Middletown's Wharfside Commons Gets Mixed Report Card

Wharfside Commons was this city's most anticipated housing development when it opened a year ago on Ferry Street in the North End, the poorest street in the poorest section of Middletown .

[incaroads]

Gee, who would have seen this coming?

[MJS25]

I remember my grandparents living there in the early to late sixties...it was definitely a rough area then.

[Hope]

The North End of Middletown is looking better and cleaner. Hope this makes a difference. Lets have hope, not hate and negativity people!

[Haddam Resident]

I'm glad that affodable housing was made available to the families of Middletown - but for all the good intention of those involved the bottom line results in a ghetto eventually. It's too bad they get a break on housing overlooking the CT RIver. Anywhere else this would command big bucks on the open market. i also noticed that the place was vandlazied with spray paint - just another result of the lack of respect for a nice and free place to live

[Tom Collins]

Just a matter of time before the place is trashed. But, somebody else's money paid for it, right? That's what politico's want you feeble-minded to think.

[Tom Collins]

Hope wrote:

The North End of Middletown is looking better and cleaner. Hope this makes a difference. Lets have hope, not hate and negativity people!

Lets have hope (and more of YOUR tax dollars).

[Jules]

I think it's great that Middletown is cleaning up Ferry Street. That area has been a problem for a long time.

[Jules]

OMG! You people are sick. Low income does NOT mean SLUMS! Why do people think that? Talk about steriotyping!!

Where do all of you live? People are people and we all need a place to live. Black, white, green or purple, we are all PEOPLE.

[New Cromwell resident]

First off Ferry and Green Streets may be better than they used to be (still wouldn't be caught there at night) but the scum just moved up to Grand Street and ruined that area. Secondly the Mayor saying he's upset because the devloper got to sweet of a deal is totally hypocritical. Look at the sweet deal he gave those crooks at Harbor Park. Maybe the Mayor is just upset he didn't get a piece of that pie too.

[Brandon]

Jules wrote:

OMG! You people are sick. Low income does NOT mean SLUMS! Why do people think that? Talk about steriotyping!!
Where do all of you live? People are people and we all need a place to live. Black, white, green or purple, we are all PEOPLE.

I agree with afordable housing for people with jobs who are paying all their own bills, those people don't make slums. The families of 4 living on $40,000 a year of their own money and $20,000 a year in hand outs are the ones that will trash this place. How about affordable housing built for people who are will to work to afford it. I live on $40,000 a year with my son how about my affordable housing since I pay my bills with my own money and don't trash where I live. I could afford more but I have to support the people in the articles that the Courant rights about, welfare lifers, affordable housing scammers, and all the low life trash this socialist state breeds.

[Yippiiiiieeeeee]

Agreed Butane....agreed.

[Shaking my head]

I live in wharfside. Moved here recently and I love the apartments inside they are brand new but I hate the outside with all the wannabe thugs hanging around. A majority of the time the people that are causing the trouble at wharfside or hanging outside do not live here. Parents let their kids stay here all time of the night then they go home. This is not the slums because when I leave for work in the morning there are hardly any cars in the parking lot which means a lot of working poor live here. If the management can get it together and kick the people out that need to be out then the tenants who pay our rent on time, don't cause trouble, and respect our neighbors will be much happier and much safer. Another problem is Ferry St has a reputation of being in the ghetto and filled with bad stuff and the people continue to believe it so they continue to let it happen. I wasn't raised in the ghetto, nor have I ever wanted to be ghetto like. I am an independent black woman who with the help of my parents graduated in May with a Msters degree in Social Work. You will never see me caught up in the ghetto life but for some this is how they were raised and this is how they will stay. Overall I love Wharfside but something does need to be done about the criminal activity before it gets out of control.

[steve01]

Jules wrote:

OMG! You people are sick. Low income does NOT mean SLUMS! Why do people think that? Talk about steriotyping!!
Where do all of you live? People are people and we all need a place to live. Black, white, green or purple, we are all PEOPLE.

Give me a break and get back to reality. I hate when people dodge the facts.

[Shawn M Lang]

Brandon wrote:

<quoted text>
I agree with afordable housing for people with jobs who are paying all their own bills, those people don't make slums. The families of 4 living on $40,000 a year of their own money and $20,000 a year in hand outs are the ones that will trash this place. How about affordable housing built for people who are will to work to afford it. I live on $40,000 a year with my son how about my affordable housing since I pay my bills with my own money and don't trash where I live. I could afford more but I have to support the people in the articles that the Courant rights about, welfare lifers, affordable housing scammers, and all the low life trash this socialist state breeds.

While you're trashing people, how about backing up your "claim" of the "$20,000 in handouts"?

[Haddam Resident]

Hey Jules - Give me a break! YOu honestly don;t think low income housing means slums. Take a look around the USA. Anywhere there is subsidized low income housing there is a slum. it's not stereotyping it's reality.

[Hartford Stinx]

Name one place wher "Low income housing" has improved an area! Ten years from now the tenants will have ruined the place and we will be calling it the projects.

[Ethan]

I grew up in that area (not proud),
it is really worse now than it ever was,
during the 70s and 80s you had a better
mix of people, after that, it just got worse and worse.

[jack]

The place is 22 million dollar dump. Go to 80 ferry street and you will find drug dealers hanging out their first floor windows selling crack, this place gives new meaning to street level drug dealing. A couple of years ago the middletown police dept. announced with great fanfare (press conference at city hall, tv coverage etc.)it's new "North
end
impact
squad" a four person team to patrol Liberty, Pearl, and Grand streets.But it was a lie, you can't find a cop anywhere in the north end.... time for the national guard to come in.

[Tom]

The reality is, the problem always seems worse than it is--due to negative reporting.

You rarely see anything written about the success stories in these areas. Yet hundreds of times each day people go to these areas with no problems.

A different slant on how the article was written would have made it seem like a huge success. But that doesn't sell newspapers.

[hartfordisadisas ter]

Years ago in Springfield, they built the Riverview Apts...5 or 6 hi-rise buildings. In the ensuing years, the tenants absolutely destroyed the place, even to the point of taking out copper piping and selling it. When it got to the point of being almost uninhabitable, the tenants held a protest, demanding to know why they were being forced to live in such squalid conditions. Of course, they had made it that way.If you look at any low income housing project, this will very likely be the outcome.