Main Street Historic District (Danbury, Connecticut)

Danbury began with Main Street. The first eight families who moved up from Norwalk to start an agricultural community on the frontier in 1684 called it Town Street. Their success led to the subsequent establishment of smaller communities like New Milford, Newtown and Ridgefield on the periphery of the new community. Danbury's location at the junction of the main north-south route up the Housatonic valley and the east-west route coming into Connecticut from New York's Hudson Valley to the west helped it prosper further. For these early settlers, the center of community life was the Congregationalist church they built on what is now the site of the Wooster Street cemetery.[1]

Most of the early buildings were destroyed in a British raid during 1777. During the Revolutionary War Danbury was a supply depot for the Continental Army due to its location. An army hospital was also established, and local artificers manufactured nails, wagons, shoes and harnesses for military use.[1]

Shortly after independence, in 1784, Danbury was designated a half-shire town, essentially sharing county seat functions with Fairfield. The Congregationalist church that had been the village's first center moved north a few blocks to the West Street corner in 1785, spurring some development there as it remained the center of community life. In 1792, the first courthouse and jail were built on the sites occupied by the modern buildings today.[1]

Postwar rebuilding led to the establishment of the industries that made Danbury prosperous for over a century. Hatmaking had existed there even before the Revolution, but in the decades afterwards the village led the country in the field. By 1800 its hatters were producing 20,000 annually. They established retail outlets in the Southern states, and were followed by local makers of boots, shoes, saddles and horn combs. Some buildings from this period remain, such as the 1790 John Dodd shop now on the Rider House museum property, the oldest extant commercial building in the city.[1]

In 1801 the land that is now Elmwood Park was donated to the village for use as a town common. It would be used as a drilling area for the local militia and the early fairs of the Fairfield County Agricultural Society, which later became Danbury Fair. Today's side streets had existed since the late 18th century, but Danbury during this period was still seen by outsiders as "...built principally upon one street, which for more than a mile exhibits an almost continued range of buildings, consisting of dwelling houses, mercantile stores, hat factories, mechanic shops and churches." Farmers who came into town referred to it as Danbury Street.[1]

In 1822, the state granted borough status to Main Street and the area around it. That allowed it to form fire companies and develop a water supply system. Growth continued, and a branch of the Fairfield County Bank was opened in 1826. Two years later a new jail was built on the same site as the current former jail building. In 1829 the last parcel belonging to the Congregational church, a large lot on the west side of the common, was sold and subdivided to pay a departing minister. Large double houses, such as 101–103 and 105–107 Main, were built on the land in the following decade. A Universalist church was built on the common in 1833. The Fry & Gregory saddle factory, built in 1836 at 68 Main Street, is one of the extant buildings exemplifying commercial activity during this period.[1]

The first local bank, the Savings Bank of Danbury, was established by local businessmen in the home of treasurer George Ives, grandfather of composer Charles Ives, on Main Street. Soon after, downtown would reach its modern extent in 1852 with the coming of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad. The landowners of northern Main Street, also stockholders in the railroad, had its passenger depot built at the present location of the post office, helping to increase the value of their land and businesses. A promised secondary depot at the common was never built, and the northern Main Street landowners also defeated a proposal to expand the common into a "central park". The landowners and businessmen of southern Main Street spent their own money to remake the common into Elmwood Park, planting it with elm trees and a hay crop.[1]

The railroads brought significant change to downtown. During the 1850s the first multi-story brick commercial blocks were erected downtown, starting with Phineas Crosby's Block at 225–229 Main Street. In 1852 it was followed by the Benedict and Nichols Building at 191–193 Main. Its cofounder David Nichols had already built the borough's first grocery 1838, and later served as a state legislator and state treasurer. Large steam-powered hat factories were built, bringing new workers to Danbury. In addition to internal migrants from the rural towns in the area, they were English, Irish and German immigrants. The combined town and borough population nearly doubled between 1850 and 1860, even though Bethel became a separate town during that time. In 1851 the Irish immigrants bought the Universalist Church on the common for their growing St. Peter's church;[1] moving to a newer structure when it was consecrated in 1876.[4]

As a result, Main Street became more commercial. The hatters were skilled workers who could afford to buy or even build their own homes rather than live in crowded tenements, and found the side streets to the west ideal for this purpose. To the east of Main commercial development continued, with the hat factories concentrated in the north, near the river. Wooster Square, the intersection of Main, Elm and White, became a focal point of northern downtown due to the train station's presence. Lumberyards and frame stores opened along White. In 1856 Isaac Ives, Charles's uncle, opened the street that bears the family name.[1]

1875 picture map of Danbury

After the Civil War, another new bank, Union Savings, was founded by hatmakers and merchants. In the 1870s more new public buildings were erected. In 1873, the current jail building replaced the one built in 1828, by then inadequate, and a High Victorian Gothic library was donated to the borough five years later by Alexander White, one of the leading hat industry executives. That same year, the new Danbury News building went up at 288 Main Street, home to editor James Montgomery Bailey, whose humorous pieces as "The Danbury News Man" brought him national renown. A Soldier's Monument commemorating the local war dead was built at Main and West in 1880. Three years later the city built a new firehouse on Ives Street, and a new City Hall at Main and West where the library now stands.[1]

The Main and West intersection, now called City Hall Square, became the new center of the district, finally displacing the old Congregational church site to the south. The private sector responded with architectural statements of their own. New commercial blocks began to reach three and four stories, and in 1887 the Union Savings Bank moved into its current building at 226–228 Main Street. Commercial development pushed eastward, leading Isaac Ives to open Keeler Street for development that same year.[1]

