The Promise of a Blank Slate

12/12/18

Chris Fulton, 23, regularly tells himself, “There is nothing to be ashamed of about Bridgeport.”

The young school resource officer discussed the enigma that is his hometown -- Connecticut’s most populated city, nestled along the Southeast Long Island Sound and up against the Pequonnock River.

Brought up in Bridgeport, like many of the students he serves, Fulton admitted that, for most of his life, he felt a disconnect from the community.

Fulton never attended school in Bridgeport, but instead went to Brien McMahon in Norwalk, a neighboring suburb.

“I avoided the city at all cost,” Fulton said with a cold stare.

Fulton’s face is scruffy and bags rest under his eyes. He looks older than his 23 years. His morning has just started, but he slouches over with his elbows on his knees and breathes heavily.

A security guard at Capital Preparatory Harbor School, Fulton deals with few incidents requiring his force -- no search or pat-downs at the door, and rarely ever a fight that needs to be broken up. But, when behavioral problems arise such as constant disruption of class instruction or the occasional reluctant student sleeper, Fulton steps in.

Capital Prep is a small charter school with the mission to provide an alternative schooling option for Bridgeport. Students are given a limited number of absences, rigorous coursework and follow a strict dress code of a blazer and khakis. Boys are required to wear ties.

Since opening in 2015, the school of less than 300 students has ensured 100 percent of its seniors are accepted to four year colleges or universities.

The school lacks facilities like athletic fields, a gym or even traditional cafeteria, but it is a step towards the right direction for Bridgeport, where public schools have been struggling for years. This struggle was brought to the forefront in 2005, when Connecticut was sued by students and pushed to revise the way public schools receive funding. An algorithm that determines the amount of funding received per student may not always include the struggles or obstacles poor, urban, and rural communities face.

Fulton walks the narrow hallways of the school with troubled students. The walks include conversation that usually revolves around the latest video game or Pokemon then ends with a positive message rather than a stern punishment.

As a child, Fulton recalls being a victim of robbery in his own driveway. He remembers scuffles at the park in Beardsley Terrace housing projects near his home. He said the other kids saw him as “different” because he enjoyed skateboarding.

“I never really fit in Bridgeport,” said Fulton. So, instead he immersed himself in activities at school rather than being home.

It wasn’t until working at Capital Prep when Fulton begin to see value in his childhood community -- for so long, Bridgeport had been an afterthought to him with no value.

Bridgeport an Afterthought

The city of Bridgeport sits on the southern coast of Connecticut in Fairfield County -- a racially and economically segregated county of nearly a million people.

Failing public schools, high crime rates, poverty, urban decay and blight haunt the city.

Despite the population of the county growing slowly, but steadily by nearly 200,000 since 1970, the population of inside the city limits has not been so low as it is since 2011.

A ghost town may be the best description for sections of Bridgeport.

Numerous vacant storefronts line the streets of Downtown. The busiest places during most hours of the day are the public transportation hubs that sit on Water Street. The cities bus transportation center and the MTA train station are neighbors, both sitting on the edge of the Pequonnock River. Through the giant glass windows of the bus transportation center you can see the faces of many brown and black residents either rushing to school sporting backpacks or in work uniforms gripping coffee.

Residential areas in the city are crammed clusters of multi family homes either two story or connected side by side. Numerous housing projects still exist throughout the city and are home to some of the communities poorest residents. At the turn of your head in any direction, you’re bound to see a church, the city is flooded with various religious buildings of all denominations. And when you take a drive on I-95 North/South which travels through Bridgeport, you can see clouds of smoke filling the air from the PSCG coal burning power plant that is home on the coast.

Overall a gritty place.

At night the city becomes a sea of darkness and the only light shines from police cars and the windows of corner grocery stores advertising lotto, liquor, and cigarettes.

This is the place Fulton wanted to flee.

