Destination...

Downtown

(Editor’s note - The following speech was delivered by Neil O’Leary on February 6th, 2011, inside a delapidated store front on East Main Street in downtown Waterbury)

   Let me begin by thanking all of you who have taken time out of your busy schedules to join us today. I want to take this moment to acknowledge my family, my brothers and sisters, their children, my cousins, my brother and sister police officers, firefighters, teachers and all of our friends. I also want to thank and acknowledge all the elected and appointed officials here today. Wow, what an incredible turnout. And, I don’t just mean the size of the crowd, but the diversity of this group as well. We have friends here from all backgrounds, occupations, races and ethnicities. All the folks who make up this great city of Waterbury.

Game On

Column By John Murray

Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura is seeking a record sixth consecutive term.

(Editor’s note - the following observations by John Murray were sharpened by dozens of interviews and conversations with political insiders throughout Waterbury)

  After serving ten years as mayor of Waterbury one might think that Mike Jarjura had a firm grip on the local Democratic Party - his party - but you’d be wrong. As we careen towards election day 2011 Mayor Jarjura faces a revolution within the Democratic Party - much of it his own creation.

Ciao Waterbury,

Benvenuti Firenze

Story by Erika Giannelli

   I’m used to the wild hand gestures, 3 course lunches and loud conversation. Growing up with my Italian family in Waterbury was little Italy in itself. I can still smell the meats from the deli down the street, the mayonnaise slathered on crusty Italian bread, the cookies and pastries that lined the aisles. And I remember home, a building we shared with my beautiful great grandmother who cooked steaks and pork chops, escarole and beans. I can smell it today. My entire extended family lived around us, loud and expressive and loving.

Survivor Leads Way

By Debbie Mitchell McCormack

   There is a new Woman’s support group in the Waterbury area called SSING (Sexual Assault and Incest Survivor Support Group). The support group is for women who have been victims of sexual abuse. I’d like to tell you that there are more people out there than you can imagine who have been sexually assaulted as a child. In Waterbury, in Thomaston, Southington, and yes, here in Wolcott too.

A New Day

Story and Photographs By John Murray

The Search

Column By John Murray

Billy Smolinski was murdered six years ago. The effort to crack the case involves local, state and federal police. The Smolinski Family is now working closely with private investigator Todd Lovejoy, pictured above, tracking down leads.

   Six years is a long time to hold your breath.

Vision Quest  

Story and Photographs By John Murray 

Steve Schrag, center.

   Steve Schrag has spent his life as an organizer and activist fighting for positive change in the work place. For the past 30 years in Waterbury, however, Schrag has repeatedly found himself in opposition to major development projects.

    He was against EWR in the 1980s.

    He was against a super mall.

Out Of Control

Is this the price of victory?

Story By John Murray

Photograph originally appeared in the New York Times

   It was a crisp autumn evening in 2006 and Hasheem Thabeet was about to begin his basketball career at the University of Connecticut. Thabeet spent the first 16 years of his life 7,600 miles from UConn, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where sultry air wafts into West Africa from the Indian Ocean and the average temperature in November is a toasty 86 degrees.

Climb Your Own Tree
By Chelsea Murray

Julia Butterfly Hill
   

    Activism isn’t dead.

    While it’s true young people aren’t inspired the way America’s youth were in the 1960s by Bob Dylan, nor are they protesting the war in Iraq with the same passion and conviction that their parents and grandparents opposed the war in Vietnam, by no means is activism dead.