East Side Bridgeport – A Cityscape Made by the Great War

The building was the tallest building in the area and from any window of the top floor you could look over almost the entire East Side. Skydel’s Department Store, where every Easter my mother purchased our shoes and hats, was directly across the street and I could look down on the roof. Looking down Arctic Street the tall familiar landmark of the Remington Shot Tower was visible over the tops of the houses. Looking over to the left across Boston Avenue, I could clearly see the GE meatball shining above one of the largest industrial facilities in the world. General Electric, purchased the complex in 1920 from Remington. My favorite time to view the city was on a summer evening as the lights started to come on all over the East Side. Summer time was hot on the fourth floor, and the windows were old and wooden and huge with no screens and were always open. I guess looking back if I hadn’t been careful it would have been easy to fall. I always hated looking directly down. Usually I would kneel down and put my arms on the sill and my head in my hands and I would look across to GE. My father worked second shift and as the lights came on all over the East Side I looked across to GE. It was comforting to know he was there. I didn’t understand then, but I know now, that I was looking out over a Bridgeport landscape created by the Great War.

After the turn of the century munitions manufacturing by Remington-UMC was already transforming Bridgeport. Munitions were dangerous work and a dangerous presence. There was a series of explosions that racked the plant. On May 14, 1906 an explosion of 16 tons of gunpowder in the unprotected powder magazine on Success Hill shattered “every other window” in Bridgeport. Damage was reported as far away as Long Island. Old Saybrook, CT believed it had been hit with an earthquake. Incredibly there was no loss of life. After this close call a huge munitions park of 422 acres would be reserved as a munitions testing park and remain undeveloped as a live ordnance field, called Remington Woods. It has remained so to this present day. Currently it is under threat of development as the live ammunitions and lead are cleaned from the land.

⇒  Read the entire article on the Bridgeport History Center website here:

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