Angela Carella
STAMFORD — When Susan Bell visited the Czech Republic three years ago, one thing kept catching her eye.
The roads were nice — much better than the ones around her Springdale home, Bell said.
It was true in Germany, Switzerland, and France, too. “In Germany, especially, the roads are a million times better,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why can’t it be this way in Stamford?’”
Now that it’s April, when asphalt plants open and paving season begins, Bell wants to know how many roads will be repaired.
“I am unhappy with the roads,” Bell said. “It’s time to spend some money on the roads.” Residents’ complaints about cracked, crumbling, poorly patched streets are perpetual. At a recent budget hearing, Waterside resident Jon Alsonas said city streets “look like Beirut in the 1980s,” when that country was ravaged by war.
Mayor David Martin didn’t disagree.
“I thought, from the moment I was elected, that the roads are not in good shape,” said Martin, who began his first term in 2013. “We need to spend $6 million a year, maybe a little more, to maintain the roads, because it has not been kept up in the past. We did $6 million in 2018; if we start there, it will take a decade to catch up.”
Fading funds
It’s easy to fall short.
This fiscal year, for example, the city will spend $4.8 million on road repairs, Martin said.
“Another $1.6 million was to come from a surplus, but now that money has to go to mold,” he said of multimillion-dollar repairs underway to rid school buildings of an infestation discovered last summer. “We had to steal it back. For the fiscal year that begins July 1, he budgeted $4 million, Martin said.
“I plan to bond for another $1.6 million, so the goal is $5.6 million for fiscal 2019-20,” Martin said. “But that, too, is subject to mold.” Such has been the case with the road-repair budget for quite some time, he said. Before he was elected, the city was spending an average of $3 million a year on road work, Martin said. He increased it to about $5 million in 2014, but it fell back down around the $3 million mark for the next two years because money was needed to build a new elementary school and police headquarters, he said. In 2017, the year he ran for re-election, he bumped it up to $6 million, but not for long. It fell to $4.8 million last year and will be $4 million this year, perhaps more if mold repairs don’t eat it up “We are scrambling to try to hold on to numbers that are close to $6 million,” Martin said.
List of 11
Around the city now, five crews are filling potholes reported to FixIt Stamford, the city’s online citizen request center at stamfordct.gov/fixit. Last month, 313 requests were filed and 130 were completed, Martin said. But road repair is a different animal.
Stamford has 313 miles of roads, the largest municipal network in the state, Martin said. There are another 35 miles of private roads plus those deemed “unaccepted” — streets built by developers years ago that the city may not consider its own. There are 46 miles of state roads, including High Ridge and Long Ridge roads and Washington and Tresser boulevards, which are the responsibility of the Department of Transportation.According to the city’s website, 11 streets are slated for fixing before this fiscal year ends on June 30. Five are to be entirely repaved — Berrian Road, Stillwater Avenue, Taff Avenue, Orchard Street and Homestead Avenue.
Portions of six others are on the list: Palmers Hill Road, Havemeyer Lane, Hope Street, Newfield Avenue, West Broad Street and Summer Street.There will be another list once the 2019-20 budget kicks in on July 1. Martin said the city fixed 53 streets since he was re-elected in 2017, and he has a list of 125 to repair over the next four or five years.That puts Stamford on track to fix roughly 25 streets a year.
How other cities do it
Norwalk plans to spend $5 million to work on 70 streets this season, The Hour newspaper reported in January. That city posts a five-year forecast of streets to be paved, which it is able to do because a consultant is paid to assess one quarter of all the streets annually, for a full inventory check every four years.
Mayor Harry Rilling said Norwalk, which has 255 road miles — 58 fewer than Stamford — works carefully to create the paving schedule.
“The condition of our roads is one of the most important quality-of-life issues for our residents,” Rilling said. “No one wants streets that are full of potholes or crumbing due to neglect.”
In Danbury, with 240 road miles, officials have budgeted $5.4 million for road paving this year, The News-Times reported in January. The city intends to save money on pothole patching by moving straight to paving in April, when the asphalt plants open.
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said his city expects to fix about a dozen streets this year.
“It’s one of the top priorities when you are trying to develop a community economically,” Boughton said. “You have to make sure people can get from place to place.”
But it’s getting tougher, he added.
Uphill battle
“When I took office in 2011, gas was about $1.80 a gallon; it’s going on $3 now, and asphalt has risen a lot more,” Boughton said. “It limits how many roads you can do in a year.”
