In Connecticut: A Fair Goes Dark

By Joelle Attinger

Smack in the center of the red-and-white-striped big top, Arlene Yaple, 63, surveys her domain: prize pumpkins, homemade brownies, dried cornstalks, okra and an American flag crafted of apples and grapes. Square dancers do-si-do to the bidding of a caller on a stage near by, while curious passers-by gape at a 325-lb. squash lying near Yaple's feet. Above the huge oval ring where the plump, gray-haired woman is sitting hangs a carefully lettered wooden sign that reads, "Arlene Yaple: for 35 years superintendent of Granges and Big Top displays. Danbury Fair thanks you for the great job you have done."

It is Columbus Day, usually a time to honor man's thirst for discovery. But in Danbury this year, it is a time for nostalgia and reflection. Tonight the big top is closing down for good. "We always say see you next year," Yaple muses. "This year, we aren't saying anything. We're all disappearing in the darkness."

Everyone knew it was inevitable.

Started in 1869, the Danbury State Fair had become an anachronism. It celebrated the farm at a time when farms hereabouts can be counted on two hands. But how people loved it: hundreds of thousands streamed through its gates every year to gawk at the livestock, ride the Ferris wheel and gorge on Italian submarine sandwiches and homemade pies. Finally, this stubborn outpost of rural sentiment could hold out no longer.

Sandwiched between Interstate 84 and Route 7, the lifelines of Connecticut's suburban sprawl, the 142-acre fairground was gobbled up by Wilmorite Inc., a Rochester, N.Y. , development firm. Wilmorite plans to construct one of New England's largest shopping malls, with more than a million square feet of commercial space. It will be called the Danbury Fair Mall, and the developers anticipate that it will draw nearly 35,000 customers a day, generate between $200 million and $300 million in sales annually, and stand in blacktop splendor as a testimonial to the properous future of Danbury (pop. 60,470).

"If this is what they call progress, fine", wearily says Leroy E. Paltrowitz, 75, who has been the fair's public relations director for the past 40 years. He pulls at his battered fedora, then adds, voice breaking: "But after 112 years, this is a sad ending to a remarkable and beautiful existence. I just hate to see it go."

Like Paltrowitz, most Danburyites are of two minds about the shopping center. Says Mayor James E. Dyer, 35: "As a citizen, I don't like it. But as mayor, I believe the mall offers some tremendous economic gains for Danbury."

Signs of Danbury's rapid progress are everywhere. Across Interstate 84, a good stone's throw from the big top, Ethan Allen, the furniture outfit, has established its corporate headquarters, complete with its own hotel to accommodate company personnel. Just a few miles to the west, Union Carbide is settling into its new corporate headquarters on a 674-acre site purchased in 1976 for $14 million. Near by is the Danbury Hilton Inn and Conference Center, which opened last summer to handle the flow of business travelers to Union Carbide. A 250-room Sheraton now on the drawing boards will compete with the Hilton for Danbury's new and generally well-heeled visitors. "This is a city in transition," boasts Dyer, leaning back in a leather chair in his modern wood-paneled office. "It is becoming a white-collar community."

The arrival of Union Carbide in what had long been a predominantly blue-collar town ignited a speculative fever. "Within a day," recalls Stephen Collins, editorial director of the Danbury News-Times, "houses jumped $10,000 in price, and by the end of the week another $10,000 was tacked on." Land on the west side now goes for an astonishing $200,000 an acre, even as much as $250,000 if it's road-front, and houses in town are bringing record six-figure prices. "Danbury," says Dyer with unabashed relish, "is on the move."

For decades this city in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains was bypassed while suburban development created a gold coast among its neighbors to the south. A good two hours by commuter rail from New York City, Danbury was considered too far away, yet not quite rural enough for those seeking bucolic refuge from city life.

No more. Farmer Lewis Hurlbut, whose family has lived here for five generations, finds himself suddenly surrounded by Manhattan transplants, "most of them professional people." Actor Dustin Hoffman lives down the road, not far from Author William Styron. Hurlbut owns one of six working farms left in Roxbury, a tranquil village to the north of Danbury. With a shrug, he says flatly: "There's not much you can do about it, is there? It's happening everywhere."

But inevitability does not make the transition any easier, especially for those Danburyites who have seen their city shift from farming to hatmaking to light industry without its essential character changing. And one emblem of constancy had always been the fair. Back in 1946, the fairground was taken over by a local man, John W. Leahy, who in the early 1920s transformed his machine shop into one of the largest oil and gas distributorships in the area. Leahy journeyed as far as London to buy some stock from a shareholder in the society that had run the fair since its founding. Once in control, the flamboyant Leahy rejuvenated the event, paving walkways, bringing in rides, building a model New England village with wooden fronts bought from the Grand Central railway, placing hundreds of gargantuan plastic animals and figures around the fairground. It was a unique blend of 4-H club, carnival and circus.

Danbury's Barnum died in 1975, and the trustees of his estate carried on his legacy, though without the master's flair and brio. Despite record crowds and steady profits, the undeniable lure of a $24 million offer from Wilmorite spelled the end for Danbury's autumnal rite. "It's a shame," admits Fred G. Fearn, one of the estate's executors, his purple fair badge resplendent on his red ultrasuede jacket, "but we had no choice."

As the crowds leave the big top for the last time, there is talk of other fairs carrying on Danbury's traditions. But the old-timers know better: they pack up their ribbons and memories with quiet resignation. Who could forget "The Great Wilno," a leather-clad stuntman who in 1929 was shot out of a cannon over the heads of startled spectators. Or the drenching downpours of 1939, or the clear, crisp days that came to be known as "Leahy's Luck." Or even Cheetah the chimp, who ate hot dogs, swilled soda and adjusted her sunglasses in 1968. Says Vivian Husted, 75, a handsome, white-haired woman from neighboring Oxford who has been showing her sheep for over 35 years, "I wouldn't want to try to replace this. I'd rather just give it up."

Outside the simple sheep barn, a few visitors take their last look at Leahy's New England village, set behind a large pond. Others crane at the 40-ft.-tall plastic man or gaze fondly over the fairground. Some vendors wear black armbands, but it is a futile gesture of mourning. Buying their last baked potato with sour cream and bacon, taking their last aim at ducks in the gallery shoot, or sizing up a young heifer, most visitors seem oblivious or indifferent to the fact that they are among the last to attend the Great Danbury State Fair.

With a wry smile, Preston Davenport 78, looks over the dwindling crowd. In 35 Octobers here, his Ayrshires and Holsteins have won a slew of blue ribbons, anc he has come to know a thing or two abou fairgoers. "Everyone has been saying how much they are going to miss it," he says quietly. "But, you'll see. In a month or so they'll be onto something else." That is the comfort of progress--and its regrettable price. --By Joelle Attinger

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