Crocuses!

Here comes Spring!



If it's warm enough this weekend, I think I'll drag my bicycle out of the basement and over to the linear park in Cheshire.

Counting the Donuts

Here's the newest (I think!) Dunkin Donuts in Waterbury, on Wolcott Street. How many does that make? Using Google Maps, I count 18 Dunkin Donuts in Waterbury. Using the phonebook, only 16.



I estimate approximately one Dunkin Donuts for every six or seven thousand people in Waterbury. I guess we like their coffee & donuts!

I suppose it's the drive-through and on-the-go advertising that are the key to their success. I prefer local, real coffee shops, like John Bale, Barci's and the long-gone Brass City Buzz, but those are places to relax, hang out, socialize. Dunkin Donuts is for when you're in a hurry and need an infusion of caffeine and/or sugar, which seems ironically uncivilized.

Kicking Her When She's Down [revised]

[Sorry for the revision of this post--as a general rule, I don't make significant changes to my posts, but this issue inspired me to write something longer and more complex as a letter to the editor later in the day, and I think it makes sense to post that here. The content of the original post is still here.]

I have noticed with dismay that the Board of Aldermen is frequently sidetracked by petty bickering. When we elect the Aldermen, we do so with the assumption (or perhaps just the hope) that we are electing mature, responsible adults who will behave in a professional manner. Instead, what we have been “treated” to on countless occasions over the past year is the unsightly spectacle of Aldermen behaving like spoiled adolescents who have tantrums and hold grudges that interfere with the business of government. How many times did the Independent Aldermen refuse to participate in subcommittee meetings because Alderman Arthur J. Denze, Sr. was cranky about having been reprimanded off-camera? Was the televising of the publicly-held subcommittee meetings really more important than participating in those meetings, which is what we taxpayers pay them to do?

Most recently, Alderman Frank A. Burgio, Sr., as reported in the Republican-American (March 11, Alderman pleads misfortune), has behaved at a new low. From what I can put together, he took it upon himself to inform the newspaper that Alderman Laurie Singer Russo is late paying her taxes. The amount she owes ($362) is not very significant, and, as Alderman Burgio surely must have known, she has been going through very difficult times lately. As quoted in the article, she has no job and her ex had stopped sending her money before his recent death. When someone is enduring a time of great hardship, the decent and honorable thing to do is to express sympathy and be supportive. Adding to their woes is, at the very least, inappropriate. If Burgio was genuinely concerned that Russo, as an Alderman, has a public responsibility to keep up with her taxes, the correct thing to do was to speak to her and the President of the Board of Alderman in private.

I question the validity of his decision to expose her delinquent tax bill when, at the same time, he and his fellow Independent Aldermen proposed and voted in favor of the city no longer shutting off the water of delinquent bill payers. If Alderman Burgio is comfortable with being extremely lenient towards landlords who each owe the city many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their rental properties’ water bills, how can he attack one Alderman who is late with her relatively small tax bill?

The situation as reported in the article is made worse by one sentence: "He said Democrats had roasted him for an overlooked tax bill in the past." In other words, Burgio is bitter about getting into trouble for not paying his taxes and is getting back at the Democrats by attacking Russo. This is the sort of behavior I expect from an adolescent, not from an elected official. It's immature, petty and cruel. If Burgio wants to help the city, he should spend his energy going after the people and businesses who owe thousands of dollars' worth of taxes going back years. Instead, he focused on a personal vendetta and created yet another situation in which the Board of Alderman was sidetracked from good government by squabbling over personal issues.

Waterbury will never achieve its potential greatness if our leaders continue to behave like children.

Spring is getting closer!

The silver lining to picking up the litter that blows into my yard from next door is that I get to see the early flowerings. More snow drops and now the emergence of what I think are daffodils.

Icy Roads

I'm guessing that the city is all out of salt and sand, and that the plows are defective. I don't know how else to explain what I saw today.