The climate is taking a toll, he said.
“Weather conditions have made roads less durable. It goes from cold, to frost, to wet, to warm, and back. That’s been the cycle for the last 10 years,” the Danbury mayor said.
Martin said building contractors, and utility companies that dig up streets to repair water and gas mains and install fiber optic cable, have contributed to poor road conditions. Stamford lawmakers last year instituted stricter requirements for repairing the trenches contractors dig.
Road work has big built-in expenses, Martin said. “Sometimes storm drains have to be repaired, which slows everything down. Sometimes it’s drainage problems,” Martin said. “Fifteen percent of the money goes to police on extra-duty pay to direct traffic. When we use outside contractors, they pay the police, but the city has to pay the contractor.” As for Bell, the Stamford resident said she hopes that, this year, a bunch of roads will be fixed citywide.
“The city hasn’t kept up with it,” Bell said. “I think everyone can see that. It’s getting ridiculous.”
Route 25 project in Monroe ahead of schedule
Tara O'Neill
MONROE — The bridge replacement project underway on Route 25 in town is ahead of schedule thanks to the recent good weather.
The Monroe Police Department said around 9:15 p.m. Saturday that the “perfect weather” allowed the construction crew to make significant progress, even pushing ahead of schedule for the weekend.
The posted detour through the area went into effect at 7:15 p.m. Friday. The detour is expected to last at least until 6 a.m. Monday. The state Department of Transportation has approved the detour to be extended up to 9 a.m. Monday if enough work can get done so the area doesn’t have to be shut down for another weekend of work.
Business access for properties within the construction zone remains open.
Residents and those planning to pass through the area can check on updates to the project on the Facebook page for the Monroe Police Department throughout the closure.
Mayor helps get New Britain demolition projects started
Charles Paullin
NEW BRITAIN - On any regular workday, Mayor Erin Stewart would arrive at City Hall, step into her office and go about the business of running the city.
But on Thursday morning, Stewart began her day by donning a pink construction helmet, climbing into the cab of a backhoe and partially smashing an unused bathhouse into splinters and dust.
“This is always a fun way to start your morning,” Stewart declared. “It’s a good day. We’re cleaning up blight.”
Stewart kicked off the work that Cherry Hill Construction of North Branford will be completing within the next week, removing the blighted building that hasn’t been used since the early 2000s.
It housed bathrooms, a locker-room changing area and a concession stand for a pool no longer at the park, said Mark Graham, the project’s site superintendent.
The building has been an eyesore that has attracted graffiti, served as a hideout for criminals and been the location of crime, Stewart said.
It has been painted several times in the last two years, she added, and gave pause to the city’s decision to locate the new dog park right next to it.
“There’s no value to that building. It’s not historic,” said Ken Malinowski, acting director of the city’s Department of Community Development. Malinowski, 62, he said he learned to swim at the park when he was a “wee one.”
The brick building next to the bathhouse will not be demolished, because of its architectural value, the brownstone it features and its potential use in showing off the “attractiveness” of the park, Malinowski said.
Getting rid of a fence around an entrance to the park is being discussed as a part of a process to improve the park without a complete renovation, Stewart said
“While Washington Park is not like Walnut Hill or Stanley Quarter, still, there’s a lot of people that come here,” Stewart said.
The demolition is one of five scheduled to begin throughout the city within the next few days. Two will involve two residential buildings on Gilbert Street. An old bakery on Lawler Street also will be razed, as will a residential building on Fairview Street. All the buildings were obtained through tax foreclosures. The Fairview Street demolition is required as part of the transit-oriented development around CTfastrak, Stewart said.
“All of these are boarded, abandoned and a nuisance to the neighborhood,” Malinowski said. “The only thing to do with them at this point - they are beyond repair - is to get rid of them.”
The projects are possible through Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Malinowski said. The Common Council allocated about $400,000 for the demolitions, Stewart said.
“It’s usually only, maybe, one or two a year. So to have five, that’s a big deal,” Stewart said. “I’m excited. This is more work continuing to beautify New Britain and getting rid of one ugly building at a time.”
State Pier, New London’s ‘ocean terminal,’ never lived up to expectations
John Ruddy
A big corporation is planning a major venture off the East Coast using cutting-edge, ocean-based technology.
New London, with its excellent harbor and capacity to berth large vessels, has caught the company’s eye as a possible base of operations. Excitement builds as the city and State Pier seem on the verge of something big.
