Bridgeport

Seaside Village: An Example of Wartime Housing

Off Iranistan Avenue in South End

Story 3

Story 3

Bridgeport

Seaside Village: An Example of Wartime Housing

Off Iranistan Avenue in South End

Construction of Seaside Village at the Crane Tract. 1919, Francis Loeb Library at Harvard University.

Off Iranistan Avenue in South End

43 Sims St, Bridgeport, CT 06604

What

One of eight housing developments constructed by the United States Housing Corporation during World War I to meet the housing shortage encountered by laborers in the war industries.

Impact

When wartime laborers found little access to or availability of housing in areas where the industrial sector was rapidly escalating, the federal government took it upon themselves to construct new housing out of a need to assist those who were involved in the war effort at home.

The Crane Tract, which would later grow into Seaside Village, was one such example located in the South End of Bridgeport. Crane Corporation owned the land Seaside Village was on, and the United States Housing Corporation constructed housing on the site which was within walking distance from their factories.

Why? Spatialized?

By 1955, the rentals at Seaside Village became owner-occupied when nearly all tenants agreed to become a housing cooperative. It continues to be a successful, well-maintained community whose inception came from federal dollars.

Comparably, the Marina Village federally-funded public housing across the street encountered the exact opposite, an experience of disinvestment into demolition across the decades. These two examples show the stark comparison when federal dollars are backed by support for a housing model.