I drove up to UConn-Storrs this morning, first carefully navigating Waterbury's roads. My street was a long stretch of packed-down snow. Not too terrible, considering that it's a one-way street sloping downwards. Walnut Street, a steep downhill, was (thankfully!) clear. Welton Street looked like it had been plowed once and then sanded once. For the most part, it was a sandy slush. The rest of my route to 84-East was pretty much a mix of those three streets.

I was amazed when I got up to UConn. Every street was clear and dry. Every sidewalk had been plowed/shoveled. It was an absolute delight!

On the return trip to Waterbury, the roads were all fine until I got into the city. I nearly crashed my car twice, at intersections where the roads were sheets of ice. It's very difficult to stop your car, even when you're going only 20 mph, when you're driving on a sheet of ice.

These weren't minor side roads. The first icy intersection was at the end of the off-ramp for exit 24 (Plank and Harper's Ferry Roads). The second one was on East Main Street at Route 69. The second one was worse than the first. I did a little bit of fishtailing in addition to sliding forward, even though I had been going maybe 22 when I started to break. It was a little scary.

On the plus side (if you can call it that), when I got home one of my neighbors told me that the city never used to plow our street. So at least they sort of plow it now. The problem, I guess, has to do with the size of the plow trucks. Earlier this winter, the plow driver told me that the city plows are really too large for my street. They can barely squeeze between the cars, and the drivers have zero visibility for any fine-tuned maneuvering.

So why is that UConn, which is so strapped for cash their president wants to shut down their museums, is able to do a good job of snow removal while Waterbury, which is supposedly doing okay financially, has icy streets that are a serious safety hazard?

Acrobatics

The Golden Dragon Acrobats will be performing at the Palace Theater on Saturday. I saw them (or their twin...) at the Palace a couple years ago, and it was an amazing show. If you don't already have plans for Saturday, and you can spare $25 for a ticket, you should absolutely go see the show.










It's family-friendly, although I'm not sure every parent wants their children to be inspired to try some of the acrobatics they perform!

Bad Bus Stop

This, sadly, is a very busy school bus stop on Walnut Street at the intersection of Wood Street. A few weeks ago, I watched a school bus unload maybe three dozen young children. In the mornings, I see the kids waiting here for the bus. I can't imagine what they and their parents think of it.



If the city can't get the building demolished (the brick building on the right is probably worth salvaging, but taking down the wood apartment building would be a big improvement), then the school department should at least move the bus stop half a block north to the WOW/NRZ neighborhood center. Why do the kid have to stand in front of a building like that every day?

The situation is even worse when you realize what a dangerous intersection this is. There have been two fatal accidents there in the past two years. There are stop signs on Wood Street, but not on Walnut Street. The visibility for eastbound traffic on Wood Street is terrible, and Walnut becomes extremely narrow when there are cars parked on it. And this is where the kids wait for the bus every day.

This intersection could become really nice. There's an empty lot diagonally opposite the empty buildings that would make a great parklet, just the right size for a basketball court and gardens. The corner building could be replaced with some much-needed off-street parking. There have been a few improvements made to Walnut Street, but nowhere near enough.

Golden Opportunity

Yesterday's Republican-American ran this short little piece about the China Shop closing its location at the Mall because the owner doesn't like the mall's hours:



For everyone involved with downtown Waterbury, this little news article should be a giant beacon. I think the China Shop was originally on Bank Street before it was lured away to the mall. It would be a tremendous symbolic victory for downtown if the current owner could be persuaded to move there. You could even get some good publicity about it--are malls dying? does this move signal the rebirth of downtown retail districts? With the right targeted press release, if any of the stores in the mall relocated to downtown, we could even get some minor national interest going.

I can think of half a dozen economic developers and downtown building owners who should be jumping all over this one. Now, granted, the business owner seems to have other concerns besides the mall's hours, but the article clearly states that he's interested in a new location. Why not downtown?

Snowdrop

This afternoon I was picking up the litter that blew into my yard from the corner store next door, and was thrilled to find the first flower of spring!




