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Waterbury: Reinventing the Brass City
A one-industry town for more than a century, Waterbury pins hopes on 21st-century guises
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Business New Haven
7/10/2000
By: Linda G. Mele
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Before anyone had ever heard of Waterbury, it was known as Matetacoke (“place without trees”) by the Algonquin Indians. The white settlers referred to it as Mattatuck in the General Court records of 1686, when it was chartered to “the County of Hartford and the name of the plantation shall be for the future, Waterbury.”
Waterbury has a rich history of manufacturing and is still known as the Brass City because of the numerous brass manufacturing firms that called the city home for many years.
In addition to brass, Waterbury has had its share of other manufacturing. Some Waterbury “firsts” include:
- The city was home to the first company to roll brass in America as well as the first to make brass by direct fusion of copper and zinc, in 1802.
- A Waterbury man invented brass spinning in 1851.
- The first hooks and eyes were manufactured here in 1838.
- The first pewter/tin buttons were made in Waterbury in 1790.
- The first can opener was patented by a Waterbury man in 1858.
- 1864, the first Girls Club in the U.S. opened.
- In the late 1920s, the first Mickey Mouse watch was produced by the Waterbury Clock Co.
- In 1922, the first regular monthly newsstand comic book was produced by Eastern Color Printing Co.
When the last of the brass mills shut down in the early 1980s, Waterbury faced some tough times and, by 1995, was a city swimming in debt to the tune of about $55 million.
Then Republican Philip Giordano was elected mayor, and the slow climb back to a bustling city began.
Giordano slashed budgets, boosted the pension fund by $18 million, privatized city tax collection, built new police precincts and instituted bicycle patrols - all of which have helped to turn negative perceptions of the city around.
The overall crime rate decreased and continues to drop by double digits.
According to Giordano, the city's grand list increased this year by about $40 million, to $1,730,296,085. “We're excited by what's been happening in Waterbury,” says Giordano, who June 14 announced his intention to challenge incumbent Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman for the U.S. Senate (BNH, June 12).
According to Giordano, the 1.2 million-square-foot, $160 million Brass Mill Center and Brass Mill Commons is completed.
The $17 million, 99,000-square-foot Rowland Government Center should be complete within the next 30 days, and the state Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters will move to Waterbury from Wethersfield, Giordano says. As well, the new $35 million criminal courthouse is finished.
Home Depot and the Sports Authority are in place at the base of Bank Street, and Mattatuck Community College and Waterbury State Technical College combined to create the Naugatuck Valley Community-Technical College.
Also, a new $136 million sewage treatment plant is up and operating, Giordano says.
In addition, the 12,000-square-foot, $4 million TimeExpo watch museum being constructed by Timex Corp. is slated for a fall opening.
With a mill rate of 75.642 mills, the city isn't the most economically attractive place to locate, Giordano says, “but we're working on that.”
For the past three years the city has been developing an Internet technology zone similar to so-called enterprise zones in other communities. “It would provide tax incentives for information technology firms,” Giordano explains.
“We're carving out a section of the city where new or existing IT businesses could locate and take advantage of the tax incentives. We can't compete with the suburbs tax-wise, but the incentives should make the playing field more equal,” says the mayor.
Also underway is the city's first revaluation in 20 years which, explains Giordano, should help lower the mill rate and give taxpayers some relief.
Lisa Kolodziej, director of government and economic affairs for the Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce, notes that there are some $112 million in downtown development projects slated for completion over the next five years. These include:
- $1.6 million in street improvements;
- Creation of a Downtown Development Incentive Fund; and
- The $2.7 million rehabilitation of the Bank Street parking garage.
In addition, Kolodziej says, the future also looks rosy with a laundry list of projects on the drawing board or in development stage. These include:
- Development of a sports complex;
- Moving the UConn satellite campus to downtown Waterbury;
- Expansion of the Naugatuck Industrial Park;
- The old UConn/Waterbury campus will be leased to and renovated by the Toramasora Jewish School. It will include a housing complex for relocated Jewish families;
- St. Mary's and Waterbury hospitals are joining forces to build a $15 million cancer center.
Waterbury is home to three high schools, three middle schools, 19 elementary schools, ten private or parochial elementary schools and three private or parochial high schools.
One of the most exciting projects ahead is the creation of arts/magnet schools for Brass City students.
“This will be in conjunction with the $31 million renovation of the Palace Theater and parking garages, the widening of East Main Street and other downtown development,” Giordano explains.
Expected to open in September is a $22 million theater/arts magnet school for grades K-5, says Giordano. “And a plan for a similar facility for grades six through 12 is being assembled,” he adds.
“The outlook is great,” Giordano says, “and we can already feel the optimism and enthusiasm for all the projects that will revitalize our city.”
“I think we'll have some growing pains,” adds Kolodziej. “But when it's all finished we'll have a brand new city.” BNH
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