By Angela Carella
STAMFORD — This year marks the 60th anniversary of
the opening of Interstate 95 in Connecticut.
Time to reveal one of its secrets.The foundation of the house Ralph Cosentino built is hidden beneath the highway near Exit 6.
When the wrecking ball came through Stamford in the 1950s, knocking down homes to make way for the interstate that would connect Florida to Maine, it could not demolish the 3-foot-thick stone substructure Cosentino fashioned with his hands.
The ball bounced, said his son, Ken Cosentino.
“It wouldn’t come down, so they buried it,” Ken Cosentino said of the foundation at Grenhart Road and West Avenue. “If you had a big X-ray machine, you could see it.”
It’s fitting that the foundation remains, given what happened to his late father, a stone mason, and many other homeowners who found themselves in the path of the new interstate, Cosentino said.
“He had been building the house for a few years. When it was close to being finished, they condemned it,” he said. “The city should never have given my father a building permit because they knew the highway was coming through.”
Adding insult to injury, the government paid his father $10,000 for the house, but it cost $14,000 to move it to Whitmore Lane a few blocks away, Cosentino said.
It broke my mother’s heart. She cried and cried,” he said.
His father, who was born in the town of Arena in southern Italy, didn’t shed a tear.
“He said, ‘I’ll build another house.’ He said he came to America and he just wanted to be an American. So he didn’t complain,” Cosentino said. “If it were me, I would have been burning down City Hall.”
The cost of the move set Ralph Cosentino back. It would be 25 years before he’d finish the house displaced to Whitmore Lane, along with homes that belonged to families named Conetta, Sette, and one or two others, Ken Cosentino said.
“Years later I talked to some of the attorneys who got settlements for people whose houses were condemned. They told me they worked out good deals for people,” Cosentino said. “I asked them, ‘Why didn’t my father get anything?’ They said, ‘He probably didn’t have money for a lawyer.’” It was an unfairness that ran the length of I-95 which, at 1,900 miles, is the longest north-south interstate and one of the oldest in the U.S. system. It traverses 15 East Coast states, mostly through densely populated city centers.
I-95 “was not always built with proper mitigation plans for the residents who were to be displaced,” reads Interstate-Guide.com, a website about the history of the highway system. The highway was not welcomed by the people of Wilmington, Del., where it cut along the edge of downtown, according to the website. In Providence, R.I., hundreds of homes and businesses, and two historic churches, were demolished. In Miami, the highway bisected the lowest-income neighborhood, Liberty City.
“Unfortunately, Interstate 95 often took the path of ‘least resistance,’ meaning where the land values were low, even if it meant the displacement of poor communities,” the website states.
It’s not clear how many structures in Stamford were condemned, said Ron Marcus, historian with the Stamford History Center. But it disrupted neighborhoods that were home to mostly immigrant and black families.
“Despite the vast impact of I-95’s planning and construction on Stamford, I am unaware of any studies specifically focusing in on this significant happening,” Marcus said. “Of all the events during our city’s 378 years, this was one of its most important occurrences.”
Ralph Cosentino took it in stride.
“He just worked, all the time,” his son said. “The house on Whitmore Lane was on railroad ties for years, with tar paper on the outside. Stone was free back then, as long as you had a truck and people to load it. My father would pick it up at construction sites where he worked and bring it home and cut it, little by little.”
But before his father faced the house in stone, and built walls and stairs into the hilly property, he made a garden. It was his heaven, said Ken Cosentino’s wife, Susan Mitchell.
“He used to say that, when he was in the garden, he was with God,” Mitchell said. “All his problems went away.”
He grew eggplant and peppers, squash and broccoli rabe, onions, garlic, spinach, and 400 tomato plants - his specialty, Cosentino said.
“My father was very religious. He was at Sacred Heart Church three times a week,” he said. “Once we were in the garden and he said, ‘Look what God gave me.’ He pointed to the weeds. He said, ‘You’re going to get weeds with your tomatoes.’ It took me years to understand - you have to take the bad with the good.”
