Near the center of Bridgeport, northwest of Downtown is the Hollow neighborhood. The north side of the neighborhood is bounded by North Avenue (Route 1), the south side by Park Avenue, the east side by Washington Avenue, and the northeast side by Main Street.
There are approximately 0.42 square miles in this neighborhood, but it is the most densely populated in the city.
Since the early 1830s, the Hollow has been an immigrant neighborhood, as Irish and English immigrants moved there. Almost half of the area’s residents (44%) are Hispanic, which accounts for 30 percent of the population. Portuguese, Brazilians, and Cape Verdeans also make up a significant immigrant population.
Almost 77 percent of homes in the neighborhood are rented. The neighborhood is mainly multifamily residential. While the Hollow does not have any open spaces or parks, it does contain Sterling Hill, an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sterling Hill
In 1992, the Sterling Hill Historic District in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. As many as 43 residential structures date back to 1821 in the district’s two blocks. It was occupied predominantly by Irish working-class residents during the latter part of the 19th century. A majority of the early buildings are vernacular wood-frame structures with modest Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival details, with the later additions containing multi-family tenements in the Union Square neighborhood. A portion of the area is the city’s oldest urbanized area.
The Sterling Hill neighborhood is located on the northwest side of Golden Hill in Bridgeport. Sterling Street is named for Sylvanus Sterling, who built a saddle factory on Milne Street in the early 19th century after Bridgeport was incorporated in 1821. As the area developed, wealthy local businessmen, built homes along the hillside that offered views over the port and business center.
A few decades after the first railroad reached Bridgeport in the 1830s, the construction of the Trafalgar-style tenements began alongside the subdivision of many of the older residences into apartments. Several tenement-style buildings were replaced with more stylish multiunit buildings after the Civil War. During the 20th century, urban renewal took a large chunk of this neighborhood, but the area roughly bounded by Washington Avenue, James Street, Harral Avenue, and Pequonnock Street retains architectural traces of the development.
Parks
- Lafayette Park (Nanny Goat)
- Pequonnock Street Pocket Park