Design & Life

Old downtown - in color

I recently wrote in a sunday "Talk of the Towns" piece that I bought a Lou Trapasso print that depicted downtown Bridgeport in the 40s. The wide angle really gave me an understanding of what Main and Fairfield must have looked at...

]]> Mr. Trapasso has a Web site that shows this print, among others. Maybe you'll see what I mean. He told me at the City Lights Gallery that he used old postcards as reference, guessing at the proper colors, and adding cars to clue the reader into the era. I'm pretty sure those buildings way in the background are embellishment.

The Howlands/Smith-Murray's block is completely gone, but most of everything else still exists. The Barnum and Stratfield hotels have housing, the Woolworth is a pharmacy and the Leavitts has storefronts and offices with a top-to-bottom facade which doesn't improve on the original building at all.

What I object to even more is how the courthouse that replaced Howlands/Smith-Murray's was built when the idea of "plazas" were popular. Rather than put buildings on the sidewalk, builders placed them off the street, destroying any continuity in the streetscape. The most dreary blocks in New York were designed when that idea was trendy. I'm glad that idea has been discredited by urban planners.

I swiped that jpg from the artist's web site and used it as a background screen on my computer. I haven't gotten around to framing my print, but I'll be enjoying it every day on my little monitor.

Give HCC everything it wants

Working near the campus of Housatonic Community College, I see how much life this institution has pumped into our downtown. HCC is just about the best thing that's happened to our area in a dog's age. That's why I giddily propose that HCC be given even more space.

]]> Like the emtpy office building across Broad Street -- a hip little 1960s office building that I think was part of the gas company. (Hey, they don't pay me for this blog, so I can't take the time to do actual research!) Wouldn't that building make a nifty student center or library? And what about the empty State Street building that's been in the news lately. I say make it a museum to house their excellent art collection. I'd be willing to bet they could fill every story with art. Or they could create new programs -- Gateway and Norwalk community colleges have culinary programs. Why not Housatonic? (Full disclosure: during a midlife crisis, I studied at NCC's culinary program, taking one class and a field trip to Paris.)

Yes, I'm taking classes there on Sundays. It's my second "adult ed" class at HCC. And I find going there to be consistently uplifting, as I'm sure it is for many students there who for whatever reason would be unable to pursue their education elsewhere.

So let them expand and blossom further ... unless they have their eyes on the Post building. We're not done with that yet.

Why is Read's such a mystery?

I went to one of Joe Celli's salsa parties a couple of weeks ago. It was on the top floor of the old Read's Department Store building on Broad and John. If you've been reading any of my former entries here, you know how significant that was for me.

]]> Before I go any further, I wish to extend a pox to whoever has been placing ads for online poker, prescription medicines or whatever in our comments area. That's blog abuse!

Anyway, back to Read's. The top floor, I'm told, had offices, a beauty salon and a bank of public telephones. I can tell by the existing architectural elements that the top floor wasn't just retail space. There is a central corridor with faintly decorative arches and some arch-shaped niches in the wall, which I'm guessing was glassed-in retail display. Still, I can't quite picture how it all came together. It seems like such a large space for so little. I had assumed the restaurant was up there, but I'm told it was on the main floor.

Mind you, when this all shut down, I was a teen-ager living in New Jersey. I had never been to Bridgeport, although Mom used to take me to Philadelphia, Allentown and Atlantic City for our own version of Read's: Homberger's, Lit Bros., Wannamakers, Hess's. They all had storied histories and depressing endings similar to Read's.

You'd think working at the Post, I'd have access to vast archives that would fill in the blanks. I don't. And the newspaper coverage at the time seemed much more concerned with being optimistic about the future (Read's moved to the Crossroads Mall in 1981) than being sentimental about the past. And you'd think being surrounded by people who remember Read's, and who I've grilled about those memories, I'd be satisfied. But interior photos are rare, and oral histories are not very reliable.

It would be nice to see comments other than spam. If anyone has memories, or even photos!, please send them this way for us all to enjoy. I've gotten all I can from Google searches and our microfilm.

A beast, but in a good way

Why hadn't I gone into the main branch of the Bridgeport Post Office sooner? I wandered in to buy some stamps and I couldn't believe what I saw.

]]> If you've been to the standard-issue post offices in Black Rock or Fairfield, you know it's true when I say "they don't build 'em like that anymore." This striking art deco beast (and I use the word affectionately) is downright startling to someone entering for the first time. The building sits on a forlorn stretch of Middle Street that doesn't prepare you for what you see inside.

The lobby is long and narrow, with high angled ceilings that contain frescoes of American eagles. I would guess that the interior is basically unchanged since it opened around 1930. It's all in stone, and at the far end is a mural. I'm not describing this very vividly because I didn't think to take notes, even mental ones, until I got back to the office. (Actually, I didn't think of writing a blog entry on this until our slave-driving web master mentioned it.)

The overall effect of the building, inside and out, is muscular, commanding and powerful, and more aggressively so than the bank buildings of its time. It's not quite pretty, but your surroundings imply that your transaction at the window is a very solemn one.

