BHC Special Events/Announcements
My Town, My Story – A Community Archive You Can Build!
Sunday, December 14 - December 31, 2025
All Day
MTMS is a digital community archiving platform created to preserve your community’s history and highlight the voices that make it special. We value your perspective and your potential to shape Bridgeport’s history. Click the link to the MTMS page and upload material.
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Once a Community: Public Housing Demolition & Relocation
Friday, September 25, 2026
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Public housing is being torn down and hundreds of families will be displaced. Come hear from experts on the topic and discuss strategies for alternative housing systems that work for everyone. Join us for a c0mmunity panel session featuring panel speakers Danya Keene (Professor, Yale University), Shannon Whittaker (Postdoctoral Associate, Boston University), Tricia Lewis (Assistant Professor, Sacred Heart University), Dawnia Searight (Resident Advocate, PT Partners). and moderated by Vanessa Liles (Co-Director, PT Partners)
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Memoir Writing Returns September 26th!!
Saturday, September 26, 2026
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Have an end of summer story to tell? Memoir writing will be held in person on September 26th!
Contact: 203-576-7400, #7
Wendy Wallace, M.F.A., leads the class which will include free form writing exercises and an exploration of the nature of memoirs, and examining voice and perspective. Drop in any month!
View detailsBHC News
BHC x CTDA: Bridgeport’s history, now more searchable than ever
Find BHC Materials ONLINE
The Bridgeport History Center has been a proud part of the Connecticut Digital Archive for years now, taking advantage of this unique digital preservation platform that invites cultural institutions from all around Connecticut to share digitized material. Since March of 2020, BHC has worked hard to take advantage of CTDA’s hosting, search features, and support in order to make more of it’s holdings available and easier to search.
BHC is proud to share its updated CTDA space. Explore Black Bridgeport. Get to know our Archives and Manuscripts better. Did you know we have yearbooks digitized? All of our Grassroots Historians articles are available too, along with postcards and Mary Witkowski’s newspaper articles. You can search within the Bridgeport History Center’s collections only, or expand it to all of CTDA in order to find more material.
New and Noteworthy at BHC
The Bridgeport History Center updates our new and noteworthy page on a regular basis! Check back to see what we’ve added and you can come in and use. This page was last updated on April 22, 2022.
New Oral Histories
Bridgeport and New Haven Puerto Rican Oral Histories, 2023-2024
Fifth year Yale University doctoral candidate Amanda Rivera conducts oral histories to facilitate her research on the bilingual education movement in Bridgeport as led by Puerto Ricans in the 1970s. Rivera interviews community members about this topic in both Bridgeport and New Haven from 2023-2024. The interviews she conducted are now part of the History Center holdings as an oral history collection.
New Special Collections
BHC has long held biographical newspaper clipping files. Now researchers can view the list of names included in this substantial collection.
New Photographs
BHC has been continuing to add photographs to the Connecticut Digital Archive. There are over one thousand images available, with more on the way! Don’t see what you’re looking for? Contact us on our contact form.
New Digital Collections
BHC has one of the best newspaper clippings collections in the state. Explore some of the initial offerings from this vast resource.
Maps online!
Plat maps with details of lot apportionments and street details for cities across the United States
Maps with details on buildings prepared for the insurance industry
New Research Guides
Hot off the heels of finishing up the Records of the Warner Brothers Company, the Bridgeport History Center is pleased to present not one, not two, but three brand new research guides! Our women’s suffrage guide will help you celebrate a century of voting rights, the belatedly spooky guide to local witchcraft and hauntings will provide a different kind of January chill, and our comprehensive guide to material related to the Warner Brothers Company and the family will assist researchers who are keen to know more about one of Bridgeport’s biggest manufacturers.
BHC Events & Regular Monthly Programming
Once a Community: Public Housing Demolition & Relocation
Friday, September 25, 2026
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
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Memoir Writing Returns September 26th!!
Saturday, September 26, 2026
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
View detailsFeatured Articles
Junior’s Drive-In Restaurant
by Andy Piascik
In the second half of the 20th century, a change took place in the landscape of American dining as the places where we went out for a casual meal changed to “fast food” establishments. Like many industries, food service became increasingly monopolized. In a matter of a few decades, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and other national chains proliferated at such a rate that they seem to be everywhere, with no end in sight. Displaced were the familiar diners, hot dog stands and pizza parlors people had come to love. Even older, folksy chains like Howard Johnson’s that emphasized leisurely meals rather than cold utility were unable to withstand the rise of the fast-food giants.
Bridgeporters who had grown up going to places like Conti’s, the Flyer Diner, the Ritz Luncheonette and Beechmont Dairy gradually saw many such establishments disappear. Some remain: Tomlinson’s and the Merritt Canteen, to name two.
Junior’s Drive-In Restaurant was established in 1960 by three Bridgeport business men: Harold Applebaum, Morris Applebaum and Abraham Strauss. A Bridgeport Post article at the time Junior’s opened noted that “Strauss was formerly in the wholesale hardware business for 17 years” and that “Morris Applebaum is in the real estate business and Harold Applebaum is associated with Fairfield Stationery.” (1) Junior’s was located on Fairfield Avenue where the avenue converges with State Street, Railroad Avenue, what is now Commerce Drive (formerly State Street Extension) immediately adjacent to the Metro North railroad tracks.
When the Aztec Eagle Began Her Soar Over Bridgeport (Part 3): Men of Maplewood (1990-2000)
By Abraham Lima
To read the previous articles, use the guide below to navigate.
- Part 1 – https://bportlibrary.org/hc/hispanic-populations-and-culture/when-the-aztec-eagle-began-her-soar-over-bridgeport-part-1/
- Part 2 – https://bportlibrary.org/hc/business-and-commerce/when-the-aztec-eagle-began-to-soar-over-bridgeport-part-2-from-puebla-york-oaxakeepsie-and-mexchester-2/
“I don’t remember the year they [the first Mexican businesses] opened, it was in the 90s. When I arrived [in 1988]after a few years, the first Mexican restaurant that opened was La Poblanita and La Flor de Mexico Bakery, then El Mexicanito, and then later La Guelaguetza [Grocery] and Garibaldi.”
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