Okay, not spring really, but when the snowdrops appear, spring is not too far away.

Staying Warm Without Spending Too Much Money

It's bill-paying time again, and I've been reviewing my bills from YankeeGas and CL&P in an effort to reduce my heating costs. At the top of the list of ideas is to replace my furnace with something more fuel efficient, but that's not really an immediate solution (taking the radiators off-line in the middle of winter seems like a bad idea to me).

Here's my unsightly furnace:



My house has two floors, 544 sq. ft. each, and one side of the house is protected from the cold, as it is attached to another house. The gas furnace sends steam heat to six radiators. I'm frugal and prefer to wear extra clothing layers, so I don't turn the thermostat past 65 during the day, 60 at night. It's really a little too cold, and I end up shivering by mid-afternoon when I've been sitting at my desk all day. But even with that effort, the latest gas bill was still $330.

About a month ago, I remembered that I have a tiny little electric "heat furnace" left over from the days when I lived in an apartment in Naugatuck that didn't have heat in every room (there was a blast furnace in the side of the stove and a weird vertical heater in the hallway that did a great job of heating the ceiling). The electric heater is great for keeping me warm at my desk (no more shivering!), and I've got another heater I use in the living room. So now I keep the thermostat at 60 during the day and 56 at night.

CL&P and YankeeGas both keep well over a year's worth of meter readings available on their websites, so I can chart just how well I'm doing with keeping my bills down. I'm looking forward to seeing if the electric heaters make a big difference in my costs. CL&P is a little tricky, though. At first glance today, I thought I was doing great with keeping my electric bill down. Then I look closer at the usage chart. For every other month, the chart shows one actual meter reading for the month. The two most recent readings, however, are for two weeks each and are estimated readings. And they are for a much higher usage per day than for any other month on the chart. I wonder if that has anything to do with CL&P losing track of many customers' bill payments last month.

Wicked Book Signing

The newest must-have Waterbury item was released recently. Wicked Waterbury: Madmen & Mayhem in the Brass City, researched and written by Edith Reynolds and John Murray, reveals some of the more titillating events in the city's history (prior to 1980--I'm sure they could get another volume out of events from 1980 to the present!).



John Murray is the publisher of The Observer monthly newspaper. Ede Reynolds owns The John Bale Book Company and JoBa Cafe on Grand Street. On Thursday, February 12, from noon until 2 p.m., Ede will be signing copies of the book and sharing a "wicked dessert" for each book purchase, at John Bale. If you can't make it to the book signing, you can still purchase copies of the book through the John Bale website.

Albanian Demographics

There was a very good article by Jonathan Shugarts in Sunday's Republican American, but there was one little detail in the article that raised a red flag in the back of my mind. Fourteen hours later, that little red flag moved to the front of my mind.

In his article ("Search for killer extends to Albania"), he writes that "Waterbury has about 14,000 Albanians." I know there are a lot of Albanians in Waterbury, but 14,000 seems a little too many. This is the sort of arithmetic problem that I don't normally pay close attention to, but I know that number just can't be right. Just after midnight, it suddenly started bothering me.

Waterbury's total population is supposed to be around 107,000. If there are 14,000 Albanians, they represent 13% of the population. For comparison, the US Census estimates that in 2000 there were 19,400 African-Americans, 23,354 Hispanics, 24,476 Italians, and 12,514 Irish in Waterbury.

Being the research geek that I am, I naturally did some research on the topic. According to the census, there were 2,174 Albanians living in Waterbury nine years ago. That's just slightly more than two percent of the population. I can't believe that there's been an influx of 12,000 Albanians in the past nine years--that's a huge number of people.

So how many Albanians are there now in Waterbury, and where did Shugarts get his data? The way the article is written, it seems like the number is coming from Police Chief O'Leary as justification for spending $5,000 to send some of our police officers to Albania.

Waiting for Spring

Today's warm weather (50 degrees!) made me realize just how much winter has been getting me down. I had the windows open for an hour or two and felt very invigorated. The downside, however, is that the warmth is melting the snow cover, which means that everything is brown and drab and bleak, and we've got weeks to go before the first hints of spring will start to show.