In 1961, the Bridgeport Herald ran a fiery critique of the city written by Nancy Hendrick. In the article, Hendrick described corrupt town hall officials, failing schools, segregated neighborhoods, poverty and even the horrible parking in Bridgeport’s downtown shopping district. A large portion of the article is dedicated to Bridgeport’s failing businesses and economic development allowing the journalist to openly describe the city woes.

The snippy piece ends with Hendrick critiquing Bridgeport’s leadership “What’s wrong is that leadership in Bridgeport has neither wit, fervor, or grace, imagination, or sense of purpose.”

In the eyes of many Hendrick’s words are still hold true.

In 2003 Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim was sentenced to nine years in prison for extortion of city contractors, racketeering, and bribery. In 2015 Joe Ganim was re-elected as mayor.

Bridgeport’s spending per student is still lowest in Fairfield County and poverty still plagues the community. According to the Connecticut School Finance Project Bridgeport spends $14,146 per student, compared to Fairfield’s $17,005 and New Canaan’s $20,162.

Hendrick’s opinion from six decades ago points out a problem that still exists in Bridgeport

“There is so much to be done that no one can tell where to start,” she said.

Starting over, filling in the slate

City officials believe the answer lies along the city’s 24-mile waterfront.

Bridgeport officials have launched the Waterfront Master Plan to take advantage of the city’s not-so-hidden gem. The master plan includes recent, ongoing and future developments along the city’s coastline.

Although Bridgeport has the state’s longest waterfront, Bridgeport has contributed very little investment to it, prompting city planner Dean Mack to call it a “blank slate.”

The master plan -- crafted by Bridgeport’s Office of Planning & Economic Development -- has multiple phases with dreams of becoming Connecticut’s premier waterfront city.

As it is, sections of the waterfront resemble a permanent construction site with half finished structures missing roofs and yellow bulldozers scattered next to piles of dirt. Other parts of the waterfront look vacant as massive industrial factories neighbor train tracks that ride along the coast line. Most of the factories are vacant and tattooed with graffiti. Even the Stadium at Harbor Yard, once home to an independent minor league baseball team, is vacant with mounds of dirt littering the outfield. The stadium sits on the coast and the Metro North railway provides an open view of what was once a sparkling baseball diamond.

One of the top priority developments in the city’s plan is creating a 23-mile public pathway that would connect the entire city and increase the feel of community, Mack suggested, as residents would be able to walk, bike ride, fish and visit any other attractions on the pathway.

City officials want the pathway to stretch across the entire distance but acknowledge it may not always be a physical path. Stretches of the pathway may only include branded signage that will direct walkers.

That is just one of the many question marks swirling around the waterfront.

Mack said Bridgeport may require land and business owners along the coast to maintain a predetermined amount of property to help enhance the coastline.

Mack’s confidence in the potential of the waterfront is evident. He speaks with a smile on his lips. He explains an analysis conducted by the Office of Planning & Economic Development that reveals that Bridgeports waterfront has the lowest tax producing properties in the city.

“You think of a waterfront as being your most valuable property,” he said. “That is completely backwards.”

This is especially grappling for those who know Bridgeport has a unique waterfront -- an industrial city of the past that once thrived because its deep ports allowed it to handle large ships. (Unlike other places, Bridgeport has inlets along the waterfront that shoot deep into the city, essentially bringing the waterfront right to the citizens.)

The deep inlets eventually become the Pequonnock River and the Yellow Mill Channel that border both sides of the East End neighborhood of Bridgeport. When looking at an overhead view of the city, the rivers resemble claws as they hold onto the East End.

A majority of the waterfront that surrounds the East End belongs to car repair shops and scrap metal yards -- eyesores that cloud the rosy picture of a proposed waterfront mecca. On the opposite side of the Pequonnock sits a ghostly downtown Bridgeport.

When traced on a map, it strangely is shaped like a teardrop -- symbolic possibly of the disinvestment in the community throughout the years.

But, just maybe it is a tear of joy for a hopeful future.

Bridgeport going forward

The pathway and economic development along the waterfront theoretically sounds amazing, but Mack admits there is still no clear timeline for the implementation of the waterfront plan.

