Pleasure Beach holds a special place in the life of aerial photographer Morgan Kaolian. He will lead a presentation tonight (October 11) before the Parks Commission about his vision to resurrect the city peninsula. From Kaolian:
Morgan Kaolian, director and founder of Long Island Sound America will present a proposal to the Bridgeport Parks and Recreation Board at the North Branch Public Library, Madison Avenue Bridgeport at 6:30 PM tonight.
The proposal will illustrate how amphibian Ducks can serve as transportation to Pleasure Beach and double as a new form of tourism for Fairfield County.
The LISA Plan will also illustrate what attractions will bring people to Pleasure Beach since the park closed and became off-limits to people after the June 17, 1997 fire that cut off all means of access. The proposal will call for operations to begin on Memorial Day thru Labor Day, a four-month season.
Unless Pleasure Beach has unfettered access via a bridge AND a roadway from Stratford, any development plans such as Kaolian’s are mere pipe dreams.
Up and down the Atlantic coast we see the great intercoastal waterway. All of the adjacent communities are served by causeway bridges that link the mainland to the island like areas created by building the intercoastal. These bridges go up in less than a year and are paid for by the Army Corps of Engineers.
If MJF had won the election this is the type of thing she would have started. Finch is too dumb and has not the capacity to envision squat, never mind a far-reaching thought of building a freaking bridge.
ANYONE BUT FINCH (except Joel)
Didn’t Rick Torres suggest an amusement park out there when he was running against Fabrizi?
Donald Trump and Kay Williams also had this plan. There is no fire protection there and who has the property rights and didn’t Bridgeport have some type of an arrangement with the federal government when they built the structure there?
I say ‘who cares.’ As long as someone is willing to buy the property and pay taxes, they could put a garbage dump out there. That would be between them and the DEP. If there is no fire protection, no bridge, or they plan on parachuting people in, as long as they pay taxes. Sell it.
BTW, they are putting a park where the kid jail was to go. Does that increase the grand list or add jobs??? I read it was between two condo projects. That would be a perfect place for a strip mall.
What these dumbasses running the city can’t seem to understand is Bridgeport only totals 17 square miles thus a limited amount of development.
This administration has seen fit to take 7 acres of industrial-zoned property and turn it into a permanent park. Why? Who is actually going to go there? Druggies?
Now you have the vacant property where the jail was going to go and lo and behold another freaking park. This property is a stone’s throw away from Beardsley Park. It makes no sense. Parks do not pay taxes in case anyone has noticed.
But parks can have green signs celebrating our “green Mayor” in time for the election cycle. Perhaps “parks and green spaces” are the 21st Century equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’ in Roman history?
They cost money to create and maintain and pay no taxes, but probably can become non-parks at some future time if there are no zoning restrictions or land usage limits as they are put in service, unlike the major gifts to towns and cities often are.
tc, the Mayor knows we have only 17 square miles of land and a large % is not on the Grand List. Remember when Bill on a phone call pre-primary told a potential voter about our Fitch A rating? The voter told him of the 30 cities and towns Fitch rates, this is the lowest rating category and Bridgeport owns that unique distinction. Finch told them: “Well we only have 17 square miles of territory.” Bill knows the scheme, but the voters so often do not. And green has looked good this year with so much rain. We’ll see what happens when the $500 signs come down and we hit a dry spell, and you can figure out the rest. OK??? Time will tell.
You know tc, you make it sound like the 17 square miles is fully occupied leaving limited opportunity for development. At least 1/3d or more of our 17 square miles is loaded with abandoned factory sites that could be restored.
I’m seeing an awful lot of European mid-sized manufacturers coming to America specifically to buy up abandoned industrial sites so they can come here with their proven new and innovative manufacturing techniques which greatly reduce the OEM costs making hard goods attractively priced to compete with the Asians. A European car-part manufacturer just opened up in Willimantic. He makes hybrid fuel injection gizmos that are a more efficient way to distribute gasoline while integrating electricity in the operation of hybrid autos. Europeans have been dealing with this for years since gasoline costs more than $5/liter. Hybrid and internal combustion is promising and reduces the demand for gasoline but is still inefficient. This guy has a solution. The factory owner has only imported management engineers to set up the shop and train the entire workforce which will be 100% local.
It is this type of business we have got to attract and retain. That’s our future. That’s our promise. That’s our prominence. Can Finch pull this off? No!