Are we talking offshore wind power here in 2019? Or a proposed steamship line with ultra-fast Atlantic crossings in 1927?
Well, both.
The optimism over Ørsted’s plan for an installation site is real. But New London and State Pier have been down this road before.
This year marks a century since the beginning of commercial shipping at the pier, which at times has been a busy place. But overall, it’s been a mild disappointment, never justifying the soaring hopes that attended its creation. Touted as a world-class facility, it has not been home to any world-class enterprises.
That could be about to change. But a review of the pier’s middling history should help keep expectations in perspective.
* * *
March 1, 1911, was a day for New London to celebrate. Led by its visionary mayor, Bryan F. Mahan, the city successfully wrapped up a 10-day public campaign to raise $100,000. The money ensured that the city would land the institution now known as Connecticut College.
That evening, as residents held a parade to exult in New London’s progress, the seeds of the city’s next great undertaking were being planted.
In New York, two great steamship lines, Cunard and White Star, were pushing back against government bureaucracy. Both had been denied permission to lengthen their Hudson River piers to accommodate a new generation of ships. Managers had taken to musing aloud about where the lines might relocate if forced to leave Manhattan. The short list included Boston and Montauk Point.
“But I believe that New London, Conn., offers the best harbor,” a Cunard official said. “New London is an admirable place for docking the big ships.”
The day after that hit the newspapers, Mahan, still flush from his college-campaign triumph, was in New York talking to Cunard and White Star. Their flirtation with another port produced a predictable result: Permission was quickly granted to extend the piers.
But Mahan, who doubled as a state senator, had tasted possibility. Within days he submitted a bill to appropriate $500,000 for improvements to New London Harbor. That soon doubled to $1 million to create an “ocean terminal.”
With the rest of the state on board thanks to Mahan’s persuasion, the bill sailed through the legislature. The day the governor signed it into law, Mahan was lifted onto the shoulders of his fellow Thames Club picnickers while a band played “Hail to the Chief.”
A year later, the project became official when the state’s Rivers, Harbors and Bridges Commission authorized it unanimously. “Red Letter Day for New London,” crowed the headline in The Day, printed on pink paper for the occasion.
After 18 months of planning, surveys and site selection, the start of construction arrived as a Christmas present. On Dec. 24, 1913, a crowd watching from Central Vermont Pier in East New London noted the time — 11:50 a.m. — as the first test pile was driven into the river bottom.
Eventually, so many piles dotted the pier’s 1,000-by-200-foot outline that, laid end-to-end, they would stretch past Willimantic. Enclosed by granite, the space was filled with a cascade of mud and gravel pumped in by a hydraulic dredge working around the clock.
Two years of construction changed the East New London shore as tons of earth and mud were scooped up here and deposited there to create new land. A steam shovel took huge bites out of a bluff overlooking the pier till all that remained was 8 acres of flat industrial space. A dozen homes were razed or floated downriver. Train tracks were rerouted through a freshly dug tunnel.
By summer 1916, the project was nearly complete. All that was needed was a customer.
The pier hadn’t even been paved when a German firm making national headlines arrived as if by magic. The Eastern Forwarding Co. had just sent the first in a planned fleet of cargo-carrying submarines across the Atlantic to great acclaim. After the trip, the company closed its U.S. headquarters in Baltimore and leased State Pier so suddenly that hordes of carpenters were summoned to build two large warehouses in a matter of days.
Anticipation gripped New London for months as all awaited the arrival of the submarine Bremen. An ocean liner, the Willehad, arrived in August to serve as Bremen’s mother ship, but its presence carried its own significance. The Willehad was the first vessel to dock at the pier.
“She is the beginning of great things,” The Day said in an emotional editorial.
The city was so swept up in its imagined future as a hub of trans-Atlantic trade that it seemed barely aware Germany was engaged in a world war and might soon be fighting the United States. This undersea exploit, disguised as civilian commerce, was a military operation, its only purpose to procure supplies for the German war machine.
The Bremen never arrived, and its fate remains unknown. Its sister ship, the Deutschland, eventually tied up at the pier, sending New London into euphoria. A few months later, the U.S. declared war on Germany.
World War I was a double setback for State Pier. In addition to creating the false hope of trade with Germany, it stalled other possibilities. The Navy took over the site, and it wasn’t until the last days of 1919, when two freighters arrived from Seattle, that business began.
