Saturday, November 23, 2024
Heroes and Villains, Politics

President Kennedy in Bridgeport November 6, 1960

The crowd of 6,000 came to see then Senator John F. Kennedy.  The crowd,as estimated by Superintendent of Police Francis J. Shanley, cheered when Kennedy said that Connecticut was a key state in the election.

“The nation will have its eyes on Connecticut,” Kennedy told the crowd.Kennedy spoke briefly at the airport, then trave

led by motorcade to Waterbury, New Haven and then back to Bridgeport’s train station.

Stopping at the train station after arriving in Bridgeport airport, the then Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy stopped in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s train station on Water Street.  The streets around the Bridgeport train station were packed with supporters as the citizens supported the Democratic candidate.

Senator Kennedy made a speech to the crowd, making the theme of his speech about his objectives if he became president. His speech talked about jobs for everyone, and how his administration would prevent war and make peace.

Kennedy had come back from a trip in the Bronx where he had stopped at a subsidised housing complex.  Kennedy said another objective for his candidacy should he win was he was going to Washington D.C. to “get this country to work.”

Mary Witkowski
Mary K. Witkowski is the former Bridgeport City Historian and the Department Head of the Bridgeport History Center, Emeritus. She is the author of Bridgeport at Work, and the co-author with Bruce Williams of Bridgeport on the Sound. Mary has had a newspaper column in the Bridgeport News, a blog for the Connecticut Post, and a weekly spot on WICC. She continues to be involved in many community based activities and initiatives on local history and historic preservation.