Beardsley Park :"A Place that Would Always be Theirs" By Eric D. Lehman After the success of Seaside Park, Bridgeport was ready to put aside more land for the enjoyment and refreshment of its citizens. When wealthy cattle baron James W. Beardsley donated over one hundred acres ...
By Eric D. Lehman Wealthy cattle baron James W. Beardsley was watching children play outside one day when inspiration struck. He decided they deserved “a place that would always be theirs.” So, in 1878 he donated to the city more than 100 acres of land at the ...
Gray pigeons and squirrels trouble a leafless suburban street,chattering past gas stations and forgotten hopes, while gray people slouch in gloveless poverty, grime-spattered jalopies clattering through colorless slop. But some children remember that on the pine hill, hidden from the gray houses live yellow monkeys, screaming cosmic glee amidst make-believe jungles, that down the street live ...
Beardsley Park and Zoo Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo: the First Eighty Years, Established 1922, by DeMattia, Robin F. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Co. Publishers, 2002. Dolly Curtis Interviews: Dr. Howard Hochman, Veternarian for Beardsley Zoo, Bridgeport, CT, 2000 , . Easton, CT: Curtis/Cromwell Productions, 2000 Dolly Curtis Interviews: Greg ...
BY Richard A. Sattanni, 06/05/18 The city of Bridgeport collectively has many historic sights. The Harbor area of the Black Rock section has quite a history. This part of the city is the home of the Black Rock harbor light with quite a historical background. The ...
SEASIDE PARK Seaside Park comprises two and one-half miles of gently curving shoreline on Long Island Sound. Long considered one of New England's premier urban parks and Bridgeport's "front yard," it has an important place in the annals of American landscape and social history. For here ...
Golden Memories of the City I Love By Richard Sattanni I have many fond memories growing up here in Bridgeport. I was born and raised in the city’s Hollow Section. Life was pretty simple then - not complex like it is today. Somehow we've become a different type ...
As a senior citizen, P.T. Barnum was a man who never stopped working. He never really retired and he never took it easy. Barnum always found something new to work on. His life in Bridgeport offered a busy schedule--traveling with the circus, serving with the State Legislature, ...
By Richard Sattanni 10/29/18 Join me now as we literally take a trip back in time and share some history of Seaside Park. Yes, our own Seaside Park offers more than swimming, fishing, and boating. The very first part of our trip begins at the entrance way ...
By Andy Piascik Before there were the Sound Tigers, there were the Home Oilers. Before there was Webster Bank Arena, there was the Wonderland of Ice. The Wonderland of Ice is still there and now with two full skating rinks, but the Home Oilers are long ...
Greeting visitors to Beardsley Park is a statue of the man who donated the land to the city of Bridgeport, James Walker Beardsley. Legend has it that Beardsley decided to give the land to the city after seeing an irate farmer tell children to leave a ...
By Eric D. Lehman When the growing city of Bridgeport annexed the borough of West Stratford in 1889, it included a triangular island of thirty-seven acres which would become the stuff of legends in Bridgeport history. Playing up the legend that Captain Kidd had buried treasure on ...
By Eric D. Lehman Before the Civil War, no one in town gave much thought to the stretch of rocky land between Bridgeport Harbor and Fayerweather Island at the mouth of Black Rock Harbor. Barely good enough for cows, the land remained inaccessible to horse and ...
