New Britain, Connecticut

New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Hartford. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 71,254.^[1]

Prominent local institutions

The city is home to Central Connecticut State University and Charter Oak State College. The city is served by The Hospital of Central Connecticut at New Britain General (Formerly New Britain General Hospital).

The New Britain Museum of American Art, located at 56 Lexington Street adjacent to Walnut Hill Park, is the oldest art museum in the United States devoted to American Art. It contains a famous and comprehensive art collection from the 18th century to the present.

Capitol Lunch is a hot dog institution in New England. The "Cappie Dog" is well known to New Britain visitors for its unique and secret chili sauce.

Nicknames

The city's official nickname is the "Hardware City" because of its history as a manufacturing center and as the headquarters of Stanley Works. Because of its large Polish population, the city is sometimes playfully referred to as "New Britski."

Also often referred to as "Hard Hittin' New Britain" - affectionately by its residents who consider it a tough town, and derogatorily by others.

Large Polish community

New Britain has the largest Polish population of any city in Connecticut. Broad Street in downtown New Britain is home to a variety of Polish stores and delis that are worth checking out. In the summertime, many Poles flock to "Polanka" (in back of Pulaski Middle School) for weekly Sunday picnics with live Polish music and the annual Dożynki (a harvest festival), where one can find buttermilk, yellow, and brown amber jewelry from the Baltic, as well as wooden boxes with traditional Polish carving and traditional foods such as pierogi and gołąbki. Polanka is also home for the Falcon Club's Polonia Soccer Team, which competes on the regulation-size soccer field. Poles throughout the city may also be conversing over coffee and pastries at home with newsbroadcasts from Poland, updating them on what is going on in The Fatherland (another great New Britain restaurant).

The Polish community is known for fruitious gardens, immaculate flowers, and (most likely) a Catholic figure in the front yard (not unlike Mexican-Americans and Mary de Guadalupe). Many New Britain Poles cherish Our Lady of Częstochowa and preserve their Eastern European heritage and pride. The Polish Falcons of America offer an annual bus trip to Doylestown, Pa. each September, where the American Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine is located. In fact, New Britain High School offers Polish as a 4-year language to study and master and translates all of the signs in the building to Polish. Some backyards also have wooden stoves to smoke kielbasa for a few hours. Haller Post and the Polish Falcons of America, also on Broad Street, are like a second home to many of New Britain's settled families as a social venue. Broad Street is home to Sacred Heart Church with a K-8 private school. Most students are Polish or first-generation American. They, too, teach Polish and have a beautiful Polish church under the big, English-language church.

The Polish influence is credited with a unique feature of the New Britain accent, possibly the only variety of English in North America to feature the glottal stop to replace 't'.^[2]

History

New Britain was settled in 1687 and was incorporated as a parish under the name New Britain Society in 1754. Chartered in 1850 as a township and in 1871 as a city, New Britain was separated from the nearby town of Berlin, Connecticut. A consolidation charter was adopted in 1905.

During the early part of the 20th century, New Britain was known as the "Hardware Capital of the World," as well as "Hardware City." Major manufacturers, such as The Stanley Works, Corbin Locks and North & Judd, were headquartered in the city.

In 1843 Frederick Trent Stanley established Stanley's Bolt Manufactory in New Britain to make door bolts and other wrought-iron hardware. In 1857 his cousin Henry Stanley and founded The Stanley Rule and Level Company in the city. Planes invented by Leonard Bailey and manufctured by the Stanley Rule and Level Company, known as "Stanley/Bailey" planes, were prized by woodworkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and remain popular among wood craftsmen today. The two companies merged in 1920, and the Stanley Rule and Level Company became the Hand Tools Division of Stanley Works.

In the history of the clothes hanger, this city ranks prominently as the place where today's most used hanger, the wire hanger, was inspired by a coat hook that was invented in 1869 by O. A. North of New Britain, Connecticut. However, no monuments to either North or the wire hanger have been erected within the city limits (or the Stanley/Bailey plane, for that matter).

New Britain was also the home of some of the first racquetball play. Shortly after Greenwich, Connecticut tennis pro Joseph Sobek invented the game, Douglas Boyea, the New Britain YMCA's physical director, recognized the value of the new sport, and promoted the game at the Y on Court Street.

Education

The slogan for its high school sports teams, the Golden Hurricanes, is "Hard Hittin' New Britain". The New Britain Golden Hurricanes sports teams are well known in the state of Connecticut, with many state championships under their belt, including several Football State Championships, and the most recent, the Girls' Basketball State Championship.