To counter-act the bleak drab browns, here's a photo from last summer: sunny, warm, green and lovely!

Ice Climbers

This one falls into the category of Things I Would Never Think To Do.

Last weekend, I was driving north along the river into Thomaston, when I suddenly spotted three or four dozen people swarming all over the side of an icy cliff wall. My jaw dropped, I slowed down to look closer, wishing I had my camera, then kept going. Today I went back, with my camera, but not until the end of the day, when the sun was getting low in the sky and there were only six climbers doing their thing.

To get there, you take Thomaston Avenue north. It turns into Waterbury Road, and eventually you reach Jackson Street, which is where the climbing happens (at a small and fairly old former quarry). There's a little bit of off-street parking, then you follow a short and very lovely path through the snowy woods.

If you look closely (click on the image to enlarge), you'll see one of the climbers up high to the right:



Here's a closer view of the climber:



And another view. Here you can see that he's using a safety line, so if he falls, he won't fall far (assuming the two guys standing on the ground holding the other end of the rope do their job!).



Here are the guys holding the safety line. Ice climbing looks like a fairly slow process. The guy on the wall (see him way up there?) didn't get very far while I was there. At one point, he stopped to rest on a ledge and chatted with his friends about how there were a couple times he thought the ice was going to break off.




There were three other climbers present, but they weren't actually climbing. Two of them were being taught how to climb ice by the third one. Given how low the sun was, it seemed a little late in the day for a lesson, but I suppose they might have had another hour before dark.




When I look at the cascading wall of ice, it really just doesn't occur to me that I should climb it. It's beautiful and impressive, but climbing it is just not an instinct I have.



I've been rock climbing a few times, at least twice at this quarry. It was an interesting challenge and an interesting experience, but I still can't imagine why anyone would look at a wall of ice and feel inspired to climb up it.



If you want to see more ice climbing in Thomaston, here's a link to a video on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgMi5DWQl4E&feature=channel_page

Tax Address

I just wrote a check to the city tax collector for the second payment on my motor vehicle tax bill. I don't have time or patience to pay in person (the last time I had to stand in that line, I was there for 40 minutes), so I'm paying by mail. The mailing address is a post office box in Hartford. I'm really not sure what to make of that. I'm going to swing by Grand Street, put the check in the mailbox located at the post office, two blocks away from the tax collector's office, and my letter is going to be sent all the way to Hartford before it finally returns to the office two blocks away from the post office I mailed it from.

I'd like to believe there is something logical about this system, but I can't imagine what it might be.

Dragging Us All Down With Them

I was horrified and appalled by what I read in today's newspaper. Out of the $125,000 of state campaign fund money received by Waterbury's Independent party, more than $17,000 was pocketed by the Independents and their extended families. Waterbury's Independents have used their political position for personal financial gain. While they may not have done anything illegal, it certainly seems unethical. At the very least, it is self-serving and sets a terrible example.

The Independents have spent years insisting that they are Waterbury's watchdogs, always looking for political corruption on the part of the Democrats (they even requested that the FBI investigate Mayor Jarjura's activities), and insisting that they are the only ones who care about saving money for the city's taxpayers.

In 2007, they finally were able to get five members of their party elected to the Board of Aldermen. A short time later, they started campaigning for every state legislative office they could, which struck me as a disservice to the city residents who voted for them as Aldermen--shouldn't they have been focused on their municipal responsibilities, rather than immediately reaching for something else? Their campaign seemed particularly questionable considering that their chances of winning were incredibly low--it seemed like they were campaigning just for the sake of campaigning.

