*Waterbury from the west, with Union Station clock tower at left.*

“My past is not pleasant; I grew up in a very tough town, Waterbury, Connecticut. I grew up in New York {City}, too, but Waterbury was tougher.’’

— Dylan McDermott, TV actor

Editor’s note: He’s right. I lived near Waterbury for four years and it’s a tough town, although the communities around it are fairly sedate and bucolic. Waterbury is an old manufacturing city, once nicknamed “The Brass Capital of the World.’’ It was a major center for making watches and clocks (think Timex) as well as most anything made of brass.

The Naugatuck River flows through the middle of it, a major reason for its rise to prominence; the river provided the power for the first factories. I well remember the river’s vivid changing colors depending on which toxic chemicals companies were pouring directly into the Naugatuck. No EPA then!

Floods from Hurricane Diane, in 1955, did tremendous damage along the river.

Despite the city’s rather gritty reputation, it has a fine museum, the Mattatuck.