In the early days, pier manager Waldo Clarke advertised for stevedores as needed and could summon 250 men on a day’s notice. But midway through the prosperous first year, 150 went on strike for better wages with three ships in port. When Clarke sternly insisted labor strife could put the pier out of business, they relented.
Cargoes of flour, bananas and lumber soon came in increasing numbers. For a couple of years, Canada sent automobiles south on the Central Vermont Railway to be loaded on ships bound for Australia and New Zealand. But Canadian ports successfully lobbied against this, costing the pier much of its economic strength, since its only rail link was with another country prioritizing its own interests.
With maritime trade sluggish after the war, a fleet of government-owned merchant ships sat in storage at the pier, some of them new and never used. They brought in rent but used up valuable space.
By 1924 they were gone but immediately replaced by a noncommercial tenant. The Coast Guard was late in mobilizing to enforce Prohibition, but with new funding it established a force of ex-Navy destroyers and based them on the pier’s east side.
In two years, State Pier was the largest Coast Guard base in the country, its 42 vessels making countless liquor seizures. But one night in 1928, the base’s buildings went up in flames, killing a sailor and threatening the entire pier.
Meanwhile, business on the pier’s west side was steady but unspectacular. Lumber emerged as the main import, though there was also wood pulp, newsprint and canned goods. Despite the Depression, things picked up after the Coast Guard left in 1933, though the relative lack of exports was a continuing drawback.
The mix of humdrum progress and military activity was not what the state had expected from its $1 million investment. The pier was still waiting for its ship to come in.
Big dreams of trans-Atlantic travel had clung to State Pier since it was conceived. But for sheer audacity, nothing came close to the scheme unveiled in 1927.
A group representing shipbuilding and railroad interests announced plans for the Blue Ribbon Line, whose vessels, faster than anything afloat, would cross the Atlantic in four days. Time would be shaved off the trip by basing the line in New England or Long Island, a day closer to Europe than New York. The main contenders were Montauk and State Pier.
The six ships, not yet built, were to be fuel-efficient and luxurious, serving only first-class passengers, with daily sailings on both sides of the ocean. Customs officers would be on board to expedite baggage checks.
Best of all, the ships’ superstructures would be off to the side, leaving the top deck free for planes to take off and land, making them virtual aircraft carriers.
A prominent liner captain linked with the effort visited State Pier and toured New London Harbor, pronouncing it “mighty fine.”
“What I have seen this morning was far beyond my expectations,” he told a cheering group of civic leaders, who gave him a wristwatch as a token of their enthusiasm.
“Deep down in its heart,” The Day editorialized, “New London too has always had the belief that its magnificent harbor would someday come into its own.”
The pier operator stood ready to open the entire facility to the Blue Ribbon Line, which stayed in the headlines for months as backers sought a $100 million government loan. But it was just a pipe dream that eventually faded away.
For a while, at least, State Pier’s future would involve not high-end travel, but wood pulp and canned goods.
Costco eyes South Windsor
Katherine Eastman
Costco Wholesale Corp. is eyeing a new location in South Windsor's Evergreen Walk, a project expected to cost a total of $42 million, town officials announced this week.
The multinational chain of membership-only warehouse clubs has locations in Enfield, New Britain, and four other Connecticut municipalities.
The new Costco facility would be built on a 16-acre property behind LA Fitness, located at 100 Cedar Ave., Town Manager Matthew Galligan said.
Costco would like to arrange a tax-fixing agreement with the town for the $16 million building, he said, which the Economic Development Commission will discuss at a special meeting on Thursday in Town Hall.
Site work on the property is expected to cost $11 million, Galligan said, partly due to the sandy soil there. Completing projects in that area, including Costco, also would connect road networks and bridges, he added, creating a roadway from Clark Street to the Costco facility and Tamarack Avenue.
Galligan said the new Costco would have a positive impact on Evergreen Walk and increase the foot traffic there, since Costco shoppers could head there to shop and eat.
He added that the facility's location would be convenient for people living at various assisted-living facilities in the area, including HarborChase, which is set to open in 2020. Residents living in Tempo Evergreen Walk apartments also would benefit, he said.
While the closest Costco store is in Enfield, Manchester has a BJ's Wholesale Club.
A Sam's Club on Pavilions Drive near the Buckland Hills mall in Manchester closed in 2018. That store is still vacant.
Toll protesters take to the streets in Groton, New London
Julia Bergman
Scott Nolan held up a sign Saturday that he sees as a solution to Connecticut's fiscal problems: "Audit, prioritize spending, reduce cost."
