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Demolishing my past
Jan. 29th, 2007 08:45 pmThe first time I ever went to the circus (one of the only times when I was a kid) was at the New Haven Coliseum. My friend Larry's family took me, it was Ringling Brothers. The coliseum's been in terrible disrepair for years and years - and it has finally been imploded.
It's not the only piece of my consciousness that's been removed from the physical landscape. My elementary school is gone - the same elementary school that my great-grandmother went to - it's been taken out to allow for highway expansion. Much of the Annex, my stomping grounds up to 3rd grade, has been transformed completely. What was once my favorite pizza parlor in Foxon - a place where the pizzas and calzones were so big they would curl up the sides of the boxes - is now a bare patch of ground.
I spent more time growing up in North Branford than I did in New Haven. My parents still live there, and their neighborhood in general is pretty grey, demographically. As the houses are getting bought up by younger families... well, let's just say that the folks buying houses can really only afford them because of the terrible mortgages that banks have been giving out right and left. I half-joked with them that the town council should just rename the town New Staven (that's a little townie joke that makes fun of the people living in East Haven / Foxon). But people are seriously trashing up the neighborhood with dumpsters and junk cars and fences and tacky shit.
I know that things change. I figured I'd be a little older before I saw so many things get torn apart... but maybe it's just New Haven and the suburbs. Maybe they're just managing things really poorly there. I don't know.
It's not the only piece of my consciousness that's been removed from the physical landscape. My elementary school is gone - the same elementary school that my great-grandmother went to - it's been taken out to allow for highway expansion. Much of the Annex, my stomping grounds up to 3rd grade, has been transformed completely. What was once my favorite pizza parlor in Foxon - a place where the pizzas and calzones were so big they would curl up the sides of the boxes - is now a bare patch of ground.
I spent more time growing up in North Branford than I did in New Haven. My parents still live there, and their neighborhood in general is pretty grey, demographically. As the houses are getting bought up by younger families... well, let's just say that the folks buying houses can really only afford them because of the terrible mortgages that banks have been giving out right and left. I half-joked with them that the town council should just rename the town New Staven (that's a little townie joke that makes fun of the people living in East Haven / Foxon). But people are seriously trashing up the neighborhood with dumpsters and junk cars and fences and tacky shit.
I know that things change. I figured I'd be a little older before I saw so many things get torn apart... but maybe it's just New Haven and the suburbs. Maybe they're just managing things really poorly there. I don't know.