Now we learn that the campaign was an opportunity for them to take taxpayers' money for themselves. Again, while apparently not illegal, it was a really bad decision. Waterbury has an ugly reputation for political corruption. The last thing we need are politicians profiting from their campaigns.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats pay to have supporters stand outside the polling locations, but the Independents paid their families to do so, using taxpayers' money. Mike Telesca gave himself $6,000 of taxpayers' money as compensation for filming his fellow Independent's commercials--this might actually be okay, assuming that the money simply covered his costs and didn't involve a significant profit (but if he didn't have to buy new equipment, then that's pretty much all profit).

The worst expenditure was $11,000 paid to Larry DePillo for "consulting" as the campaign treasurer. He claims this was acceptable, as the work involved made it a full-time task. This is just plain repugnant. There are hundreds of Waterbury residents who volunteer thousands of hours of their time without ever expecting financial compensation, who work more than full time on charity events because they want to make a difference. DePillo is a founder of Waterbury's Independent Party, this is what he supposedly believes in, why is he entitled to profit financially when no one else does?

Their actions and decisions have further tarnished Waterbury's reputation. Their profit makes us all look bad.

Hope, Not Fear

I went to the Mattatuck Museum for their inauguration festivities--the photograph was taken early, before it started and before about two-thirds of the attendees arrived. It was an incredibly powerful and inspirational event. There were many local representatives who spoke, some scheduled, some impromptu, and of course everyone in the audience was speaking amongst themselves. I was struck by how much joy, pride, optimism, awe and excitement were being shared by everyone present.

This is the first time in my life (close to four decades) that I have ever witnessed unchecked faith in the Presidency. I am accustomed to the average person feeling very cynical about the President (whichever one it might be) and politicians in general. I am also accustomed to most people in my generation being apathetic about politics. The excitement over Obama has been endlessly compared to that over JFK, but I think it's more accurate to say that there hasn't been this much excitement over a President since Nixon disgraced the office and disillusioned the country. Pre-Nixon, national fervor over a new President was not at all unusual.

We've spent eight years listening to Bush tell us to be fearful. Even in his farewell speech last week, he stated "the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack." Be afraid. Live in terror. Bad things are going to happen.

Today, listening to Obama tell us that we have "chosen hope over fear" was refreshing, reinvigorating. If he can continue to inspire young people to be involved, to make a difference, to strive for a brighter future, he will have done a great thing.

The audience at the Mattatuck Museum included young children who will no doubt embrace the slogan "Yes, we can" and see their President as a role model of what can be achieved. This is something all of Waterbury should take to heart. I've met so many people here who have given up hope. Who shrug their shoulders and say that life in Waterbury will never get better, there's no point trying to improve things, might as well settle for the bottom of the barrel. It's a self-defeating attitude.

Our new President has inspired enthusiasm and optimism at a time when the nation has been increasingly terrified about the economic, environmental and international future. I hope he continues to do so.

To everyone who has ever said or thought that Waterbury will never again flourish, never again enjoy prosperity, never again be admired, I say: Can we make Waterbury better? Yes, we can!

Snow Removal

Late yesterday (Sunday) morning, I finally went outside to shovel the snow from my driveway, sidewalks, and the stretch of road in front of my driveway. This is my second winter on this narrow one-way street, and my experience so far has led me to expect very little from the city plows. The road is usually heavily sanded, and the plows will come through a few times (depending on how much snow there is) removing only a straight one-lane swath of snow (leaving, of course, about a one-inch thick layer of snow/salt/sand that eventually melts). Typically the city assigns the larger plows to my street, so there really is a limit to what the driver can do. Last winter, there was one snowstorm in which a smaller plow did my street, including the sides where there weren't parked cars, greatly reducing the amount of shoveling I had to do.

Yesterday I had just about finished all my shoveling when the snow plow started back down my street. I stopped shoveling to wait for the plow to pass by, since I knew it would push more snow my way. To my surprise, the plow parked on the side of the street and the driver got out and started chatting with me. Since he'd been plowing for about 20 hours at that point, I'm sure he needed to get out and stretch while he smoked a cigarette.

