Bridgeport, CT Urban Architecture

My great grandfather had a diner on Main Street in the 40s. To look at pictures from that time where downtown was a bustling center and now where it's run down and dilapidated is depressing. There's a sign saying that Historic Downtown Bridgeport is going to be renovated, but every day I drove down Main Street, it did not seem to be the case. The historic buildings are relics that should be preserved.Your image captures the contrast between historic at the top and the new struggling to survive reviving culture. The graffiti was probably commissioned by the city and the arts council. It is rather tasteful in my opinion, you can see hope and youth in that fresh paint. I would just love to see it restored. But the historic side has to wait. Bridgeport has more important problems to deal with.

sbattert said:

My great grandfather had a diner on Main Street in the 40s. To look at pictures from that time where downtown was a bustling center and now where it's run down and dilapidated is depressing. There's a sign saying that Historic Downtown Bridgeport is going to be renovated, but every day I drove down Main Street, it did not seem to be the case. The historic buildings are relics that should be preserved.Your image captures the contrast between historic at the top and the new struggling to survive reviving culture. The graffiti was probably commissioned by the city and the arts council. It is rather tasteful in my opinion, you can see hope and youth in that fresh paint. I would just love to see it restored. But the historic side has to wait. Bridgeport has more important problems to deal with.

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I think you may be right about the arts council but I can't be sure. It's rough because in a "quaint ole' town" with that one historic building, it's nice to "save the watchtower" and in Bridgeport a city with 300,000 people in it, so much history, EVERY building has a lot of history, they are all made of stone and were "the old bank" and "the old library" and "the old home loan building" all with historical significance as to how Bridgeport was able to conduct business and how it was funded (many of the buildings are finance related) and now none of those institutions still exist, larger corporations enveloped them and then moved to newer corporate towers, or they collapsed in the mini depressions in the 80's or even before then probably some in the 20's (1920's) haha [scary the 2020's are actually fairly close!] so it's just too much to restore, and the buildings have dangerous asbestos and such in them or are unsafe, and there's not exactly a lot of money going around. So, in one hand to save the city itself they really need to be torn down, it's too costly to renovate ALL of them, and none are specifically more important than the rest, they are all important so you can't just pick and choose, and the bleeding hearts who live in the safe nice areas are all "don't destroy history" while they don't have to live in the dregs and be surrounded by deterioration, so it's unfair to the people who actually live there. A lot more can be said, but you get the point, it's really a tough spot to be in. I wish they would hire me to take pictures of all the old buildings one by one as they destroy them and I could be the historian for them once they are destroyed my imagery would keep the history. Alas that's a tough sell...