Cosentino, 72, a retired architectural designer, said he gets why the government built I-95.
Before, there was just Route 1. When I was a kid, Route 1 was one big traffic jam,” he said.
But progress doesn’t always mean that things progress, he said.
“If they were going to screw people over like they did, they should have made the highway six lanes in each direction, because as soon as it opened, it was obsolete,” he said. “Now I-95 is one big traffic jam.”
He ended up building a house next door to the house that landed on Whitmore Lane, where he lives now, surrounded by the stone his father set and the garden he planted years ago.
“I was really attached to my father,” he said. “I miss him to this day.”
Construction firm in hot water with Norwalk zoning department
By Robert Koch
NORWALK — A local construction company has run afoul of neighbors and the Norwalk Department of Planning and Zoning. At issue is F&G Construction’s operation of a contractor’s storage yard at the back of Lajoie’s Auto Parts property at 46 Meadow St. in South Norwalk.
On Thursday evening, the Norwalk Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on whether to revoke F&G’s permit to operate the yard due to non-compliance, according to the agenda for the meeting.
“We went out there and saw piles of material in places they shouldn’t be,” Norwalk Assistant Director of Planning and Zoning Michael Wrinn said when asked Tuesday about the reason for the hearing. “We saw a rock-crusher out there. They shouldn’t have it so we’re going to take it to the commission and see what we can do with it. We’re trying to get compliance. That’s our goal
The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 6 in the third-floor Common Council chambers of Norwalk City Hall, 125 East Ave.
Wrinn said F&G Construction, which is based at 72 Bouton St., was granted a permit to operate the storage yard but the actual operation differs from what was approved. The site plan provided by the company showed two areas where materials were to be stored whereas the actual operation covers the entire site. That aside, rock-crushing in an Industrial No. 1 zone requires a separate permit that wasn’t acquired by the company, he added.Photographs taken by planning and zoning department staff as recently as Aug. 28 show a rock-crushing machine, bulldozer and other heavy equipment operating alongside a large pile of dirt and rocks on the site.
The non-compliance involves use of Lajoie’s Auto Parts property at 46 Meadow St. and not Lajoie’s Scrap Metal Recycling property at 40 Meadow St., Wrinn noted.
The owner of F&G Construction couldn’t be reached immediately for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Roger Lajoie, owner of Lajoie’s Auto Parts, said he’ll be at Thursday evening’s hearing. He indicated F&G is working to resolve the matter. “We’re renting the property to F&G and we will be there Thursday,” Lajoie said. “I guess he (F&G) has issues and I guess he’s cleaning them up right now. I’m not involved in that much. We’re trying to rent the property.”
The contractor’s storage yard has drawn neighbors’ attention for at least a year. Teresa Petersen, vice president of the Village Creek board of directors, shared the 65-household neighborhood association’s concerns in a September 2018 email to Norwalk Director of Planning and Zoning Steve Kleppin. The group has asked that the permit be revoked.
“It’s been 2 years and this applicant is still disregarding the zoning regulations,” Petersen wrote. “It is only when there is a risk to their permit that they hire a good lawyer and claim to be cleaning up. This is an unfortunate pattern in South Norwalk. Yards will move in illegally and stay until they are caught then file for a permit. Some yards, such as this one, will not stay compliant until they are literally forced to.” Following Thursday evening’s public hearing, the Norwalk Zoning Commission is scheduled to act upon whether to revoke F&G’s permit. Wrinn indicated the commission has several options “Number one, are they (F&G) going to have it cleaned up by the hearing?” Wrinn said. “The next is, are you going to have this done in a week? We’ll have you back in two weeks to see if it’s done. In three (week) they can go ahead and revocate the permit.”Route 37 to close in Sherman to stabilize road
By Katrina Koerting
SHERMAN — A section of Route 37 will close for two to three weeks as emergency repairs are made to reinforce the roadside near Quaker Broo The closure begins at 9 a.m. Thursday. It will close just north of Big Trail, which is near the town line with New Fairfield.
