GHOST PARKING LOT

HAMDEN — Visitors to Hamden Plaza once used to see the “Ghost Parking Lot,” an iconic art installation of 20 cars covered in asphalt.

Soon, the site will offer a different attraction: a Starbucks with a drive-thru.

It’s one of several new businesses coming to the plaza, according to co-owner Andrew Bermant, who said a DSW shoe store, expected to open in January, will occupy the former site of DressBarn and Phoenix Buffet.

A branch of the tech repair store uBreakiFix also will open within the next couple of months, he said.

“We’re very pleased with where we are right now in the market, and I also want

to compliment the town and the mayor for their effort processing the approvals for the DSW and Starbucks projects,” Bermant said.

“It’s a lot of work all coming at one time, and they have really worked diligently to help us through this process,” he said.

The plaza has been a fixture in Hamden since the 1950s, when Bermant’s father, David Bermant, purchased and developed the property.

While it already is home to a Starbucks, the current location does not have a drive-thru. Andrew Bermant said management is in negotiations with several potential tenants to fill the old Starbucks location once the new one opens, which may take until spring.

There’s a certain irony to the news: the space that will make way for a drive-thru was where artist James Wines in 1978 created the “Ghost Parking Lot” to represent the country’s reliance on cars.

But the piece deteriorated over the following 25 years, and was demolished in 2003 after failed efforts to raise the necessary funds to refurbish it.

Over the decades, skateboarders and bicyclists used the rising cars as ramps, causing the asphalt to crumble and rust from the cars underneath, the Register reported when it was torn down.

“I think it was a great sculpture,” Bermant said. But he noted not everyone was a fan of the piece.

“I will tell you this,” Bermant said, however. “It became a landmark. People know Hamden Plaza for the ‘Ghost Parking Lot.’”

It wasn’t the only artwork installed in the plaza.

“My father got very involved with kinetic art . ... He thought it was the art of our time and so he began collecting the pieces and installing them in his shopping centers (because) he thought that the art should be viewed by the public,” Andrew Bermant said.

“He would swear that it increased the number of shoppers at each shopping center,” he said.

Two sculptures remain, Bermant said: “Crystals” by Clyde Lynds and “Windamajig” by George Rhoads, who died in July.

According to the New York Times, Rhoads was known for mazelike sculptures featuring moving balls, like “42d Street Ballroom,” which is located at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York.

The parking area was so iconic that in 2014, the Hamden Arts, Recreation and Culture Department had the official 2014 Holiday Ornament feature the “Ghost Parking Lot” and the Hamden Plaza.

When it was demolished, Wines told the Register he was disappointed but not surprised that his sculpture was torn down.

“If (the sculpture) was in a museum, it would’ve been preserved,” he said.

Meghan Friedmann / Hearst Connecticut Media Meghan Friedmann / Hearst CT Media Hamden Plaza on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden on Thursday. Top right, the sculpture “Windamajig” by artist George Rhoads next to a Tesla charging station in Hamden Plaza in Hamden on Thursday

Peter Hvizdak / Hearst CT Media file photo The Ghost Parking Lot, above, was a world-famous public art sculpture in Hamden Plaza that was torn down in 2003. The sculpture had 20 junked cars covered over by asphalt.

Meghan Friedmann / Hearst Connecticut Media Construction at Hamden Plaza on Thursday.

Arnold Gold / Hearst CT Media file photo An excavator digs up buried automobiles in the then-Ghost Parking Lot project at Hamden Plaza in Hamden in 2003. The project was created in 1978.