This is an old tintype that shows one of the earliest pictures taken in Bristol. You know what I love most about it? The white fence. It's about a zillion times better than the ugly split rail fences that adorn Memorial Boulevard and other public places around town now.*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
11 comments:
ahhhh .... yes ..... Federal Hill ...
The " elite " of Bristol are allowed to vote 'special' priveleges for themselves @ the City Taxpayers expense w/o allowing a city wide vote .
Now they even want the city to contribute recipes and purchase cookbooks for the SOLE BENEFIT of the self-indulgent elitist snobs on Federal Hill .
They even got the blight nazis to target the area to remove by any means ( legal or not ) homes and businesses that don't meet the approval of Bristols' elite .
Maybe taxpayer money can be saved by allowing the snobs on the hill to fend for themselves .
Picture THAT !!!!!
No kidding, Steve. What's the significance of those dumb split rail fences anyway?
They really do detract from the beauty of the Boulevard.
They're not at all New Englandy, maybe they're a memorial to the Westward Expansion.
Ugly fences... probably the aesthetic design sense of the late, not-so-great Dennis Malone.
Come on 7:34. Federal Hill, the elite? The area has a wide gambit of types of residences. There are quite a few people living there in low income housing as well as middle income homes and a few mansions, symbols of a past era.
Most of Bristol's wealthy have left the Fed Hill for Chippens Hill or other locations in Bristol that are less congested.
~ sniffle, sniffle, poor little slumlords...
Where do I send my check for the cookbook?
Yes, burn the split rail fences ASAP.
Those split-rail fences were installed by people who have no understanding of architectural language or its meaning.
Form is language.
It speaks volumes to those who listen.
Memorial Boulevard was created in in a formal classical way. The trees are aligned along the roadway in a formalistic manner- regularly spaced rather than clustered or strewn randomly about the landscape.
This fomality was conciously created to provide a grand entrance to Bristol, and to provide the highest possible architectural language to honor to those who served our country.
The neoclassical style of Memorial Boulevard School, the formal granite obelisk, the promenade of trees are all elements of very formal high style architectural language. All was designed to impress, honor, and uplift.
On the other hand, the split rail fences and the wooden rustic brick-a-brac now strewn along Memorial Boulevard is the language of the barnyard and of the backwoods.
It's like wearing old blue jeans and a flannel shirt to the grand ball instead of a gown or tuxedo.
This certainly is not the level of language the creators of Memorial Boulevard intended.
It is a shame that instead of maintaining the highest form of architecural language (that chosen by the original creators of the Memorial Boulevard) - the very formal Neoclassical style, this city has selected instead the lowest style, the informal style of the barnyard,the backwoods, or the backyard barbecue.
This jarring contradiction of architectual language and materials results in a degradation of our common public spaces.
The errosion of formality does little to honor our veterans or uplift the spirits of the people.
The designers of Memorial Boulevard are now crying. Their grand conception has been trashed by the ignorant.
For those who have forgotten, Memorial Boulevard was selected as one of The Most Endangered Historic Places in CT. as a result design contradictions imposed upon the landscape.
9:53 - suggest that you stumble on your lack of compassion and grab onto some respect for the dead; you might not have agreed with everything that Mr. Malone did but his legacy will show that he also contributed a lot more positive aspects to the City of Bristol. What have you done?
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