I need to go back a second time, and of course, do a little research on this important Bridgeport building.

Winter break

The cold weather has interrupted this blog, indirectly at least. I tend not to walk on my lunch hour these days. And even now that it's a little warmer, the fact that I've gotten out of the habit of walking around has limited my observations for this blog. Today will be different, though. I feel so stiff and bloated ... I HAVE to get out. But when I leave 410 State Street, which way should I go? There are so many good options.

]]> I used to work in Midtown Manhattan, where I would also wander and observe. I loved taking the elevator to the lobby and then deciding, east, west, north or south. West took me to Times Square, with all the tourists but lots of good peoplewatching. East took me to the U.N. building, also fun, with more relaxed and sophisticated neighborhoods. I'd stroll by Kate Hepburn's brownstone, or walk through Tudor City. If I were going south, sometimes I'd hoof it all the way to Houston Street. No tourists there! Just "us locals." And of course, north meant going to the Bloomingdales neighborhood, or maybe even the Upper East Side, with those beautiful townhouses and buildings.

Being in Bridgeport, I have the dilemma. One way takes me to Christ Church on State Street, where chapel is open during the day sometimes. Another way gets me to Golden Hill, where the most beautiful church I can imagine resides, a little Methodist church that looks like it was towed away from the Yale campus. I can also get downtown and check out the progress on the Citytrust block and walk over the Ralph 'n Rich's next location across from the Barnum Museum, with the dim home that time has sped forward and they're already open. Or I can go to the Housatonic campus and see their latest art exhibit ... or City Lights Gallery and fantasize about buying something for my bare walls ... or browse the historical collections at the library (our newspaper left behind some really interesting copies now viewable in microfilm!) ... or on a really nice day, sit at McLevy Green and zone out.

My last job was at a leafy office park in upscale Wilton, which was lovely, but given the choice, give me a job in a real, live city!

Escape from the newsroom

How many nice days do we have left this year? Realizing the answer could be zero, I escaped my desk briefly today and walked to McLevy Green and back. I'm glad I did, because it allowed me some quiet time with two of my favorite downtown buildings.

]]> The Court Exchange building on State and Broad is a gem. (Here's a pic.) It's where the Savoy and the Take Time coffee bar are, and the upper levels include a design firm and the public access studios. Some time, look up and enjoy the fanciful 1980s touches that make the building a graceful Bridgeport veteran that has somehow survived the "improvements" that the 20th Century visionaries imposed on so much of our city.

Then sweep your head to the left and take in the upper floors of the building that houses the Playhouse on the Green. (Here's a pic.) Last year, when I was in Paris, my observational powers were more keen (being a tourist, this is natural) and I remember thinking, Why don't we have more buildings with these charming Mansard roofs and little towers (turrets? I'm not sure of the term) in America? And here is a building, right across from the green, that would be an asset to any world city. How many of us regularly zoom right by and fail to appreciate it?

(P.S. -- If you're interested in the history of these two 1890s buildings, don't expect ME to spoonfeed you! March right in to the historical collections at the public library and learn for yourself! You'll also find a host of even lovelier buildings that we've lost.)

Design decisions

I have returned from Houston, where the Society of Newspaper Design held its annual conference. Design editors from papers big and small came from all over the world. And there I was.

]]> The European designers came to argue for their tabloid formats and to debate which typefaces work best. Americans debated things like the future of print newspapers with Web sites and Jon Stewart gaining ground.

Most readers would be amazed at how much study goes into typography, color, layout theories and interactivity.

Inconsistencies of any type are one thing that are subtly jarring to readers, whether they are fully aware of them or not. The Denver Post, our flagship, has a 150-page design guide for its design staff, just to make sure their pages are consistent and reflect their accumulated wisdom on what formats and policies work for them. New staff members are coming out of college with degrees in this stuff! We are really blending art with science.

Much of the effect of our presentation is subliminal, and that's the way it should be. We don't want you to appreciate the Post because of our delightful 8.7 point Nimrod font or because a teaser headline is suddenly in blue. But as a designer, I want you to be able to take in our news and information with as little effort and as much satisfaction as possible. And that's why we are always debating theories on how to make that happen.

Paging Miss Irwin

To follow up on my entry on the SNET building on John Street, I learned from a retired former resident that the penthouse on the top floor was occupied by the Sunshine Club, presided over by a Miss Susan Irwin, at least in the 1930s. He was a little boy at the time, and he's not sure today what the Sunshine Club was or what Miss Irwin did (if indeed that's the correct spelling). Can any readers help me out?

And it's beige, no less!

I was about to write about a sprawling, fanciful Victorian house that I drive by every day. It is such an unusual house, with unexpected little gables and shapes, an asymmetrical and odd but somehow charming house -- probably built in Barnum's day. It had been damaged in a fire, but I was heartened to see repairmen there fixing it up. Then my heart sank.

