The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-15
SteepIechase Closes as Amuse- ment Resort Today and Work of BuIkheading Will Soon Begin
Property Will Probably be Cut Into Manufacturing Sites and Sold, After Area is Much En- larged by Filling
Captain Paul Boyton Says That Property is so Valuable That it Cannot be Made to Pay as
 Amusement Resort - Over
 head Charges $50, ,OO0 a Year

Steepleca.ase Island today closed it
 gates to the public of Bridgeport probably forever. According to pres
 ent plans the island will be cut up in ! to factory sites. It has already beer surveyed for that purpose and a mum
 Der of man1facturers have made bids for locations.
 Capt. Paul Boyton, in an interview
 with a Farmer reporter, declared to ' dav that as far as George c. Tilyou
 0wner q the Island, and he Capt I Boytum) are concerned, Steeplechase
 has ended it's career as an amusement
 resort i-The bare fact of the matter. is \ that the investment in the dsfand F ! too enormous to permit of any proh' I as an amusement resort It Is sim- ' ply impossible" declared Capt. Boy | .@rhe interest on the investment 1; alone amounts to $24.000 a year. Then {; the fixed expenses, cut down to nht
 very lowest item, amount to from | ss0.ooo to ss5.0oo a year, making 2 to, | tai Of between $55,0 900 and $60.0OO oa fixed expenses every year, which mus ! be met before the island can make ! a cent of profit.
 ssr1nf3er such circumstances, profit ab3e amusement resort is absolutely impossible. If Bridgeport were a city of tO0, 900 inhabitants. the island might | jurt about pull through But endel rhe circumstances an amusement re- I sort 1s out of the question | s~The fate Of the island will be de- ! fermine1 It a conference to be held in New York within e few days. Unless some proposition turns uE that is at preeent entirely unexpected and unknown tg me, the island win be cut up into nnan,Ttacfuri-ag Sstes- H { nns already been surveyed TOT thE nulpn0ge and terta tive offers ha ye Teen resolved from manufacturers s<lGo matter what disposition of the ! land Is made. one course has already been decided upon. Bull<heads will | he built on two sides, and filled in, from the harbor line, more than quad 1arpllnE the ieland's size"
 Capt Boyt0n then showed on map where the bulkheads will rum. One af them will begin about midway in I tl1e north side of the Steeplechase chase draw bridge All the space be- ' tween this bullzhead and the island I will then be filled in. probably by i huge pumps, sucking up sand and | mud from outside and thus serving | the double purpose of filling in the bu1hhead space. and clearing out the basin outside.
 This space will give an additional | area fully equal to the present size of the island
 On the other side. in what is known as 'sLewis gut'', bull1headl will be I constructed from the Steeplechase end < Of the Steeplechase pier, running south the length of the island and termin- ating at Long Beach. This will add
 to the island very substantial strip
 of land
 On the southern extremity of the
 island, Nature is filling in with great
 rapidfty, washing away that portion
 of the island known as Long Beach
 and dumping it in the hollow of the
 Steeplecnase breakwater.
 This, in the course of a few years,
 will give an area three or four times
 the present area of Steeplechase Is- ! land
 Thus with the natural and artificial [ fiIHng-in process at work, Steeplechase ' will be enormously increased in size,
 and will afford room for hundreds of big factories.
 incidentally it will afford a splendid anchorage basin outside Of Steepde- chase Island and will remove the mud
 banks on which the U. s. Training
 Ship Machias was stranded yester-
 day.
 We will have excellent water facil-
 ities and are planning for railroad
 connections, so that the island will af-
 ford ideal manufacturing sites" de-
 clared Capt Boyton. 'aThfs is the
 only way in which the present lessees
 of the island can get back their
 money. In view of the great de-
 mand for manufacturing sites in the
 city. the island will become a very
 impOrtant acquisition"