New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Next act for Bridgeport theaters is the wrecking ball
Connecticut is awash in Palaces.
Stamford’s Palace theater, recovered from COVID-era shutdowns, attracts performers from across the nation. New Haven’s Palace was reborn in 2015 as College Street Music Hall and took its place in the city’s roster of live-music venues. Waterbury’s Palace Theater is an anchor of that city’s downtown. Even Danbury’s Palace, much reduced from its heyday, hosts performances and events.
Bridgeport’s Palace, meanwhile, continues to sit empty.
The 3,200-seat Palace, which shares a building with the 2,200seat Majestic and an abandoned hotel in Bridgeport, opened in 1922, and, as in other Connecticut cities, provided entertainment in an era that predated home cinemas, or even television. Every state theater lost attendance as times changed, and many were bulldozed. Some that remained, however, were able to find a second life.
Not in Bridgeport. The Main Street facilities have been virtually unused for a half-century. Many plans have been floated to revive them over the years, and all have failed. The result hurts the whole neighborhood, because no one wants to invest near a decrepit building with little chance of being refurbished.
The latest failed plan involved a New York-based developer chosen by Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration in 2017 to not only fix up the theaters and hotel, but also put up 10-story and 18-story residential buildings nearby. Few were surprised to see that plan fall apart, with word that the developer was having trouble with financing even before COVID put everything on hold.
That led to Bridgeport’s latest gambit, which, again, hardly anyone sees as likely to happen. The city is asking for nearly $100 million in state money to fix up the structures, which even advocates say would not be enough to get the job done. The buildings would be habitable, but far from a modern facility that could support shows. That would be up to a private developer.
Why can’t Bridgeport have what other cities have?
There’s no one answer, but officials who have complained over the years about state largesse going places other than the state’s largest city have a point. Had former Gov. John G. Rowland hailed from Bridgeport, it’s possible its theaters would be a going concern today. Instead, he was from Waterbury, and showered his home city with some $30 million in public money to get its theater operating, with more arriving each year in subsidies.
Stamford has a successful theater thanks to many factors, including its location, that help make Stamford a richer city than Bridgeport. New Haven has a thriving arts scene due in part to Yale’s outsized influence. None of these attributes would be easily applicable to Bridgeport.
Instead, they work as a hindrance. Since each city is a halfhour or less from Bridgeport, there’s little incentive to duplicate efforts for something so easily accessible close by. There isn’t demand for every city in a small state with a stagnant population to support a theater.
At the same time, many traveling acts have 90-mile-radius clauses that limit how many cities a performer can reach, which puts Bridgeport even further behind. The venues are too big for movies but too small for major moneymakers.
All of which leaves Bridgeport where it started. In the absence of huge state subsidies, the theaters simply sit, decaying further every year and bringing down any potential neighborhood revitalization, even as most who remember the theaters as they once were have by now moved to Florida.
Bridgeport is not beyond help. People will come downtown, as the Ballpark at Harbor Yard once showed and its successor, the remarkable Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater, is showing today. The Klein and Bijou Theatre show that the arts have a home here. And downtown offers the kind of walkable, transit-oriented lifestyle that can appeal to younger people and empty nesters.
What the neighborhood lacks is critical mass. It needs more people to support restaurants and businesses, which means it needs more housing. It can’t afford to neglect the area around the theaters.
It’s telling that while building rehabs and new construction have been successful elsewhere downtown, the streets around the theaters remain desolate. It’s a black hole of redevelopment.
Fifty years is enough time. The theaters aren’t going to come back, but will continue to hurt the city as long as they stay as they are. Entire generations of Bridgeport residents think of them not as centers of local nightlife, but as urban blight.
It would be sad to see them go. It would be a shame. Even worse is the abandoned cityscape that has long surrounded them.
It’s time to let go.