I tend to chop Connecticut up too, but sometimes I realize that it's better to think of this place as a whole. Town greens and white churches, blighted streets and empty storefronts, manicured lawns and hedge funds, dairy cows and rolling hills, painted boulders and rocky beaches.
This usually occurs to me when I'm enthralled with something like these old J.R. Montgomery textile mill buildings along the canal in Windsor Locks. They're as beautiful as an ornate city hall or a wooded trail, and they're as much a part of Connecticut as either of those.
My grandfather worked there when it was the Montgomery factory, just a mile or so from their house. My grandmother would walk down and bring him lunch, and I think she even worked there for a little bit, too. It's so sad to see how rundown the buildings have become. They've tried to sell them several times, with plans to turn them into condos, but as they're on the Windsor Locks side of the river, if there was ever a fire there, it would be hard to get trucks in so I think that's part of the reason it never went through. My 5-year-old always asks why people broke all the windows every time we drive by there.
ReplyDeleteKristen, thanks for the comment. I love those little bits of family history. It's sad/frustrating to really think about the days when all these buildings were in use.
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