Nolan, 50, of Norwich — or, as he calls it, "sinkhole city" — stood at the corner of Route 12 and Kings Highway in Groton with the sign, joining a group of demonstrators organized by the grassroots group No Tolls CT to protest Gov. Ned Lamont's proposal to institute electronic highway tolling.
"It's not a revenue problem. It's a spending problem," Nolan said, adding the state should go through its budget and identify wasteful spending "line by line" to find the money to fund transportation upgrades.
No Tolls CT took to busy intersections in Groton and New London on Saturday with this overriding message: Connecticut residents are taxed enough, and tolls would be another hit to their wallets.
Lamont has proposed tolling all motorists who travel Interstates 84, 91 and 95, and the Merritt Parkway, which the governor's office estimates will bring in an estimated $800 million in revenue annually. That's about the same amount the state currently is raising, largely through the gas tax, for transportation work.
Toll pricing would vary by the time of day, with the rate increasing at more heavily trafficked times. A 50 percent discount is being proposed for state residents. The Lamont administration has said that 40 percent of the toll revenue will come from out-of-state drivers. Toll revenues are not expected until 2023.
State Republicans have unveiled a 30-year, $65 billion plan called Prioritize Progress that would provide funding for transportation projects under the state's bond cap.
Groups of about 20 people, with some overlap, gathered at the intersection of Colman and Broad streets in New London, and later at the intersection of Route 12 and Kings Highway in Groton, holding up signs saying "Tolls hurt families" and "Honk for no tolls."
Flurries of honking could be heard from cars and trucks passing by. Some leaned out their car windows to yell out in support or gave a thumbs up as they were driving by.
While those gathered Saturday generally agree the state's infrastructure needs repair, they don't think tolling is the answer.
Eric Ossmann, 40 of Groton said he'd rate the quality of the state's roads a three out of 10. But he said he doesn't trust that toll revenue would go solely toward fixing the state's transportation infrastructure. Besides, he said, the state needs to "curtail its spending" and find money within the existing budget to make these repairs.
Marilyn Alden, 73, who with her husband, George, 75, traveled from Hebron to Groton to make the case for no tolls, said they both are retired and live on a fixed income. Two of their three children and most of their grandchildren live in Connecticut. They love living here, she said, and they don't want to leave because they can't afford to live in Connecticut anymore, a sentiment shared by several of the protesters.
"Enough is enough," she said, holding a "No tolls" sign with a picture of the state of Connecticut in the background. Her husband, a submarine veteran, stood beside her waving an American flag.
Several of the protesters had calculated what it would cost them based on the current proposal — 53 overhead tolling gantries spaced at six-mile intervals on some 330 miles of roadway. Estimates ranged from several hundred to several thousand dollars annually. The state Department of Transportation is recommending a rate of 4.4 cents per mile, the same that's charged to travelers on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and below what New York and New Jersey charge.
K. Robert Lewis, 65, of New London, who works as a veteran service officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Newington, estimated it'd cost him between $2,300 to $3,000 annually between driving to and from work and other parts of the state to meet with clients. Lewis also worried about the increase in cost to the state's veterans — many of whom are on fixed incomes — who travel to the VA facilities in Newington and West Haven for treatment.
“This is always a fun way to start your morning,” Stewart declared. “It’s a good day. We’re cleaning up blight.”
Stewart kicked off the work that Cherry Hill Construction of North Branford will be completing within the next week, removing the blighted building that hasn’t been used since the early 2000s.
It housed bathrooms, a locker-room changing area and a concession stand for a pool no longer at the park, said Mark Graham, the project’s site superintendent.
The building has been an eyesore that has attracted graffiti, served as a hideout for criminals and been the location of crime, Stewart said.
It has been painted several times in the last two years, she added, and gave pause to the city’s decision to locate the new dog park right next to it.
“There’s no value to that building. It’s not historic,” said Ken Malinowski, acting director of the city’s Department of Community Development. Malinowski, 62, he said he learned to swim at the park when he was a “wee one.”
The brick building next to the bathhouse will not be demolished, because of its architectural value, the brownstone it features and its potential use in showing off the “attractiveness” of the park, Malinowski said.
Getting rid of a fence around an entrance to the park is being discussed as a part of a process to improve the park without a complete renovation, Stewart said
“While Washington Park is not like Walnut Hill or Stanley Quarter, still, there’s a lot of people that come here,” Stewart said.