New Britain High School's marching band features majorettes, the Cane-ettes dance team, the color guard, musicians, and a very powerful drumming section, known for their strong cadence, heard for blocks around the high school's neighborhood.

New Britain High's JROTC program has also had great success, winning countless drill team and color guard competitions, including the New England Championship in regulation drill. They have also earned the Honor Unit with Distinction Award several times consecutively.

New Britain is also home to H.A.L.S. Academy (House of Arts, Letters, and Sciences), a middle school for gifted students. Fifth graders with high scores on mastery tests are given the SAGES test. Those with good scores on both SAGES and CMTs will be accpted into H.A.L.S. H.A.L.S. Academy is currently in the old Mary Immaculate Academy, but will be moving as of the 2007-2008 school year.

Notable New Britain residents

• Jack Arute, American broadcaster most notably with ABC Sports.
• Ricky Bottalico, major league pitcher in the 1990s and 2000s, most notably with the Philadelphia Phillies.
• Elihu Burritt (1810–1879), was a philanthropist, linguist, and social activist born in the city.
• Walter Camp, 1859-1935, Inventor of American Football. Was born in New Britain.
• Steve Dalkowski, legendary minor league fastball pitcher.
• Anna Eshoo, U.S. Congresswoman representing California's 14th District, was born in the city.
• Rod Foster, St. Thomas Aquinas High School graduate who went on to become an All-American guard at UCLA, and later played for the NBA's Phoenix Suns.
• Willie Hall - Pulaski High School, USC, Oakland Raiders Linebacker for the Super Bowl XI Champion Raiders^[5]
• Tebucky Jones, FS for the New England Patriots, member of Super Bowl XXXVI Champion Patriots and former New Britain High School standout; Class of 1993, New Britain High School
• Thomas Meskill (born 1928), a senior member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a former Republican Governor of the state (1971-1974), Congressman (1967-1970), and Mayor of New Britain (1965-1966), was born in the city.
• Tommy Myers, Pro Bowl defensive back with the New Orleans Saints. Also a member of the Syracuse Hall of Fame.
• Lamar Odom, basketball forward for the LA Clippers, Miami Heat, and Los Angeles Lakers, a 1998 graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas High School.
• Abraham Ribicoff (1910–1998), Connecticut Democratic Governor, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Kennedy administration, was born in the city.
• Luanne Rice (born 1955), novelist. Born and raised in New Britain.
• Earl Snyder. Baseball player, Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, was born in 1976 in the city.
• Douglas Swan (born 1930), painter. Born in New Britain.
• Teddy Wilson, jazz pianist (1912-1986), died in the city.

Sister Cities

New Britain has five sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):

• Atsugi, Japan
• Pułtusk, Poland
• Rastatt, Germany
• Giannitsa, Greece
• Solarino, Italy

Attractions

• New Britain Rock Cats, minor league professional baseball team playing in New Britain Stadium.
• Walnut Hill Park
• Hole in the Wall Theatre
• New Britain Youth Museum
• New Britain Museum of American Art

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 34.7 km² (13.4 mi²). 34.6 km² (13.3 mi²) of it is land and 0.2 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (0.52%) is water.

Demographics

In 1900, 25,998 people lived in New Britain, Connecticut; in 1910, 43,916; in 1915, 52,203; in 1920, 59,316; and in 1940, 68,685.

As of the census² of 2000, there were 71,538 people, 28,558 households, and 16,934 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,070.5/km² (5,364.0/mi²). There were 31,164 housing units at an average density of 902.0/km² (2,336.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 69.38% White, 10.89% African American, 0.37% Native American, 2.36% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 13.12% from other races, and 3.81% from two or more races. 26.75% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 28,558 households out of which 28.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.6% were married couples living together, 17.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.7% were non-families. 33.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 3.08.

In the city the population was spread out with 24.2% under the age of 18, 12.5% from 18 to 24, 28.9% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 91.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $34,185, and the median income for a family was $41,056. Males had a median income of $34,848 versus $26,873 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,404. About 13.3% of families and 16.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.9% of those under age 18 and 8.9% of those age 65 or over.

Ancestries: Polish (19.9%), Italian (12.9%), Irish (7.8%), French (5.6%), German (4.3%), English (3.7%).

References

Wikipedia information about New Britain, Connecticut This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "New Britain, Connecticut". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.