The Overlook neighborhood lies just above the Hillside neighborhood and was outside the village limits when developer Cornelius cables filed a plan in to develop the area as a garden suburb.
The plan included three sections: Highland Park and Columbia Park, both intended for single-family homes, and Cottage Park, intended for more modest homes. The centerpiece of the project was Columbia Boulevard, an expansive landscaped street winding across the hilltop. The success of the development, however, depended on its proximity to the trolley line, newly laid from the center of Waterbury to Waterville, running along the perimeter of Overlook up Willow Street and across Roseland Avenue.
An Overlook resident could ride the trolley downtown in only seven minutes. Although the neighborhood was strictly residential, several community institutions were permitted, including the Kingsbury School and McTernan School, a private boys school that merged with St. The former school on Columbia Boulevard has been converted to the Albanian Club. Fulton Park is a great neighborhood ornament. The acre park was established in by private gift of the Fulton family at site of the former Cooke Street reservoir.
Two-room schoolhouse designed by Cass Gilbert and built on Columbia Boulevard in It opened in as Miss Strong's School. Later renamed Mattatuck School, it became St. Margaret's "Little School" in The neighbors It was a comfortable and stable neighborhood to grow up in [during] the '30s and '40s.
When we lived on Cooke Street, that whole area was all woods. That was the end of the trolley line; the rest was woods from there on. There were always kids in the neighborhood.