The demolition is one of five scheduled to begin throughout the city within the next few days. Two will involve two residential buildings on Gilbert Street. An old bakery on Lawler Street also will be razed, as will a residential building on Fairview Street. All the buildings were obtained through tax foreclosures. The Fairview Street demolition is required as part of the transit-oriented development around CTfastrak, Stewart said.
“All of these are boarded, abandoned and a nuisance to the neighborhood,” Malinowski said. “The only thing to do with them at this point - they are beyond repair - is to get rid of them.”
The projects are possible through Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Malinowski said. The Common Council allocated about $400,000 for the demolitions, Stewart said.
“It’s usually only, maybe, one or two a year. So to have five, that’s a big deal,” Stewart said. “I’m excited. This is more work continuing to beautify New Britain and getting rid of one ugly building at a time.”
State Pier, New London’s ‘ocean terminal,’ never lived up to expectations
John Ruddy
A big corporation is planning a major venture off the East Coast using cutting-edge, ocean-based technology.
New London, with its excellent harbor and capacity to berth large vessels, has caught the company’s eye as a possible base of operations. Excitement builds as the city and State Pier seem on the verge of something big.
Are we talking offshore wind power here in 2019? Or a proposed steamship line with ultra-fast Atlantic crossings in 1927?
Well, both.
The optimism over Ørsted’s plan for an installation site is real. But New London and State Pier have been down this road before.
This year marks a century since the beginning of commercial shipping at the pier, which at times has been a busy place. But overall, it’s been a mild disappointment, never justifying the soaring hopes that attended its creation. Touted as a world-class facility, it has not been home to any world-class enterprises.
That could be about to change. But a review of the pier’s middling history should help keep expectations in perspective.
* * *
March 1, 1911, was a day for New London to celebrate. Led by its visionary mayor, Bryan F. Mahan, the city successfully wrapped up a 10-day public campaign to raise $100,000. The money ensured that the city would land the institution now known as Connecticut College.
That evening, as residents held a parade to exult in New London’s progress, the seeds of the city’s next great undertaking were being planted.
In New York, two great steamship lines, Cunard and White Star, were pushing back against government bureaucracy. Both had been denied permission to lengthen their Hudson River piers to accommodate a new generation of ships. Managers had taken to musing aloud about where the lines might relocate if forced to leave Manhattan. The short list included Boston and Montauk Point.
“But I believe that New London, Conn., offers the best harbor,” a Cunard official said. “New London is an admirable place for docking the big ships.”
The day after that hit the newspapers, Mahan, still flush from his college-campaign triumph, was in New York talking to Cunard and White Star. Their flirtation with another port produced a predictable result: Permission was quickly granted to extend the piers.
But Mahan, who doubled as a state senator, had tasted possibility. Within days he submitted a bill to appropriate $500,000 for improvements to New London Harbor. That soon doubled to $1 million to create an “ocean terminal.”
With the rest of the state on board thanks to Mahan’s persuasion, the bill sailed through the legislature. The day the governor signed it into law, Mahan was lifted onto the shoulders of his fellow Thames Club picnickers while a band played “Hail to the Chief.”
A year later, the project became official when the state’s Rivers, Harbors and Bridges Commission authorized it unanimously. “Red Letter Day for New London,” crowed the headline in The Day, printed on pink paper for the occasion.
After 18 months of planning, surveys and site selection, the start of construction arrived as a Christmas present. On Dec. 24, 1913, a crowd watching from Central Vermont Pier in East New London noted the time — 11:50 a.m. — as the first test pile was driven into the river bottom.
Eventually, so many piles dotted the pier’s 1,000-by-200-foot outline that, laid end-to-end, they would stretch past Willimantic. Enclosed by granite, the space was filled with a cascade of mud and gravel pumped in by a hydraulic dredge working around the clock.
Two years of construction changed the East New London shore as tons of earth and mud were scooped up here and deposited there to create new land. A steam shovel took huge bites out of a bluff overlooking the pier till all that remained was 8 acres of flat industrial space. A dozen homes were razed or floated downriver. Train tracks were rerouted through a freshly dug tunnel.
By summer 1916, the project was nearly complete. All that was needed was a customer.
The pier hadn’t even been paved when a German firm making national headlines arrived as if by magic. The Eastern Forwarding Co. had just sent the first in a planned fleet of cargo-carrying submarines across the Atlantic to great acclaim. After the trip, the company closed its U.S. headquarters in Baltimore and leased State Pier so suddenly that hordes of carpenters were summoned to build two large warehouses in a matter of days.
