John Clewes

JOHN CLEWES
CITY PLANNER
STREET DESIGNER
LANDSCAPER
HE
DESIGNED
BIRMINGHAM


This is an AI generated rendering of what John Clewes may have looked like as created by committee member Randy Ritter.

In 1835, building activity in the Borough of Birmingham was just beginning to take off as the focus of the city was about to shift from the old Uptown and Derby Landing areas on the east side of the Naugatuck River to the burgeoning manufacturing area that now makes up the downtown area of the city on the west side of the river. Sheldon Smith was the entrepreneur behind much of the new activity, and for a very short period of time the area was known as Smithville. The first houses were built along the newly designed layout that only a short time earlier had been an open field stretching up from the river. Smith hired Englishman John Clewes to bring order to the new development, and Clewes proceeded to lay out the streets, develop the landscaping and develop the plans for housing. The layout eventually featured streets running north and south bearing women's names and the streets running east and west were numbered.

John Clewes today might be called a city planner as well as an engineer. His work still stands as a monument to successful city planning and should serve as an inspiration to those trying to revitalize Clewes' 200 year old success. We don't have any pictures of him, so we'll use the above map in tribute to his outstanding work.

Clewes was noted as a stern taskmaster who also had a hand in the development of Ansonia. Development of Birmingham was so attractive that Smith and Anson Phelps who also owned land along with Smith avoided land speculation by demanding that anyone purchasing land in the area had to put a building on the property within one year of purchase ensuring that owners wouldn't just be "flipping" properties for profit.

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