Several weeks ago, I ran a video from some people who decided to go around Bridgeport and do a “then and now” project. They took old photos of Bridgeport and actually stood in the same spot as the original photographers did, and shot the scene as it looks today.

These people put music to their project and it came out quite well I thought. Well, my son and I decided this would be a great project to do in Cheshire.

My son and I are quite interested in history, especially historical places, so much so that my son actually went out and purchased Ron Gagliardi’s book on historical Cheshire which is excellent. We also have the “Old Landmarks of Cheshire” book which we read from time to time. It is quite interesting to go to the places in the photos and see how much has or has not changed.

I’ll tell you one thing, I LIKED the old Cheshire of 100 years ago. It looked really nice.

Cheshire even had a Casino. Boy, this town was living on the edge people!! Now when I say a “Casino” they did not have slot machines, but they had pool tables and card games. See what I mean!! The streets were nice and wide and tree lined. Even the West Main Street where the old Ball and Socket Factory still is looked nice. This MIGHT be the problem. I think some people might be afraid the “then” looked better than the “now.”

So, last Sunday, my son and I went to the Hitchcock Phillips Historical Society House which is open every Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m.  We asked if we could scan some of the photos of old Cheshire, in a sense, we asked for “permission” to do this project. We were told by the curator to call a certain person whose name I will not mention.

Now mind you, we do have a copy of “Old Landmarks of Cheshire” and probably can copy from the book, or even copy off the photos from Mr. Gagliardi’s book, but the quality will be poor to say the least, and many of the photos are across the fold of the book so really there would be no way to properly get the entire photo without a crease.

I can do this project without the Historical Society’s permission, but I really don’t want to. I don’t know why the person who called me back said that they had to pass it by the Historical Society Board of DIrectors, I really don’t. We were not going to make any comments, we were just going to do the “then and now.”

The person whom I originally was told to contact told me they didn’t see what the problem was. The person said that they never had a request from a website or blog for the photos. I don’t understand that logic. What would it matter. I guess it is WHAT website or blog the photos might be seen on. I know the Historical Society had no problem allowing Everybody’s Market to hang some of the old photos in their store. And I also know the Dunkin Donuts in the Everybody’s Plaza, has some Historical Society photos in their establishment. Maybe THAT is the problem. I don’t know.  The photos are public domain. Anyone can use them. Does the Historical Society realize this? I really should have known better than to try to ask any Town entity for permission to do something on my site. A few years ago, when I was doing Undergroundtownhall TV on Cable 15, I wanted to do a show on seniors talking about the “old days.” NEVER HAPPENED. Somebody shuts everything down. They release info only to “certain” people. And I guess I am not it.  Too bad!!

Case in point, when I tried to get my tv shows aired on Cox public access, you’d think I was trying to get a private audience with the Pope. That isn’t even a fair comparison, because THAT probably would have been easier. My husband and I were constantly calling Cox, running down to Cox Public Access, skitting around here and there because for SOME reason, the schedule was never up to date and we literally had to pull teeth to get Cox Public Access to update the schedule to include the listing for my show. It’s funny, now that I don’t use Public Access, the schedule is completely up to date, weeks and months in advance. Go figure. This reminds me of the “no mall” sign situation last year. Remember??

Here is the gist of the public domain issue:

I am going to re-run the “Then and Now” video project done in Bridgeport so you all can see what we wanted to do.  I am sure I will see this done by someone else and it will be OK for them to do it. Let’s wait and see.