panoramio

Google Maps has a new photographic feature through Panoramio.com -- anyone can upload photographs of buildings, parks, streetscapes, etc., and those images will show up whenever anyone views a Google map of the location. It's very cool. I just spend half an hour adding some of my Waterbury photos.

Users can search through the map, or they can search for keywords.

To access the Google map, go to maps.google.com, search for a location, and click the "Explore the Area" link to the left.

One thing to be aware of: photographs are pinpointed to the location from which they were taken. So, for example, some photographs of the Union Station clock tower are located over by the library.

Naugatuck River Race

I had to work yesterday, so I couldn't go to the canoe trip down the Naugatuck (from Waterbury to Beacon Falls). Maybe I'll do it on my own someday, when I'm feeling brave (I shudder to think of paddling past the sewage treatment plant at the wrong time of day).

The video is from the Republican-American website and has some nice shots of the river (you can download a copy by going to the rep-am.com multimedia page--they also have photographs online).

I hope more activities happen with the river. Keeping it clean is the first step.

New History at the Mattatuck

After 20 years, the history exhibit at the Mattatuck Museum has been taken down and replaced with something spectacular! The new exhibit tells the story of Waterbury and the region up to the present day. It includes open storage cases, bringing hundreds of collection objects out where you can see them. Familiar stories are told in new ways. A variety of technologies, from state-of-the-art to tried-and-true, allow you to explore in-depth or just plain have fun (there's something for nearly all ages).

Opening day is this Saturday, with free admission all day long, and a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11am.

HOME Funds

I don't know the full story of what's going on at WDC with the HUD funds, but I've got a lot of questions. I qualify for the HOME program to rehab my house, but I've been told that I can't even get on the wait list because it's so long. Meanwhile, the newspaper tells us that the money isn't being spent. My impression of WDC projects is that they are hopelessly bogged down in bureaucracy, with layers of rules and project steps that make any small (under $25,000) project impossible to complete. Main Street Waterbury's Facade Renovation program has been sitting in limbo for years because of red tape at WDC. Other organizations have very straight-forward rehab loan programs--you download the application form, send them the information they need, and a month or so later, you've got your money and can fix your house.

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View from the Top

A friend came over today to help me figure out how much it will cost to replace my roof (to keep my insurance company happy). Naturally, I had to climb up to the roof too. I love being on top of flat roofs. I love being up high, above everything else. I don't love climbing ladders. Makes my legs wobble. So does sticking my head over the edge of the roof to look straight down. I wanted to take a look at my gutter, and had to crawl towards the edge of the roof and lie flat on my stomach to do it. I lasted maybe two minutes before I started to get vertigo. I also needed a few minutes to talk myself into climbing back down the ladder. But other than the few moments like those, it was great being on the roof. Next time I'll bring my better camera.

A discovery: Scooby's been living on my roof!

Another nervous moment for me. For completely irrational reasons, I was afraid the gable would break and Jim would fall.

And here is my bathroom skylight--notice what's wrong with it? I can't afford to have it restored now, but at least some of it is still more-or-less intact. I'm hoping there's still a window under the roofing, but I kind of think there isn't. However, there's a second window, on the other side, that's been painted over (originally it was a clear window, with a chain device to open it for ventilation). Next time I'm on the roof, I'll scrape the paint off the glass to see how much of the rest is intact. Or maybe tomorrow I'll bash a hole in the bathroom ceiling and shine a light up the shaft.

It was very exciting to see the skylight (I know, I'm a house geek). It was even more exciting to see the one on the house next door--that one appears to be original. I've seen photos of the Scovill row houses from 1916, when they were built, but I've never seen photos or diagrams of the skylights before. If it turns out the sloping window is gone, I can take measurements and photographs of the one next door, and then hire someone to make a reproduction for me.

East Main Deli

The Market Place downtown on East Main Street, across from UConn, opened this winter in the storefront that used to be Brass City Buzz. It's a great little deli with a decent breakfast menu (a healthy alternative to Dunkin Donuts). When they first opened, it seemed like they were always empty, but now when I walk by, it seems like there are always a few UConn students (and other people!) inside.