The plow driver (I can't remember his name; I'm terrible at remembering names, even when I try) was preparing to plow the side of the street, from the corner to my driveway, and wanted my input on where to put the pile. There already was a mountain of snow just past my driveway and a little snow hill just before my driveway. We agreed that there really wasn't enough room to make the mountain bigger, so the little would get to grow instead. He then regaled me with tales of all the angry people he encounters while plowing, including one who was so hostile the police had to get involved. We also chatted about the overall logistical problems of plowing such a narrow street, and I confirmed for him that most of the parked cars are gone during the week. I had the general impression that maybe a smaller plow might swing by today.

Today I was distracted from my computer by the repeated beeping sound of a truck backing up. I looked out the window and was astonished to see a giant city wheel loader REALLY removing the snow from my street! Fantastic! It made a little more shoveling work for me and my neighbor across the street, but the snow mountains are gone and everyone is going to have a much easier time parking their cars.



Thank you public works department!

Watch This Space!

Lately this blog has been getting a couple dozen visitors daily looking for information about the mall closing down, going bankrupt, etc. I'm fascinated by how widespread this concern is, with the visitor IP addresses coming from all over the state, the region and even some from around this country and others. The comments under the Mall Future? post cover the issue pretty well (and no, the mall isn't shutting down--note that our Macy's is not even one of the underperforming stores being closed).

I'm not aware of any mall closing down except when the retail businesses all close or move out. Then you have a "dead" mall that can linger on for a couple of years before being demolished (think of the old Naugatuck Valley Mall). The function-specific design of a mall, and the "cheap" modern construction materials used to build them really does doom them to demolition once the shops are all gone.

The predecessor of the mall is the downtown. When malls were being built in the 1950s and '60s, the retail businesses and customers flocked to the new location, leaving the downtown storefronts empty. In Waterbury, many of the gorgeous downtown buildings were demolished, but many others were "upgraded" with relatively cheap new facades. While those facades might have appealed to the sensibilities of the '60s and '70s, today they show their age and are widely considered a defacement of beautiful architecture.

It would be wonderful if all the money that has been spent since the 1990s to construct new malls and big box retail stores were instead spent on rehabbing the downtown buildings, but that obviously wasn't meant to be. The good news, however, is that there are private developers working on rehabbing the buildings and there is now grant money available to restore the building facades to their early glory.

Main Street Waterbury has created a Facade Improvement Program, administered by the Waterbury Development Corporation, that has begun making grant money available to downtown building owners. The first round of grant recipients was announced recently, and it's very exciting news. Some of the oldest buildings downtown that were most defaced during Urban Renewal will be brought back to life later this year.

In no particular order, here are the grant recipient buildings and a little bit of their history, which I wrote for the press release:

471 West Main Street (Acero Lounge)

Note the hideous ground level siding, complete with decrepit '80s style shingling (completely inappropriate to the elegant and graceful style of the original building design) and the tacky and decaying bay window surrounds. 

At one of the main gateways into downtown Waterbury is the Georgian Revival style 471 West Main Street, constructed in 1908 or 1909 and known for most of the 20th century as Finnan’s Block. It was one of many apartment blocks or buildings that were constructed along West Main Street in the decade leading up to World War I. Waterbury’s population was increasing rapidly during this era, as more and more people came here to work in the factories. Finnan’s Block is a quintessential example of this type of building, originally with grocers, a tobacconist and a saloon on the first floor, providing the basic amenities for the apartment dwellers on the upper floors. The building is currently undergoing extensive interior renovations, improving the apartments and restoring the original hardwood floors.

142 Grand Street (The Turf)

This building has very obvious problems: missing windows, overly layered peeling paint, a cheap and ugly '70s style street level facade that is inappropriate for the rest of the building.

