Special weekend in city
Monday, Labor Day, marks the traditional “end of the summer season” traditionally. Though summer has yet another two weeks before the autumn equinox, our culture begins summer with a holiday (Memorial Day), and bookends with another. School is in session already, colleges have begun the fall semester, and life gets back to the normal ebb and flow. But, this year is different.
Labor Day weekend and the days leading up to it are the culmination of a season-long celebration of our Centennial Year. It was in1921 that the Borough of West Haven officially broke from Orange, and became its own municipal corporation. This weekend we will see a celebration and fireworks that will mark the end of the long string of events.
West Haven was much different in 1921. A shoreline community, mostly known for its amusement park, it was also known as the “blue collar” area of the Town of Orange prior to the split Orange was much more rural with farms and long expanses of undeveloped land. West Haven was a bedroom community with many industries like Armstrong Rubber Co., Hall Organ, the American and West Haven Buckle companies. In fact, we were best known in the business world as the world’s epicenter of the buckle industry.
All that changed in the latter half of the 20th Century with an oil crisis and rising costs that prompted an exodus of industry from the city and the region. What once was a bustling manufacturing community has spent the last four decades trying to reestablish its identity in a fast-changing world.
West Haven can best be described as one city with two communities. Since the postwar era began, an influx of residents mostly using the city as a place to hang their hats are more interested in staying out of city life, opting for the life of their workplace or New Haven or Fairfield County. Then there are the people who take living here seriously, what we sometimes call the “townies.” Most of us, however, use a more familiar term, “Westies.”
The Westies are involved to the hilt. Clubs, organizations, churches, schools and other community gathering places are not only frequented by this group, but their social interactions revolve around them. This is the group that has a benefit for a sick resident, or takes up a collection for a family down on its luck, or works to make sure WHEAT’s shelves are stocked, or makes sure that events like the Centennial are successful.
In many ways the Westies make this large, densely populated city of almost 55,000, something like a small town. This second group can be found in every organization, in every PTA, in every event. They are sports parents, political activists, artists, and artisans, and they all want the city to succeed.
This Labor Day weekend is special because West Haven is special in some very good ways. Yes, it has its difficulties, and those have been enumerated here and elsewhere. But with all its problems, it’s home.
Let’s celebrate our history, our present and our future. Happy Birthday, West Haven! Here’s to another hundred years.