]]> Today the beige vinyl siding, already puckered and with obvious seams, started going up. At least they werent' tearing it down, I say to myself. But there goes the idea I had for a new blog entry. I wanted to look up the address and maybe find out a little about its history. (I've been doing the same thing for my ca. 1938 house in Black Rock.)

I'll have to find another fanciful Victorian house on which to perform my urban archeology. I know there are plenty in town, but it will take a day or two to get over my disappointment. Geez, beige!

A hidden jewel

The Southern New England Telephone building is a hidden jewel, something I would not have even noticed if it had not been built behind the Post building. I'm not talking about the beige and gray structure with the big SBC sign on it, where people go to pay their bills or buy equipment. I'm talking about its forgotten precedessor across the street.

]]> How nice to come across such uplifting architecture on a forlorn little side street.

Although its role has been usurped by a more modern and mundane structure across John Street, this building is far more elegant, built with care and thought. It's an art deco beauty, with embellished Tudor arches and small friezes depicting a Bell System world wired for the 20th century. It's as if they were building a small cathedral to modern technology.

Today, these details are overlooked since the public is routed across the street to do business with the phone company. The structure doesn't really call attention to itself, and that part of town doesn't get much foot traffic. The front door is locked, but if you peer in the front door, you see a security door, a trophy case and an American flag on a stand. I've only seen technicians enter or leave.

I'm grateful to Seth Bloom, a spokesman for SBC who was able to provide these details on the building:

* The building was erected for the Southern New England Telephone
Company (now SBC Communications Inc.) on a site which had been occupied by a late nineteenth-century brick row house complex.
* The building was designed by Mr. R. W. Foote, a Connecticut
architect, who designed several other telephone buildings located in
various parts of the state. [The administration building in New Haven is also his.]
* Ground was broken on November 1, 1928, and the building was
dedicated in mid-October of 1930.
* The building follows the modern vertical type of architecture
and the exterior is faced with blocks of Indiana limestone in varying
shades of buff and gray, giving the structure an unusually appealing
appearance of life and character.
* It is a 7-story stone-veneered steel-frame office tower with a
flat roof topped by a small penthouse. The building has a symmetrically designed front elevation with a wide, slightly projecting 7-story central pavilion. The sides of the window recesses are elaborated with raised courses of stone.
* The majority of the decorative elements of the building are
found on the first and the base of the second story. These elements
include Tudor-arch door and window openings and Art Deco-style cut stone designs which decorate the edge of the central pavilion flanking the second story windows and the panels above the two entrances.
* The building remains a good example of a large, pre-Depression
office tower featuring exterior walls of cut limestone and Gothic
Revival, Tudor and Art Deco exterior details.

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Inside old Bridgeport

As long as I have lived here, I have been fascinated with Read's old department store, the one that is now Sterling Market Lofts. I was watching a movie on cable over the weekend which left me with the distinct feeling that I had stepped inside the venerable landmark.

]]> The movie was a not particularly good film called "The Group." It was filmed in the '60s, but set in the '30s, and had a scene inside the ground floor of a department store. Maybe most department stores back then looked pretty much alike, but here were the aisles of glass display cases, the white lighting fixtures, the discreet displays and the women in hats and gloves shopping. The scene pretty much matches up with what little I have seen on the interiors of Read's.

I wish I could find more interior photography, not just of Read's but of other downtown Bridgeport stores. A retired friend grew up in Bridgeport in the '30s and '40s and vividly describes tagging along with Mother as she shopped at Leavitt's or Smith-Murray's on Main and Fairfield, or Meigs at Main and Wall. Some of these places that don't even show up in a Google search! (But are quite prominent if you scan the microfilm of the Post or Telegram.)

Could there really have been so many department stores downtown? In the microfilm they look quite glamorous, a point of view supported by the exhibit still on view on the third floor of the library downtown. Those old Corbit photos get me every time, and they are displayed alongside some short memoirs by people who remember Meigs and the rest of downtown. The guest curator, Ben Ortiz, grew up in Bridgeport and although he's not old enough to remember much before the mid-60s, he knows quite a lot about our rich local history. He rattled off a list of famous architects responsible for buildings that thankfully still stand. But more on that later.

OK, OK! I'll start blogging

The Webmaster is upset that I deleted all my first drafts to my first blog. So here I go, typing up my first entry.

]]> Why does the design editor of the Connecticut Post have a blog? Because design editors are trendy-type people, and since blogs are still considered trendy (with about five minutes to go until they become dated) I must, must, must have one.

Also, I do have a lot to say about design, and how it influences our lives. Not just newspaper design, but architecture, fashion, even cuisine. The French, love 'em or hate 'em, know about this. I think we Americans kind of know it too, but we're a little ashamed to admit it. We like to think of ourselves as plain people with plain tastes. We're practical, with no room for frills or frou-frou.

But when I look at archival pictures of Bridgeport, especially Bridgeport between the two world wars, but also of Barnum's era, I see a town of no-nonsense people surrounded by wonderful, fanciful architecture, wearing carefully chosen clothes, and with access to high culture. The fact that we're preserving what remains of old Bridgeport, gives me hope. And so begins my blog.