On Grand Street, the Bierce Block at No. 142 was constructed after the devastation of the 1902 Fire. A Georgian Revival style structure, it was built in 1905 for Edward E. Wilson, mill superintendent for the Tracy Brothers construction company, which was responsible for the construction of many homes throughout Waterbury, and sold to Russell Bierce in 1906. The building originally had two finials on top of the cornice. The first floor of the building became a restaurant in 1931 with the opening of the Brass City Grill, modeled after the Brass Rail restaurant on Broadway in New York City and boasting a 42-foot long mahogany bar and murals of the brass factories. In 1946, the restaurant re-opened as the Turf Restaurant. Although the ownership has naturally changed over the years, The Turf is still in operation today and has been recently renovated by its current owner.

77 Bank Street (Russell Building)

The hideous chaos of the storefronts speaks for itself.

77 Bank Street was named the Russell Building after its first owner, attorney James Russell. Russell was the father of actress Rosalind Russell, most famous for her roles in “His Girl Friday” (co-starring Cary Grant) and “Auntie Mame”. The Russell Building was constructed in 1929 in the Art Deco style, and remained in the Russell family until it was purchased by its present owner.

68-70 Bank Street (Warner Block)

On the corner of Center Street, is 68-70 Bank Street, which has already begun the process of renovation, most noticeably removing the concrete panels stuck on the buildings during Urban Renewal. This impressive building was constructed by the Knights of Pythias in 1905, to replace their Hall which had been destroyed, along with many other downtown buildings, in the Fire of 1902. Pythian Hall was relocated to East Main Street in 1913, and the building became known as Warner’s Block, housing an optometrist and retailers on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors. As you can see from the banner image, the building is being renovated for luxury apartments--if only they had done this three years ago, when I was looking for a downtown rental!

54, 60, 64 Bank Street (three separate buildings)

The things that have gone wrong with these three buildings are so profound, I've included an 1888 photograph from the Mattatuck Museum. If you look carefully, you'll be able to match up 64 Bank Street in both photos by the triangular pediment that has survived mostly intact to the present day. In the historic photograph, you'll see what looks like one wide building next to it with a matching cornice, but it was in reality two separate buildings with facades designed to blend them together. I didn't crop the historic photo down all the way, because I think it is a treat to see what this stretch of Bank Street once looked like.

Two of the three buildings were constructed for John Milton Burrall, a cabinetmaker who came to Waterbury in 1849. Burrall built 60 Bank Street for his furniture and undertaking business in 1852. At the same time, James Ayers, owner of Waterbury’s leading jewelry store, constructed a matching building alongside Burrall’s at 54 Bank Street. Three years later, Burrall constructed 64 Bank Street.

54 and 60 Bank Street, while separate structures, were designed with an ornate cornice that made the two buildings appear as one. The cornice was similar to the one still visible on 64 Bank Street, but a little lower and without a pediment. All three buildings featured a row of three windows on each of the two upper floors. While none of the remaining visible windows looks exactly as they did originally (double-hung with a “grill pattern” of multiple panes), those at 64 Bank Street are closest.

Many modifications were made to these buildings over the years. By 1914, the second story of 54 Bank Street featured a central projecting bay window, while the windows on the second and third stories of 60 Bank Street were partially covered by signage. 54 Bank Street had become home to Adt Photography Studio during the late 19th century, and the upper floor of that building still boasts a remarkable and magnificent north-facing studio skylight, ideal for any artist. During the era of Urban Renewal in the 1960s and ‘70s, the façade of 60 Bank Street was completely obscured by a concrete facing, while the second story of 64 Bank Street was hidden behind a large signage backing. These modifications were intended to give the buildings a fresh and modern look, but they obscure the true beauty of the buildings, making them look tired and worn.

The grant program requires that the facade improvement projects be completed this year, so check back at the end of the year for the "after" photos, or stroll downtown sooner than that to see the improvements in progress!

Winter Sunset

I walked out of the supermarket yesterday and was stunned by the intensity of the sunset. Very impressive!



I've seen more than one impressive end of the day sky over the former Naugatuck Valley Mall. I suppose it has something to do with it being a relatively large flat area with hills that block out part of the western view. One evening most of the sky was pitch black, like the darkest night, with a sliver of bright sky along the western horizon where the sun was setting and the dark clouds ended. It was very surreal.