Here is spring as it gently, slowly, quietly transforms Waterbury into a leafy old city. The magnolia in the top photo stands outside the Chase Building, pictured in all its aging glory in the second shot. Waterbury is full of such treasures, and I love walking about and taking them in.
This building was designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building in New York and, later, of the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chase family, whose Chase Brass Company was at the top of the city's economy, also spearheaded and paid 75 percent of the cost of the building of City Hall, which is across the street. Gilbert designed that building, too.
The Chase family was also instrumental in developing a complex of other buildings nearby, all designed by Gilbert, that was a showplace of the latest in architecture and city planning. This complex exemplified the interdependent roles of government, business, and charities in building a prosperous and progressive city, and it pr