“These road repairs are the result of washout conditions threatening the road’s structure and strength,” said Sherman First Selectman Don Lowe. “They are critical for drivers’ safety.”
The project will build a new stone slope along Route 37 to stabilize the road after the slope eroded from all of the rain this summer.Motorists are encouraged to use Route 39 between Sherman and New Fairfield. Local traffic is available north of Durgy Lane and south of Big Trail. Signs will be posted to show detours.
This work is being completed through an “emergency declaration,” which lets the state Department of Transportation immediately bring in the necessary assets to protect motorists and the road itself, said Kevin Nursick, a DOT spokesman.“Typically we go through a design and contractor procurement process that involves some amount of time as part of our overall, routine construction program,” Nursick said. “But rarely, something unexpected like this can pop up, and we need to act fast to protect the infrastructure and the public.”
It is expected to cost $245,000, which was awarded to Waters Construction Company on Aug. 17, Nursick said.
The work will most likely affect 15 to 20 families who live in the area and have children who attend Sherman School or are bused to a nearby high school.
“When closing a state road, there’s no easy way around it,” said Andy Schoefer, assistant principal at Sherman School He said parents have two options for alternate bus stops. If they live close enough, they may be able to use a walking path that connects to Durgy Lane where a stop is located.
The other way is to take Hardscrabble Road into New York where the road becomes Tower Hill Road. Parents should then turn right at the end of the road onto South Quaker Hill Road, which goes back into Sherman and becomes Chapel Hill Road. The stop is located on Orange Pepper Road just past that.“That’s where the closest bus stop will be," Schoefer said.
He drove the route last week and said it takes about eight minutes by car. He added that buses can’t do this run themselves though because they aren’t allowed to drive on dirt roads and some of these roads are narrow.Schoefer warned parents that the closure could be two to four weeks long, based on what the DOT crews encounter.”It’s not ideal but it had to be done,” he said.
Lowe said the mail carriers are aware and will use alternative routes for Big Trail and Hardscrabble Road. The volunteer fire department also has a plan for service emergencies there.
He thanked the residents for their “patience and understanding through the state’s significant road repairs.”
Stonington making gradual progress on boathouse park
By Joe Wojtas
Mystic — Almost two years after Stonington residents approved $2.2 million in bonding to create the Mystic River Boathouse Park, the committee overseeing the work now has approved a conceptual design and First Selectman Rob Simmons said Tuesday he expects to be able to open the park next year.
Simmons said that it has taken this long to begin developing the more detailed plans needed for Planning and Zoning Commission approval because the acre site on Route 27 just north of the Mystic Seaport Museum is a “very complicated site” with environmental contamination, soil, wetlands and buildings.
“It’s been a painfully slow process,” said Simmons, who is also the chairman of the Mystic River Boathouse Park Implementation Committee.
For example, minutes of the committee’s last meeting, on July 2, show that members debated issues such as placement of the boardwalks, public and crew team docks, parallel parking along Route 27 and possibly having overflow parking at the nearby Seaport and the Coogan Farm Nature and Heritage Center.
Members then unanimously voted to move the conceptual plan forward. The Mystic landscape design firm Kent + Frost is developing the plans for the town.
Simmons said he hopes the committee can submit an application to the Planning and Zoning Commission by the end of the year, with work beginning when the ground thaws in the spring. While a private group of rowing supporters is raising money to construct a $2.5 million boathouse, which will be home to the Stonington High School crew team and the Stonington Community Rowing Club, Simmons said work on the park can proceed separately from construction of the boathouse.
In addition to the challenges of providing adequate parking for events, slag, polychlorinated biphenyls and hydrocarbons have been found on the site. But Simmons has said the environmental contaminants are not expected to cause a problem, as they can be dealt with by encapsulation. The state has approved a $200,000 grant to help with the cleanup but the town has not yet received the money. Asbestos and lead paint in the house scheduled for demolition on the site will have to be removed.
Simmons said Tuesday there have been no surprises that would increase the estimated cost of the project beyond what was approved.
