Are The Yahoos To Blame? Thank God For The Sun–“Let The Guy Who Put The Snow There Take It Away”

If you’re a political operative of Mayor Bill Finch you’re breathing a sigh of relief it’s not an election year. If you’re a member of the City Council you might be spewing prehistoric noises. They are up for reelection. From a pure political perspective snow storms can be a blessing or a curse. It allows municipal chief executives to showcase the efficiency of snow removal, or a curse when, well, it becomes snowmageddon. This storm, in so many ways, is a real pain in the butt.

Mayor Bill Finch must be feeling a level of exasperation. Publicly he’s trying to put on the best face as ear-splitting complaints fill up phone lines and media outlets as he explains the frustrating cleanup response to the avalanche-like blast of snow, citing the “yahoos” who did not heed his warnings to stay off the roads. Some of those “yahoos” were folks already on the road before his warning and dedicated first responders trying to make it to work. They were trapped by the snow and forced to abandoned their vehicles.

As for the City Council, some of them can actually tell screaming constituents that hey, my street is not plowed either! And yes the sun is finally aiding their cause. Speaking of the sun, it  was the favorite snow-clearing tool of Pete Brewster who served as director of Public Works for penny-pinching Socialist Mayor Jasper McLevy who served from 1933-57. Here’s a little taste of the McLevy-era snow response from my book Only In Bridgeport. (Don’t ya just love that title?)

IT’S THE SPRING OF 1939 AND BRIDGEPORT’S Public Works Director Pete Brewster is taking another needling about his tardy snow-removal operations from reporters. The scene is Billy Prince’s bar on State Street, where the truth or the near-truth about city operations flowed freely for a good many years. “Napoleon,” as Brewster’s scribe friends called him, grew angrier with each sip of his beer and each jab from the probing reporters.

How, they repeatedly insisted, could Brewster allow so much time to elapse before firing up city snowplows to clear the streets? Brewster, of course, had been smarting since the previous November when the Herald had plowed him for “waiting ’til the sun shines” to clear the streets of snow. “Napoleon fails to fight storm, thousands suffer,” the scandal sheet’s headline declared. “Sole responsibility for the terrible condition of Bridgeport streets following last weekend’s double snowstorm rests with Director of Public Works Peter P. ‘Napoleon’ Brewster,” crowed the story’s opening paragraph. In addition, for practically every week that winter, the Herald poked fun at Brewster’s snowplowing direction. After all, the city had initially appropriated only $300 in the budget to cover the cost of snow and ice clearance that year.

So, with several months of persistent nagging catching up to him, Brewster picked this moment in Billy Prince’s to break his long-standing silence. “Let the Guy who put the snow there take it away,” he cut loose. Bridgeporters were never satisfied by the excuses given for the lack of snow removal, but this was the Depression, and although many vociferous complaints about mushing through the snow had piled up, residents had by then grown accustomed to their penny-pinching Socialist Mayor Jasper McLevy.

With each passing winter and with more taxpayers’ complaints about the snow-covered streets, the story of how Jasper McLevy said “God put the snow there, let Him take it away,” has been told countless times in front of fireplaces, in snow-stranded vehicles and yes, in bars. Jasper McLevy, down through the years, involuntarily received the credit for a line coined by his long-time and trusted employee, but for Bridgeport it represented a sign of the times and the tight spending of a reform mayor who helped lift Bridgeport out of bankruptcy and out of the dog days of the Depression.