Right there at the beginning of Main Street, there used to be a bar. I used to go there to play the Star Trek pinball and Deluxe Space Invaders. The memories of walking home to the North End from Seaside after the Midway closed down for the night... I remember I went back home in 2000, and was shocked to see that (1), there was a baseball stadium, and (2), The News Corner had closed down... The PT Barnum Museum, I think I went there at least four times as a school field trip... Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank, been there forever... The DD on the corner of John Street has been there for a very, very long time.. I think I was maybe 9 or 10 years old when it was built there... a couple of buildings up from there was Perriello's Restaurant, where my mother knew the owner and his daughter, I had many a spaghetti and fish dinner there... Nice to see they kept The Arcade, too.... Did they finally close down that McDonald's next to the courthouse? If so that's a shame, because that was another childhood staple for me... There used to be a Rite Aid on the corner of Fairfield Avenue... That Buffet restaurant used to be an OTB... Someone needs to bring back the Ocean Sea Grill..... Ahh yes the Cardinal Sheehan Center, used to go to camp in the summer and play basketball all year round..... Housatonic Avenue... am I seeing correctly, or did they pull up the train tracks? I see that the Glass store is still there... oh the memories, seeing the #8 bus go by... nice to see they still kept the route numbers after all these years... Good to see that the church is still there on the corner of North Avenue... one of my best friends used to live on Charles Street... St Vincent's Hospital... My aunt used to live in those apartment building just to the north... now this is where I grew up.... Wow, where that Rundown is used to be Lupe's Drug Store... take that slight right onto Beechmont Ave and that's my hood.... It's crazy to see that the houses on Main Street have changed so little over the years... That Bagel King has been there since at least 1980 or 1981... crazy... That Frontier station at the corner of Renzy Ave used to belong to SNET back in the day, me and all the kids I grew up with would play tackle football and baseball in the lot... that Mobil station has been there forever.... good to see the Medical Building still there... where the CVS is used to be the Merritt Theatre back in the day and a bunch of storefronts... I saw so many movies there through the years... it was a really sad day when I saw it being torn down... that red building on the right before the Beechmont/Tesiny/Jewett intersection was Carlson Music... I bought three guitars from there that I still have... Mr. Carlson himself gave me guitar lessons.. his son Kurt and his girlfriend Helen ran the music shop.. it was really sad when I read about what happened to Kurt.. that place was a Bridgeport staple.... good to see that Subway on the corner is still there.... that was the first Subway shop, even though people still dispute to this day the first one was on East Main.... that's a piece of history now... good lord, Century 21 is *still* there??? Wow.... the Golden Star is STILL there??!?? That blows me away... as is Captain's Pizza... I remember when that first opened up in I think the late 70s... A good friend of mine used to live on Woodside Avenue back when we were kids... There used to be a church on the northwest corner too, and a Lum's Steak House right next door.... good to see that Dunkin Donuts still there... I wasted many a night hanging there with friends.... Good to see that Burger King still there... I remember when it first opened in the late 70s, and of course the McDonald's across the street that's been there forever....Drumstik BBQ, though people saw its not as good as it once was back in the day... Wow, Town Fair Tire is still there.... and of course the Galaxy Diner... big time staple... the KFC is still there which has been there since at least the 70s.... the Car Wash and the Merritt Canteen, a kid I grew up with owns it... that Shell Station has been there forever and a day.... the PriceRite used to be a Pathmark... Mario the Baker is still there..... that Marshalls used to be Bowl-O-Rama, a great bowling alley, I used to hang out there and play video games and offer to keep score for people bowling for a dollar so I could play more games.... that Liquor Store has been there forever too.... used to be called a package store..... that Stop and Shop used to be a Finast Supermarket... I worked there on the night shift for a little while... used to get my paycheck and go straight to Crazy Eddie and buy a ton of albums.... I could not even begin to count how many times I walked up Main Street to Trumbull Mall and back down again... another friend of mine lived on the corner of Old Town Road... his mother was a sweetheart, though his grandmother was mean... oh wow... that TD bank was pretty much where his house was.... Trumbull Mall... my home away from home... I started skipping school in the 4th grade to go here and never stopped... I was the quintessential mall rat.... I worked there, too.. at the Arby's and a Nintendo kiosk in the early 90s....those were the last two jobs I had before I moved away in 1993... Another friend of mine lived about two miles north past the Merritt Parkway in Trumbull proper, I used to hang out with him a lot.... of COURSE you're going to the Canteen!! Next time you go tell Jay if he's there, that Brian Caraway says hi and congrats on owning a piece of Bridgeport history...I saw him on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. Thank you very much for the ride... this was a trip down memory lane for me. Main Street was a big, big part of my life (obviously) growing up in my hometown.
Thanks for taking us along on the ride. It was good to see what is now the P J Murphy Moving and Storage Building. I used to work in that building back in the 1970s when it was The Bridgeport Moving and Storage Co. The owner gave me a tour of the building and even went out onto the roof. What a view!!
Born and raised in Bridgeport. Grew up there in the ‘50’s, and downtown was where all the business activity was, especially at the corner of Main and Congress. The movie theaters; Majestic, Polis, Lyric, Globe, all within a block of each other. Thursdays was when the stores stood open ‘till 9:00 pm, and it was wall to wall people. It looks like the south end of Main Street now is all empty lots where the stores used to be. More business and people action on north Main Street. Major changes in the past 50-60 years and not necessarily for the best. Good video. Thank you.
Ah yes, the 25! I best remember that road in Brookfield whenever I was in the New Milford area. It’s really more of a middle of nowhere highway in Fairfield County whenever you’re between the Merritt and I-84. I can’t quite remember however if it went any further or if its terminus had been Brookfield this whole time.
At 1:37, you see the smokestack, made me think of the 1983 movie Without a Trace, kid was found there in movie. Sadly, the movie was based on Etan Patz who was never found alive.
That was a wonderful thing to do I remember driving to seaside Park on Main Street then stop at CONTES for lunch spend a day at the beach then back To Main Street all the way to Drumstick Barbecue. This was great to Thank you so much Joe Ribot
