Palace Theater

 While I was in Waterbury, I stopped at the box office of the Palace Theater and asked if I could go inside for pictures.  After a couple of phone calls,  a young woman appeared to escort me inside.

The theater was built in 1922.  These days it hosts a variety of live events, from locally produced shows to  traveling productions.  The theater seats 2,900 patrons.  It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

A musical about Jane Austen is coming soon.  Later this fall KC and the Sunshine Band will perform, followed by an America tribute show.  The Tina Turner Musical will be the season's highlight.

The theater shut down in the 1980s and was shuttered for 18 years.  In the early 2000s Connecticut had a governor from Waterbury and the Palace Theater underwent a $30 million renovation.

Pumpkins and Sunflowers

 Every year I pass this home in Wilton.  The owners grow extra large pumpkins.  This year they added extra large sunflowers.  And an extra tall Uncle Sam.

A Cardinal

 

A lonely cardinal sits and watches at an underpass below U.S.Route 95 in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Linked to Monday Murals.

Basilica of the Immaculate Conception

 

A lovely basilica fronts on the Waterbury Green.  I went inside and found that a mass was underway.  I sat briefly, took in the sanctuary's peacefulness and beauty, took a quick photo, and left.

Mattatuck Museum

 Waterbury was called the Brass City.  It is proud of its industrial heritage in days gone by.  Most of that work has gone to lower cost states and countries.

The Mattatunk Museum on Waterbury Green has many displays about the manufacturing and the products from Waterbury's industrial past.  This is a bust of a founder of a brass manufacturing company.

Scovill was still a big company when I moved to Connecticut in 1980.  It built on a history of making buttons, zippers and coin blanks, moving into munitions and household products.  After World War 2 Scovill opened facilities in Georgia.  In time those became more dominant.  It was bought by a Japanese company a decade ago.

A tall case clock at the museum honors two Connecticut industries.  The face is made from Waterbury brass, while the clock itself was designed and built in another central Connecticut town like Bristol.

Charles Goodyear was a Connecticut-born chemist who began in the button business in nearby Naugatuck.  He developed an interest in trying to work out how to make rubber harder and more durable.  Goodyear's efforts were up and down, damaging both his health and his wealth.  Goodyear Rubber Company was founded forty years after his death.  It bears his name but is wholly independent from him and his family.

Union Station

 Anyone driving through Waterbury, Connecticut, sees the 245 foot clock tower that is part of Union Station and the headquarters of the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper.  The structure was erected in 1909.  It was designed by the noted architectural firm McKim, Mead and White.

The newspaper business was sold earlier this year to the Hearst group.  There have been proposals to redevelop the property into a mix of 38 luxury apartments, office space and retail, potentially including a high-end restaurant. The daily newspaper would continue to occupy some of the building. 

September 11

 On September 11 every year, my thoughts turn to the shocking 2001 sights of airplanes crashing into the twin towers. 

My thoughts also return to the wonderful 18 foot long allegorical painting, Cycle of Terror and Tragedy, by Graydon Parrish at the New Britain Museum of American Art.  The anguished twins are perfect images of the terror our nation experienced on September 11, 2001.

 I visit the painting whenever I am at NBMAA if it is being exhibited.  Parrish returned to the museum on September 11, 2014, to discuss his painting.  I attended his lecture.  This photo is from that lecture.