Growing Up in Bridgeport in the ‘40s and ‘50s

Growing Up in Bridgeport in the '40s and '50s. Drawn from the author's memory, these essays describe the sights and sounds, adventures, drama, humor and tragedies of the author's youth. With its informal and familiar tone, and its recurring references to local figures and locales, the author draws the reader into this world, making it more than just the memoirs of a single individual; instead the memoirs of a small Midwestern oil town. The Great Snake Escape. A Tale of Two Cities.

Motorcycles Tractors and Cars. Where Theres Smoke Theres Fire. My Eighth Grade Year.

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Pool and Pool Halls. The Old Swimming Hole. A Tribute to My Teachers. BridgeportSafe Haven for Children.

Football and the Haymow. The Fire Hose Mystery. A Boy and His Dogs. Rubber Guns and Slingshots. New Years Eve and Day. Bush who spoke before a small, selected group of Connecticut business people and officials about health care reform at the Playhouse on the Green, just across the street from McLevy Hall, in The city's most famous resident has been circus-promoter and once-mayor P.

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Barnum , who built four houses in the city Iranistan and Waldemere were the most renowned and housed his circus in-town during winters. The Barnum Museum , housed in a building that was originally contracted for construction by P. Barnum himself, has an extensive collection related to P.

Barnum and the history of Bridgeport. In , Bridgeport initiated a Barnum Day parade which has grown into an annual multi-day festival. Barnum, with the land being deeded to the city in In , The Standard urged the creation of one or more public parks in the city and a movement to create a park along Long Island Sound and Black Rock Harbor began. Olmsted described the existing land as "pastoral, sylvan and idyllic" and, in , delivered his plan for a simple, rural park for the residents to enjoy: It is a better picnic ground than any possessed by the city of New York, after spending twenty million on parks The object of any public outlay upon it should be to develop and bring out these distinctive local advantages, and make them available to extensive use in the future by large numbers of people.

Newfield Park was the home of a minor league baseball team, the Bridgeport Orators who won their league's championship in The city rapidly industrialized in the lateth century, and became a manufacturing center producing such goods as the famous Bridgeport milling machine, brass fittings, carriages , sewing machines , saddles, and ammunition.

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The factory became headquarters of Remington UMC in With the start of World War I in Europe in , Bridgeport became a new world arsenal some called "the Essen of America" and Bridgeport's population exploded, growing by nearly 50 percent in a month period. The Russian order was nearing completion when the Russian Revolution deposed Czar Nicholas II and refused to pay for the rifles and ammunition.

Rapidly growing industry led to labor unrest. As a city planning consultant put it, "Wages have risen, but so have rents, the price of real estate and the cost of living," going on to give an example a worker earning the prevailing wage whose family had been turned out on the street when unable to meet a 25 percent increase in rent. They were so successful that they spread throughout the Northeast.

While thousands took part in the Bridgeport strikes of , few were actually union members and many were women who had been denied membership in craft unions.

For instance, the Bryant Electric Company strike was started by five hundred women assemblers and a handful of men who walked off the job. The other workers joined the strike and after two weeks the company acceded to the workers' demands for an eight-hour day, overtime pay and union representation. Similar strikes with similar results played out at factories throughout the city and in the course of a few months, Bridgeport was transformed into an eight-hour day city. Bridgeport's industrial growth was fueled by, and attracted, immigration from overseas.

As for the labor force, 73 percent were foreign born.

The immigrant neighborhoods were located mostly south of the railroad line, near the factories and to the shore and included eastern and southern Europeans, Scandinavians and Irish. At this point, African Americans constituted 1. By , the African American percentage of the population had increased to By Bridgeport was a thriving industrial center with more than factories and a booming immigrant population. World War II provided a further boost to the city's industries.

Alfred Fones with a first class of 34 women. A growing city needed more housing and developers provided it, such as the Irish working-class neighborhood of Sterling Hill , the s rental units now preserved as the Bassickville Historic District and the World War I emergency housing for workers that now constitutes the Black Rock Gardens Historic District. The new immigrants wanted their own houses of worship, too, such as the Polish community's St. Bridgeport saw commercial development too, such as the formation of several banks and commercial establishments like D.

Read's department store in its thriving downtown. Like other urban centers in Connecticut, Bridgeport fared less well during the deindustrialization of the United States in the s and s. From the mids through the early s, Bridgeport was one of the most dangerous cities in Connecticut.

As with many urban New England cities, such as New Haven and Hartford, the city had a high crime and murder rate. In following years, Bridgeport soon became ravaged by urban blight. A large white flight occurred in the city, as it started to become a much more dangerous place to work and live. Soon, the population of the city declined as many companies began laying off their employees, thus dropping city employment rate. The total population dropped from , in to , in The city also operated many public housing projects, some of which still stand today and some of which were known nationwide due to their high crime and deplorable conditions.

Father Panik opened in as the first of its kind in New England, and the sixth largest public housing project in the county, located in the Lower East Side. It would later be known as one of the worst housing projects in the United States. In , Bridgeport Housing Authority's projects were deemed deplorable by federal officials and eventually placed the Housing Authority on the country's "troubled list".

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However, by , the infamous Father Panik Village was torn down. Today, only a vacant lot several blocks in size, remains. Other manufacturing companies that had been the symbol of the city also began to relocate out of Bridgeport. In , the L'Ambiance Plaza residential project, which was under construction at the time, collapsed, killing 28 construction workers. It was the worst disaster the city had faced at that point and one of the worst in Connecticut. Emergency crews from around New England responded to assist Bridgeport's Fire and Police Departments in the rescue and recovery effort.

In , the city filed for bankruptcy protection but was declared solvent by a federal court. Through the early 21st century, Bridgeport, a city that despite the longtime burdens of crime, poverty and corruption has taken steps toward redevelopment of its Downtown, as well as other neighborhoods. Although a plan for a large resort, casino, and high-rises fell through for the Steel Point area, the city still seeks redevelopment plans and projects.