WATERBURY

Waterbury earned the nickname Brass City during the first half of the 20th century as the leading U.S. center for brassware manufacturing. Clock towers and repurposed factory buildings still mark the skyline across the city's 25 neighborhoods.

Palace Theater (Waterbury) is a 1922 venue restored to a 90,000-square-foot performance hall running over 175 shows a year — Broadway tours, concerts, and family programming. Seven Angels Theatre, housed in the historic Hamilton Park Pavilion since 1991, stages plays, musicals, and cabaret as the region's only professional repertory company.

Downtown anchors around the Waterbury Green, the original town commons, with the Palace Theater and Mattatuck Museum within walking distance. The surrounding neighborhoods — Town Plot, Brooklyn, Bunker Hill — each developed around ethnic communities with their own commercial corners.

Tip: The Gathering, held each September on the Green, is one of New England's larger multicultural festivals, representing over 100 countries — plan around it if you want to combine a show with street-level programming.

Neighborhoods: Downtown • Town Plot • Bunker Hill