A model for Bridgeport’s waterfront endeavors is Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Revitalization.

The Western Pennsylvania metropolitan revitalized stretches of its own waterfronts after steel manufacturers left industrial lots along its three rivers vacated. The city used residential developments, commercial outlets, sports stadia, a casino and museum along the Ohio River, as well as parks to beautify the area.

This win for Pittsburgh did not come without a cost and long term grit in the form of ongoing development for the better part of two decades, as well as a price tag of $4.1 billion to date, according to data collected by the OPED.

Bridgeport’s plan attempts to utilize the city’s untapped potential and it would take time.

The 2015 arrival of Bass Pro Shops has been an early effort.

This year, the superstore is creating more opportunities with the addition of an arcade. Bass Pro Shops is already home to a restaurant, underwater family center and bowling alley.

Other upcoming additions include the luxurious new Steelpointe Harbor development, Mack said of the high-rent residential development on the edge of the waterfront. Because of its previous plan to incorporate the development of the waterfront, Steelpointe will avoid new zoning requirements.

Mack noted that Steelpoint will ensure the waterfront is publicly accessible, but said the development will feel like a completely different neighborhood compared to the city’s East End, which it will neighbor.

“They want to get rid of all of us,” says Victoria Acosta nonchalantly, referring to the residents of her neighborhood, which is predominantly African American . Well into her 50’s, lifelong resident of Bridgeport’s East End neighborhood Acosta expresses that she’s always felt as if Bridgeport has forgotten about minorities in Bridgeport, especially those from the East End.

Acosta is well aware of the developing Steelpointe Harbor development. She knows that the new addition to Bridgeport will be great for aesthetics but she fears what that means for the future. One of the various steps towards gentrifying an underserved community. The luxurious apartments may not have current Bridgeport residents in mind.

Another step is MGM Casino which has started construction but has not yet been finalized. One of the permanent construction sites that lives on the waterfront. No decision on the casino will be made in 2018. The Casino proposal after much lobbying did not make it to this year's legislative session for a vote.

This can be a huge attraction for the future of the waterfront but the process is slow and many residents still do not believe the casino will ever open.

Next year, Bridgeport officials will have completed the city’s new Plan of Conservation and Development. The original version of the plan was produced in 2008 and enclosed a future for Bridgeport that was to be executed until 2020. However, new law requires that all cities that want to receive discretionary state funding must revise or adopt their own POCD every 10 years.

Bridgeport is nearing the 10-year renewal period and is working to complete a new version, Mack said. The waterfront plan will be rolled into the POCD.

For many residents, like the Capital City security guard Fulton, Bridgeport may have been a city to avoid and one to forget. Some residents still agree with the journalist Hendrick and believe something is still wrong with Bridgeport. Others like Acosta aren’t surprised or bothered by the possible changes. But the belief of city officials does not reflect these feelings. The development of the waterfront and the city’s new POCD provide enough to give Bridgeport residents a glimpse of hope possibly giving the city new life.

Will all residents truly get to experience this new life is the biggest mystery of all surrounding Bridgeport.

Fulton admits although he has returned to work in Bridgeport, he’s not sure if he would ever live in the city again. Fulton is not sold on the future quite yet. He explains that he doesn’t want to worry about the noise, lack of entertainment, crime, or even simpler things like worrying about amazon deliveries while he’s not home.

Simply put by Fulton, “I’m not moving back to the hood.”

Fulton made a choice to leave but for other residents they might not have the choice. All the possible developments within the city and along the coastline could ultimately divide the city and push residents out. Those residents who may not be able to afford luxurious apartments or the rising cost of living that may come with development.

Bridgeport may not always be a city to avoid at all cost, like Fulton explains but in order to create a desirable premier waterfront city it will come with a cost.

That cost will be paid with more time, more construction, and possible residential turnover. But for now, Bridgeport will continue to operate off of its promise and hope for a better tomorrow and continue striving to be a place -- no resident will be ashamed about.