Waterbury, Connecticut, 9/24/06

Style

The small city of Waterbury hit its peak way back in the 19th century, when water power from the Naugatuck River drove the mills and factories that made it a metal-working capital: The Brass City. Since then industrial decline has been the norm. The remaining neighborhoods of stately town houses are surrounded by far larger areas of urban blight. Still, somebody in the public works department must maintain a fine sense of style to choose this color scheme for the city's fire hydrants.