Anticipation gripped New London for months as all awaited the arrival of the submarine Bremen. An ocean liner, the Willehad, arrived in August to serve as Bremen’s mother ship, but its presence carried its own significance. The Willehad was the first vessel to dock at the pier.
“She is the beginning of great things,” The Day said in an emotional editorial.
The city was so swept up in its imagined future as a hub of trans-Atlantic trade that it seemed barely aware Germany was engaged in a world war and might soon be fighting the United States. This undersea exploit, disguised as civilian commerce, was a military operation, its only purpose to procure supplies for the German war machine.
The Bremen never arrived, and its fate remains unknown. Its sister ship, the Deutschland, eventually tied up at the pier, sending New London into euphoria. A few months later, the U.S. declared war on Germany.
World War I was a double setback for State Pier. In addition to creating the false hope of trade with Germany, it stalled other possibilities. The Navy took over the site, and it wasn’t until the last days of 1919, when two freighters arrived from Seattle, that business began.
In the early days, pier manager Waldo Clarke advertised for stevedores as needed and could summon 250 men on a day’s notice. But midway through the prosperous first year, 150 went on strike for better wages with three ships in port. When Clarke sternly insisted labor strife could put the pier out of business, they relented.
Cargoes of flour, bananas and lumber soon came in increasing numbers. For a couple of years, Canada sent automobiles south on the Central Vermont Railway to be loaded on ships bound for Australia and New Zealand. But Canadian ports successfully lobbied against this, costing the pier much of its economic strength, since its only rail link was with another country prioritizing its own interests.
With maritime trade sluggish after the war, a fleet of government-owned merchant ships sat in storage at the pier, some of them new and never used. They brought in rent but used up valuable space.
By 1924 they were gone but immediately replaced by a noncommercial tenant. The Coast Guard was late in mobilizing to enforce Prohibition, but with new funding it established a force of ex-Navy destroyers and based them on the pier’s east side.
In two years, State Pier was the largest Coast Guard base in the country, its 42 vessels making countless liquor seizures. But one night in 1928, the base’s buildings went up in flames, killing a sailor and threatening the entire pier.
Meanwhile, business on the pier’s west side was steady but unspectacular. Lumber emerged as the main import, though there was also wood pulp, newsprint and canned goods. Despite the Depression, things picked up after the Coast Guard left in 1933, though the relative lack of exports was a continuing drawback.
The mix of humdrum progress and military activity was not what the state had expected from its $1 million investment. The pier was still waiting for its ship to come in.
Big dreams of trans-Atlantic travel had clung to State Pier since it was conceived. But for sheer audacity, nothing came close to the scheme unveiled in 1927.
A group representing shipbuilding and railroad interests announced plans for the Blue Ribbon Line, whose vessels, faster than anything afloat, would cross the Atlantic in four days. Time would be shaved off the trip by basing the line in New England or Long Island, a day closer to Europe than New York. The main contenders were Montauk and State Pier.
The six ships, not yet built, were to be fuel-efficient and luxurious, serving only first-class passengers, with daily sailings on both sides of the ocean. Customs officers would be on board to expedite baggage checks.
Best of all, the ships’ superstructures would be off to the side, leaving the top deck free for planes to take off and land, making them virtual aircraft carriers.
A prominent liner captain linked with the effort visited State Pier and toured New London Harbor, pronouncing it “mighty fine.”
“What I have seen this morning was far beyond my expectations,” he told a cheering group of civic leaders, who gave him a wristwatch as a token of their enthusiasm.
“Deep down in its heart,” The Day editorialized, “New London too has always had the belief that its magnificent harbor would someday come into its own.”
The pier operator stood ready to open the entire facility to the Blue Ribbon Line, which stayed in the headlines for months as backers sought a $100 million government loan. But it was just a pipe dream that eventually faded away.
For a while, at least, State Pier’s future would involve not high-end travel, but wood pulp and canned goods.
Costco eyes South Windsor
Katherine Eastman
Costco Wholesale Corp. is eyeing a new location in South Windsor's Evergreen Walk, a project expected to cost a total of $42 million, town officials announced this week.
The multinational chain of membership-only warehouse clubs has locations in Enfield, New Britain, and four other Connecticut municipalities.
