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 ...
Charles Stratton "Have you seen Tom Thumb?", by Mabel Leigh Hunt. Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg. Philadelphia, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1942. 259 p. incl. front. (port.) illus. 21 cm. Notes: A biography of the midget entertainer who was a favorite attraction of the P.T. Barnum ...
The Bridgeport Lighthouse, shown here in 1930, marked the entrance to the Bridgeport harbor for about 80 years. First constructed in 1871 by the federal government, it ushered in a dramatic increase in harbor activity. For a brief period, the Bridgeport lighthouse was one of the nation’s ...
Photo: Charles Ritchel c. 1840-1911 Charles Ritchel was an inventor who is credited with inventing the first dirigible. In 1878, Ritchel built a hand-powered dirigible fashioned out of rubber from the Goodyear Rubber Company in Naugatuck and the Folansbee Machine Shop in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is ...
By Eric D. Lehman A healthy child of over nine pounds, Charles Stratton was born in 1838 in north Bridgeport to a carpenter and a waitress. However, a faulty pituitary gland kept his growth slow. At age four, he was only twenty-five inches high, and would ...
By Michael J. Bielawa photo: Seth Jones 1863 Most fans in tune with collegate baseball’s heritage are familiar with the College World Series played each June in Omaha. Many may discuss outstanding programs at Louisiana State University, USC or Arizona State. As for historic college ball, New ...
The gangster Arthur Flegenheimer, more commonly known as "Dutch Schultz," came to Bridgeport April 30, 1935. Schultz and his bodyguard, Lulu Rosenkrantz, occupied the fourth floor suite at the Stratfield Hotel on Main Street downtown. Schultz was interviewed by local reporters in the suite. One reporter said ...
We have had thousands of visitors and thousands of wonderful genealogy stories told to us by our researchers. We will share some of the stories here.
Igor Sikorsky experimented in building helicopters first in his native Russia and then in the United States. His first successful launching of a direct lift helicopter was on September 14, 1939, in Stratford. Sikorsky built his first helicopter assembly line on South Avenue in Bridgeport ...
Most residents of Connecticut, when considering who were the earliest immigrants to this State naturally think mostly of the European countries. If you asked anyone when the first Puerto Rican immigrant came to Connecticut, they would say, " probably the 1950’s.” Wouldn’t you be surprised to ...
Three famous inventors – Alexander Graham Bell, Hiram Maxim and Thomas Edison – owe their successes, in part, to a young, African-American inventor who lived on Bridgeport’s South End, among a rich population of Irish, African-American, Hungarian and other ethnic groups. Lewis Latimer lived on Whiting ...
By: Mary K. Witkowski, Bridgeport City Historian The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. visited Bridgeport at least five times. In March of 1961, King delivered the Frank Jacoby lecture for the. University of Bridgeport. Due to the large crowd, the lecture was held at the Klein Memorial Auditorium. ...
Newfield Park: Home to One of New England’s Most Sacred Baseball Sites by Michael J. Bielawa Of all the lost stadia across the long history of New England’s minor leagues, Bridgeport’s Newfield Park is certainly one of this region’s most sacred sites. Located in the city’s East ...
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 ...
One hundred and forty-nine years old and Orator Jim O’Rourke still kneels on deck in his turreted Pembroke Street home behind windows dark muttering seven syllable adjectives over his Bridgeport empire of Jersey barriers fitted to blockade suburbanite drug trade on the Park City’s East Side O’Rourke watches his Newfield neighborhood brood a hobbled ghost too where no one plays New England Rules on the pavement ...
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 ...
In 1899 the Locomobile began as a steam-powered car. With inventor and electric car manufacturer Andrew Riker’s development of a new gasoline-powered engine for the company, Locomobile was soon one of the most popular cars in the world. The “Number 16” car pictured above won the 1908 Vanderbilt ...
What a wonderful gift! The staff of the Bridgeport History Center got an idea. One hundred years ago, World War I started. We wanted to do an exhibit. Just after the initial thought, the phone rang. I answered and heard the voice of Vincent Keating. "Would you ...
