Waterbury Union Station - History

History

In the early years of the 20th century, the city of Waterbury, then prosperous and growing, began working with the New Haven and other railroads serving it on an urban renewal program to clear the way for a newer, larger station they all needed. Streets were straightened and buildings demolished in the neighborhood to the east. A small park replaced some of them.

McKim, Mead & White's design, extravagant in size and decoration, was meant to symbolize the city's prosperity and the railroads' importance to it. As many as 66 passenger trains served Waterbury at the peak of its traffic. The firm's design is different from its typically academic style in its efforts to unite the interior and exterior through similar materials and decorative themes, as well as the vaulted ceiling echoing the arches of the windows. The light reflecting off the warm interior colors through the large arched windows of the main facade made the building particularly welcoming at night.

A year after construction began, the president of one of the railroads asked for a clock tower, given Waterbury's proximity to the Seth Thomas plant. McKim obliged with one based on the 14th-century Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy. Architectural historian Carroll Meeks, in The Railroad Station: An Architectural History, believes that model was chosen as a deliberate rebuke to architectural amateurs such as the rail executive. The clock tower dominated the city's skyline then and continues to do so today, when most travelers arrive in the city via interstate highway instead of the train.

In summer 1909, the completed station was opened. As intended, it catalyzed development in the neighborhood. A few years later, the American Brass Company, representing another industry identified with the city and region, built new headquarters across Meadow Street from the station. Its architecture closely harmonized in size and material with the station.

The station continued to be used as intercity rail service to the city declined and then stopped in the later decades of the 20th century. In the 1970s one of the two newspapers that later became the Republican-American moved into the building, modifying it on the inside and out for that purpose. At that time the south wing was still being used by Metro-North commuter rail passengers as a waiting area; since then that portion of the interior has been closed off and a new platform built.