The new Costco facility would be built on a 16-acre property behind LA Fitness, located at 100 Cedar Ave., Town Manager Matthew Galligan said.
Costco would like to arrange a tax-fixing agreement with the town for the $16 million building, he said, which the Economic Development Commission will discuss at a special meeting on Thursday in Town Hall.
Site work on the property is expected to cost $11 million, Galligan said, partly due to the sandy soil there. Completing projects in that area, including Costco, also would connect road networks and bridges, he added, creating a roadway from Clark Street to the Costco facility and Tamarack Avenue.
Galligan said the new Costco would have a positive impact on Evergreen Walk and increase the foot traffic there, since Costco shoppers could head there to shop and eat.
He added that the facility's location would be convenient for people living at various assisted-living facilities in the area, including HarborChase, which is set to open in 2020. Residents living in Tempo Evergreen Walk apartments also would benefit, he said.
While the closest Costco store is in Enfield, Manchester has a BJ's Wholesale Club.
A Sam's Club on Pavilions Drive near the Buckland Hills mall in Manchester closed in 2018. That store is still vacant.
Toll protesters take to the streets in Groton, New London
Julia Bergman
Scott Nolan held up a sign Saturday that he sees as a solution to Connecticut's fiscal problems: "Audit, prioritize spending, reduce cost."
Nolan, 50, of Norwich — or, as he calls it, "sinkhole city" — stood at the corner of Route 12 and Kings Highway in Groton with the sign, joining a group of demonstrators organized by the grassroots group No Tolls CT to protest Gov. Ned Lamont's proposal to institute electronic highway tolling.
"It's not a revenue problem. It's a spending problem," Nolan said, adding the state should go through its budget and identify wasteful spending "line by line" to find the money to fund transportation upgrades.
No Tolls CT took to busy intersections in Groton and New London on Saturday with this overriding message: Connecticut residents are taxed enough, and tolls would be another hit to their wallets.
Lamont has proposed tolling all motorists who travel Interstates 84, 91 and 95, and the Merritt Parkway, which the governor's office estimates will bring in an estimated $800 million in revenue annually. That's about the same amount the state currently is raising, largely through the gas tax, for transportation work.
Toll pricing would vary by the time of day, with the rate increasing at more heavily trafficked times. A 50 percent discount is being proposed for state residents. The Lamont administration has said that 40 percent of the toll revenue will come from out-of-state drivers. Toll revenues are not expected until 2023.
State Republicans have unveiled a 30-year, $65 billion plan called Prioritize Progress that would provide funding for transportation projects under the state's bond cap.
Groups of about 20 people, with some overlap, gathered at the intersection of Colman and Broad streets in New London, and later at the intersection of Route 12 and Kings Highway in Groton, holding up signs saying "Tolls hurt families" and "Honk for no tolls."
Flurries of honking could be heard from cars and trucks passing by. Some leaned out their car windows to yell out in support or gave a thumbs up as they were driving by.
While those gathered Saturday generally agree the state's infrastructure needs repair, they don't think tolling is the answer.
Eric Ossmann, 40 of Groton said he'd rate the quality of the state's roads a three out of 10. But he said he doesn't trust that toll revenue would go solely toward fixing the state's transportation infrastructure. Besides, he said, the state needs to "curtail its spending" and find money within the existing budget to make these repairs.
Marilyn Alden, 73, who with her husband, George, 75, traveled from Hebron to Groton to make the case for no tolls, said they both are retired and live on a fixed income. Two of their three children and most of their grandchildren live in Connecticut. They love living here, she said, and they don't want to leave because they can't afford to live in Connecticut anymore, a sentiment shared by several of the protesters.
"Enough is enough," she said, holding a "No tolls" sign with a picture of the state of Connecticut in the background. Her husband, a submarine veteran, stood beside her waving an American flag.
Several of the protesters had calculated what it would cost them based on the current proposal — 53 overhead tolling gantries spaced at six-mile intervals on some 330 miles of roadway. Estimates ranged from several hundred to several thousand dollars annually. The state Department of Transportation is recommending a rate of 4.4 cents per mile, the same that's charged to travelers on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and below what New York and New Jersey charge.
K. Robert Lewis, 65, of New London, who works as a veteran service officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Newington, estimated it'd cost him between $2,300 to $3,000 annually between driving to and from work and other parts of the state to meet with clients. Lewis also worried about the increase in cost to the state's veterans — many of whom are on fixed incomes — who travel to the VA facilities in Newington and West Haven for treatment.