The 1880s culminated with the borough of Danbury becoming a city, and the merger of the three railroads that had served the city (the Housatonic and New York and New England, in addition to the Danbury and Norwalk) becoming part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, referred to locally as the Consolidated due to this absorption. These changes had a profound effect on the community. Main Street was paved with granite blocks between Elmwood Park and White Street. Flagstone sidewalks, sewers, electric arc lights and a horse railway were installed.[1]

At the end of the 1890s Danbury's 35 hat factories led the nation in production, employing 5,000 directly and indirectly. A neon sign with a derby hat on a crown and the legend "Danbury Crowns Them All" greeted arrivals at the new train station (now the Danbury Railway Museum) just east of downtown. The city overcame opposition from Bridgeport and persuaded the county legislature to appropriate funds for the current courthouse. Downtown also became an educational center for the region, as Danbury High School was housed on the third floor of the Union Savings Bank building, joining St. Peter's School at 98 Main Street, the first parochial school in Danbury when it was built in 1885.[1]

1907 postcard of Main Street from White Street

As the 20th century began the city was at its industrial peak. Newly designated U.S. highways 6, 7 and 202 followed Main, West and White streets through downtown, bringing in automobile traffic. Main Street became a local retailing center, with Woolworth's, McCrory and Sears opening department stores in the new century's early decades, drawing customers from the smaller nearby towns in Connecticut and the adjacent towns across the New York state line in Dutchess and Putnam counties. Car traffic also led to the establishment of dealerships on Main Street, primarily in the areas south of Elmwood Park. The demolition of older buildings to make way for them shaped the future historic district.[1]

Danbury's fortunes changed after World War II. Americans, particularly men, began wearing hats less frequently, forcing cutbacks or closings at the hat factories. In 1955, the flooding of the Still that followed hurricanes Connie, Diane and Ione badly damaged many businesses, particularly in the Wooster Square and White Street areas. In their wake some of the first preservation efforts began. The Dodd Shop was saved from demolition by a move to its current location in 1958, and the Blackman House at 59 Main Street was converted into office space.[1]

The next year, 1959, the city and town of Danbury were merged as the state eliminated most county government functions. Downtown merchants who had been affected by the flood reacted by moving to newer and larger space on routes 6,7, 37 and 202 outside of the city center. The empty, damaged space they left behind on the north and northwest of downtown was addressed by urban renewal programs of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which demolished whole blocks, partly to accommodate the rechanneling of the Still for flood control.[1]

In the 1970s the completion of Interstate 84 dealt Main Street another setback. All three of Danbury's U.S. highways were rerouted onto the expressway as well and away from downtown. In combination with the expressway bypasses built for US 7 both north and south of the city, this made the outlying properties businesses had been moving to more accessible and competitive with downtown locations. Remaining business owners responded by renovating and restoring their own properties, and the scope of preservation efforts began to expand from the old houses on the south end.[1]

The Danbury Preservation Trust, which had been formed in the late 1950s, received a state grant in 1979 to survey and inventory the historic buildings on Main and the nearby side streets. Eventually the effort looked at 300 buildings before settling on the area that would become today's historic district. It was designated and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, after an intensive survey of the area by the Danbury Preservation Trust as part of an effort by the Connecticut Historical Commission to catalog the state's historic resources for inclusion on the Register.[5] The city has special zoning regulations to maintain its historic character.[6]

During the 1980s downtown faced its greatest challenge. In 1981, after the last Danbury Fair was held, Wilmorite Properties of Rochester, New York, bought the fairground and began developing it into a shopping mall. When it opened in 1986, its location near the junction of I-84 and the southern US 7 freeway made it attractive and convenient for shoppers in the region. Main Street's merchants formed a special taxing district, CityCenter Danbury, downtown. For a while both they and the mall remained prosperous, although they knew Main Street would never be the center of local retailing again. But when the economy fell into recession in the early 1990s, they feared shoppers would return to the mall and not Main Street. The 1991 closure of Steinbach's, the last department store on Main Street, seemed to affirm this fear.[7]

With state grants, the city built a parking garage on some of the land marked for redevelopment after the flood, in order to free up other scattered parking space. It was the start of a planned complex that would include a movie theater, retail space and condominiums, all meant to attract middle class residents to the city. The city also hired a consultant to look at plans to cluster similar retailers so downtown could match the mall in offering that to shoppers as well.[8][9]

By the middle of the decade these efforts had succeeded, helped in part by Danbury's transformation from industrial town to distant exurb of New York City, with corporations such as Cartus and Duracell building major facilities in the area and new housing going up in the areas on the city's periphery as commuters sought less expensive housing still within commuting distance of Manhattan. In 1996 Danbury's industrial space was 93% occupied, and office space vacancy rates were under 15%. Ives Street was reinvented as a Dining and Entertainment District, with the vacant buildings converted into restaurants and nightclubs. "We feel that the downtown is coming back strong", said one local bank president. The community rallied after arson severely damaged the library in 1996.[10] Voters passed a bond issue to fund improvements and expansions to city hall and rebuild the library. The Danbury Ice Arena, later home to several minor league ice hockey teams, most recently the Danbury Whalers, was also built near Main Street in 1999. It offered a visitor attraction to complement the former train station which had become the Danbury Railway Museum.[11]

As they had in the mid-19th century, immigrants helped revitalize downtown in the early 21st century. This time they were from Latin America, primarily Ecuador and Brazil, working as day labor at construction sites all over Fairfield County. Not all of them were in the U.S. legally, and this created tensions between their community and Mayor Mark Boughton, who unsuccessfully asked Governor Jodi Rell to have city police deputized as Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) agents so they could legally enforce federal immigration laws. The immigrant community was in turn angered by police efforts to close down their volleyball games and sting operations that turned some of them over to the BCIS. In 2005 they staged a mile-long march down Main Street in protest.[12]