Thomas Breen photos
Demolition underway at former Bigelow Boiler factory complex.
The site of former Building 1.
A block’s worth of New Haven industrial history started disappearing as a city-hired demolition crew began tearing down four derelict former Bigelow Boiler factory buildings on River Street.
Those four city-owned brick factory buildings make up a majority of the former industrial complex at 190 – 198 River St. — an industrial stretch of Fair Haven extending on the southern end of the block from James Street to Lloyd Street.
By Thursday afternoon, so-called Building 1 on the eastern side of the block had been reduced to a pile of brick, wood, and debris beneath three towering excavators and a half-dozen yellow-vested, hard-hatted demolition workers.
The Bigelow Company used to be a national leader in the manufacture of steam boilers, according to the New Haven Preservation Trust. Many of the River Street buildings were constructed in the 1870s and 1880s, and the factory complex employed hundreds of people well into the 20th century.
River Street on Thursday. Building 1 has already been demolished. Buildings 2 and 3 (center) and Building 5 (a small garage on the far right) will also be torn down. Building 4 (the three-story structure on the right) will remaining standing.
Google Maps image
A 2018 view of Buildings 1, 2 and 3. All three of these are now being torn down.
Demolition work began on Monday.
Buildings 2, 3 and 5 should all be demolished by mid-next week. Those include adjacent two-and-a-half-story and two-story structures towards the middle of the block, as well as a small single-story brick garage closer to James Street.
The city-hired crew will need another week or two after that to clean up the remaining rubble, according to City Building Official Jim Turcio.
The three-story structure known as Building 4, meanwhile, will remain standing.
City Building Official Turcio, pointing out the four-foot flood elevation on Building 4.
Turcio said the city hopes that local restoration company Capasso, which successfully renovated a nearby former Bigelow building at the corner of Lloyd and River Streets, will be able to bring new life to the one crumbling building that the city will not be tearing down on the block. The city recently secured a $646,500 state grant to clean up PCBs and other environmental hazards at that site.
“The roofs collapsed,” Turcio said when asked why the city ordered the four Bigelow buildings demolished. “We lost all the lateral support. And we had homeless people living in there, risking their lives.”
Turcio said that “unsupported brick buildings” like these rely on the weight of the roofs and the floors to remain standing. These structures had all seen their roofs collapse. In Building 3, the falling roof had knocked down the second floor, carrying all of that material to the basement.
The 1870s and 1880s-era complex, which has been vacant, derelict, and owned by the city for years, was walloped by Tropical Storm Isaias in August 2020, leading to the city’s closure of that block of River Street to through traffic because of the safety hazard posed by falling bricks.
The site of former Building 1.
Was a recent storm to blame for the structural damage that precipitated the demolition?
No, Turcio replied. “Just decay over the years.”
How does he feel knowing that the buildings are now coming down?
“I can sleep at night,” Turco said. He said the city has struggled to keep squatters out of the collapsing property. Two weeks ago, the city found two people sleeping inside one of the buildings, even with “the roofs caving in” and the walls shaking. City workers removed their beds — only to find a new bed had taken its place on Monday.
“We couldn’t keep them secure,” Turcio said about the properties. He said the one building that will remain standing, Building 4, is in better shape than the ones coming down.
Rubin and Greenberg, with bricks and debris from the demolition site.
Looking inside the rotted-out interior of Buildings 2 and 3.
Local architectural historians and preservationists Elihu Rubin and Rob Greenberg watched as the demolition crew completed its tear down of Building 1, exposing the rotting inner beams of Building 2 to the open air.
“I’m sad to see it go,” said Rubin, who teaches architectural history at Yale and has previously led walking tours of the historic riverine district. “My dream was to stabilize just the facades. To put up big steel braces for a stage set, to talk about the industrial history of the city.”
Greenberg, searching for new additions to his Lost in New Haven collection.
“It’s absolutely offensive that this was left to decay like this,” said Greenberg, a local artist and historian who has put together a collection of thousands of Elm City artifacts, memorabilia, and ephemera, known as Lost in New Haven.
“New Haven should have done everything possible to stabilize and put them in play. Just watching this happen over and over and over in New Haven, it’s just heart-wrenching.”
With his own hard hat and construction-site vest, Greenberg combed through the rubble of Building 1, picking up stray bricks and a porcelain light fixture, and a blue stone base of a column to incorporate into his collection.
Rubin and Greenberg both said that, if there’s one positive thing to come from the demolition of these historic structures, it will hopefully be a wake up call for city staffers and preservationists to do everything they can to salvage historic buildings while they’re still standing.
Looking east on River Street, from James. The small garage on the right is Building 5, which will be demolished. The three-story Building 4 next door will remaining standing.