Construction Labor Shortages and Solutions
2018 has proven to be another healthy year for the construction industry as a whole. With multiple indicators pointing towards continued positive growth, it may seem as if there are few challenges ahead for the industry. There is, however, one elephant in the room. The shortage of skilled labor continues to rear its ugly head. While indeed a significant obstacle affecting the majority of contractors there are traditional and creative solutions to mitigating this problem.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the latest unemployment rate for the sector (July 2018) was 3.4 percent. While such a low unemployment rate is usually an indicator of a healthy economy, in this case, there is room for concern. As the industry continues to grow more and more, contractors are finding difficulty in hiring skilled labor.
The unemployment rate has continued to trend downward for almost a decade. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, an unemployment high for the industry of 27.1 percent in July 2010 has trended downward to a low of 3.4 percent in just eight years.
One industry expert believes there are two primary causes of the shortage. Ken Simonson, Chief Economist at the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), thinks the "double whammy of the recession and several decades of teachers, school counselors, and parents pushing towards college and away from career and technical vocations" are to blame.
"During the recession, many construction professionals decided to retire or leave the industry," said Simonson. According to the United States Census Bureau, construction workers who entered long periods of nonemployment between 2006 and 2009 saw significant moves away from the industry. Almost one-third began to work in other sectors, notably trade/transportation. One-quarter had no observed subsequent employment by 2013.
With the resurgence of Ability tracking/grouping in the 1950's, students in the United States witnessed a greater push toward college as opposed to the vocational trades. This encouragement, while no doubt well-intentioned, produced much unintended negative consequences. As noted by Forbes contributor Nicholas Wyman, the BLS statistics suggest some surprising and disturbing outcomes.
Of the 68 percent of students who attend college almost 40 percent fail to complete four-year programs. For those who do complete four-year programs, 37 percent enter the workforce in positions that only require a high school education. Many of these students would likely find more significant benefits in vocational training than in the halls of higher learning.
Combined, this "double whammy" has brought us to the current state of the industry. On August 29, 2018, the AGC released the results of their latest Workforce Survey (sponsored by Autodesk) about the labor shortage. The AGC has over 27,000 member companies, each given the opportunity to participate in the survey. According to Simonson, this is the sixth year in a row that member companies have been able to participate in the study.
"This year was our most substantial response ever," said Simonson. "We had 40 percent greater participation this year. A sign of how important the issue is becoming."
Simonson noted several highlights from the results. This year 2552 firms responded to the survey. Eighty percent of the firms reported having difficulty filling hourly craft positions. Eighty-five percent of all firms believed the pipeline for craft workers is either “poor or fair” at best. Forty-seven percent are placing a higher price on their bids, and 27 percent of firms are increasing the timelines for project completion as a result of the labor shortfall.
With the problem identified, what can the industry do in response? The traditional answer in such a supply and demand problem would be to raise wages and attract more workers. In this case, however, that has not worked thus far. Craft labor wages are already higher than 10 percent above hourly wages in the private sector. Now is the time for more creative options.
Some firms are using technology to fill the labor gaps. Onsite roles that typically required additional labor, such as project management, are now accomplished with the use of drones, for example. Technologies such as GPS, computer modeling, GIS, and robotics are all finding new applications in the industry and more contractors under a labor crunch willing to try them out.
Now is also the time for contractors to take an active role in the community and change the perception of a career in the construction industry. The AGC is one example of an organization which has embraced a proactive stance in workforce development. AGC Chapters have created charter construction schools, sponsored construction career academies, and leveraged their support to the ACE Mentor Program. Efforts such as these are excellent places to begin strengthening the pipeline for craft labor in the future.
The labor shortage in the construction industry is a real issue that demands attention immediately. Workforce surveys point to a growing problem affecting more and more firms. The best mitigation for the situation is a dedicated effort to strengthen the pipeline of new workers into the field. Technology will continue to alleviate some of the pain from the labor shortage, but to correct the problem contractors must look deeper into developing the next generation of workers.