Bridging Time

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: Turning the corner and continuing my stroll into the past (see previous entry), Anson Phelps’s Ansonia Brass & Copper once stood on the left. On the 1895 Sanborn map bold letters announce, “This building to be rebuilt at once.” Is it a sign of the big changes coming to the brass industry over the next decade? The three-gable profile of the unified space on the right that I knew as the Flat Wire Mill reveals its origin as three separate sheds. The three gables are pictured in the 1921 Ansonia aerial projection map, and on the 1906 Sanborn map, which is focused on roof construction, the three-gable elevation is drawn onto the plan of the three sheds. Except for those ancient structures behind the ivy-covered gable, Sanborn maps before 1906, show different buildings. The two new gables and their sheds must have been built between 1900 and 1906 which coincides with the consolidation of the brass industry in the Naugatuck Valley into what became known as, “The Big Three.” From within the building(s), the trusses of the two sheds seem of similar vintage.

The photo reveals one more survival from the past.The yellow pipe rail in the picture is attached to what looks like an I-beam half-buried in asphalt. The asphalt covers the old Ansonia Canal that Almon Farrel built for Anson Phelps. What looks like an I-beam helps carry the load across the canal.

Here, where the ancient factory road crosses toward the river through the middle of what would become the American Brass Co, workers arriving and leaving in shifts passed for more than a century. Before 1900 the maps show that when traffic crossed here then, it was over a "covered bridge.” In 1906 the Sanborn cartographers remove the roof graphic of the bridge and mark the passage over the canal, “steel bridge.”  The bridge in the picture used to have a marking indicating it was made by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company. Imagine all that has crossed this bridge since it was installed just after the start of the 20th century.

Imagine

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: The Naugatuck Rail Line, that runs in an alley through the middle of this site, is temporarily closed as a new roadbed and track are laid. What is to become of these vacant buildings and this site?

From the roof of the old American Brass office building one can see into the past. Could the past help us imagine a future here? Those who know Ansonia know the two stacks lie along the east “bank" of the Naugatuck River, though all banks vanished after the 1955 flood when high, concrete walls were built to contain the river that had flooded. Surrounding the stacks are filters, ducts, ladders and catwalks that are giant industrial river sculpture when viewed from the hills on the western side of the river.

Through a gap, just visible at the end of the long building with the skylights, an ancient factory road crosses toward the river between what were once two of Brass Valley’s founding brass companies. On this side was the Wallace & Sons Brass Company. The long building may be the oldest on the site and appears in the 1884 Sanborn maps of Ansonia, though it may go back much further. The map shows things of concern to insurers, like 3 steam boilers, marked 600 HP, that were then in the middle of the long building, and the map reveals how many night watchman visited the wood piles. The northern half of the building (probably initially two buildings) is marked, “Tumbling Bbl’s.” We can trace its future functions in later maps.

The factory road that crosses the site drops steeply where it disappears between the sheds and toward the river, and all the buildings that appear to be one story are, in fact, two tall stories. In the deep space below one can still see original stone work and a stone arch that marks where an old tunnel passed beneath the cross-road and connected the two sites. 

The 1884 map identifies the property on the far side of the crossroad as being a rolling mill of the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company. A.B.&C. was the creation of Anson Phelps who created Ansonia, originally to be called Phelpsville. Further back in the picture is a large, triangular, red, brick gable. It is end wall of the legendary Ferrel Foundry. The 1890 Foundry was reputed to be the largest machine tool foundry in New England. The pastel rectangular wall marks the attic space where the forms for the giant Farrel sand molds were built and lowered to the foundry below. 

Beneath the pavement that crosses diagonally thru this picture the old Ansonia Canal is still flowing. Almon Farrel built the Ansonia Canal for Anson Phelps to power industry in his new industrial village. One can still see the canal, if one knows where to look. The future is made of imagination or accident. Can anyone imagine dining some day in restaurants in ancient brick shops along a restored Ansonia Canal. Or are there already too many vacant stores on Main Street? What futures might this site inspire?