David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Time to Invest in Ruins

A square brick smokestack and ten-foot-high gray stone walls with openings for doors and windows stand like architectural ghosts in an open field where Matson Hill Road crosses Roaring Brook in Glastonbury, Connecticut.  The ruins of the Hopewell Woolen Mill, which once supplied Union troops with uniforms, is a startling sight in this rugged countryside thick with trees and punctuated with homes.  Seeming an accident of time and neglect, these stately remains are actually the result of careful cleanup and stabilization at considerable community expense.  Starting as an eighteenth century grist mill and ending as a twentieth century aircraft parts factory, it took demolition of twenty-eight buildings, removal of tons of contaminated soil, and restoration of the standing masonry to create this visibly arresting monument.

A Sign of the Times (Past)

A small bronze shield sign affixed to an ordinary concrete bridge.  I caught it out of a corner of my eye while crossing a stream on an undulating country road.  Too small to read even at less than twenty  miles-per-hour, I stopped the car and got out to take a look.  Aged to a mottled verdigris, it boasted seven stars across the top with the bottom supported by a stylized eagle that stood out in high relief.  “Built by Work Project Administration Conn.—1940,” it read.