About Jay & Geralene

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It was 1989 . . . 

Jay Misencik and Geralene Valentine owned and operated a commercial photography studio in Bridgeport, CT. They worked in approximately 5,000 square feet of renovated loft space in a 100-year-old brick building that once was home to The Rose Dress Factory.

In the Summer of 1989, Jay and Geralene began a cultural heritage documentary-style photography and storytelling project. They used black and white film to do environmental portraits of people with different occupations on Bridgeport’s Main Street. Among those photographed were a barber, a butcher, a bootblack, a bank president, a museum curator, a psychic, and a newspaper “boy” who would soon celebrate his 80th birthday. They produced a 1993 calendar with the photographs and exhibited photos from the series at The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport and Agfa-Gevaert trade show exhibits in New York City. The Main Street photo series tells a story about the end of a generation, the end of an era in Bridgeport.

While photographing people on Main Street, Jay and Geralene began focusing on buildings, signs, and murals throughout Bridgeport. These “constructed objects” each make their own comment about the city. In 1991, they began photographing the long-shuttered Palace and Majestic Theatres on Main Street in Bridgeport’s downtown.

In 1993, The Thomas Merton House of Hospitality (a local “soup kitchen”) asked Jay and Geralene to do a series of guest portraits and produce a 1994 calendar for a Merton House fundraiser. The calendar was so successful that they produced another series of portraits for a 1999 calendar. Currently, they are producing a series of portraits to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Thomas Merton Family Center for an exhibit at Connecticut State Community College Housatonic in Bridgeport.

In 2015, they complemented their Palace and Majestic Theatre series of architectural photos with a series of portraits of people who had a connection to the 1922 vintage theatres. Jay and Geralene photographed former usher-

ettes, “candy girls,” a man who play-boxed his father on stage in 1931, women who had a first date at these theatres with the “boy” they would eventually marry, and the last manager of the theatres. They recorded stories from each participant about what theatres meant to a city’s downtown. In 2017, Jay and Geralene published a book about the theatres, titled “Poli’s Palace & Majestic Theatres Memories Project.”

In 2014, Jay and Geralene began their currently ongoing Bridgeport Portrait Project

. . . straightforward, color, “studio type” portraits of everyday people from different neighborhoods throughout Bridgeport. They continue photographing people at different locations (libraries, churches, sidewalks, The Klein Memorial Auditorium, The Barnum Museum, Seaside Park, and the Beardsley Zoo) throughout the city. They also record each person telling their story. This series complements the earlier “occupation portraits” on Main Street and helps to show the evolving cultures of the city.

Photographs and stories from The Bridgeport Portrait Project have been exhibited at the Schelfhaudt Gallery at the University of Bridgeport in 2020 and at the Housatonic Museum of Art in 2023. A book about the project is in production.

Their projects are ongoing and have always overlapped each other. In 30-plus years, Jay and Geralene have created a “micro-history” of Bridgeport. The Bridgeport Portrait Project is a little bit history and a little bit current events. The "photo and audio portraits" have

a cultural heritage character that give a contemporary definition to the culturally diverse community that the city of Bridgeport has always been.

Jay and Geralene bring people together so everyone better understands and appreciates each other. The Bridgeport Portrait Project participants share their stories of hopes and beliefs . . . culture and heritage. Project participants show Bridgeport’s true strength and character. They define Bridgeport and show why the city is so much more than just

a PLACE.