Large sections of downtown Hartford, Connecticut were destroyed in the 1950s to 1980s to make way for large-scale building projects. We may debate the quality and benefits of what was built, but the lost neighborhoods can not be replaced. Let me know in the comments what you think of my list of obliterations.
My latest Substack article is about Buckingham Square Park, which is located at the corner of Main Street and Buckingham Street in downtown Hartford. I describe the park’s origins, which go back to 1830, and then explore times when the park was a subject of public debate: the 1840s, when a grocer wanted to place hay scales there; the 1880s, when a plan by the city to landscape the park led to complaints by the neighbors; and 1930, when many disliked the unemployed men who gathered there to sit on benches at the onset of the Great Depression.
John Pierpont Morgan, the famous banker of the Gilded Age, was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His grandfather, Joseph Morgan, had arrived in Hartford in 1816 and had success as the owner of the popular Exchange Coffee House. Joseph’s son, Junius Spencer Morgan, was a partner in a Hartford dry goods business before he left to become a prominent banker in London. J. Pierpont Morgan was born in his grandfather’s house on Asylum Street in 1837 and his childhood home was on Farmington Avenue. His Hartford cousins were the prominent Goodwin brothers. J. S. and J. P. Morgan were generous benefactors of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. They are buried in the city’s Cedar Hill Cemetery.
This video is about the branches in downtown Hartford of four major variety stores: F. W. Woolworth Co., W. T. Grant Co., J. J. Newberry Co., and S. S. Kresge Co.
There was once a hotel at the corner of Trumbull and Pratt Streets in Hartford. When it was torn down in the early 1920s it was called the Clifton House. Earlier, it was known as the Madison House and before that, in the early 1890s, as the Pratt Street House. My latest Substack article is about an unusual incident that took place at the hotel in 1892.
This video is about a section of Main Street in Hartford that was depicted in a 1774 map showing several buildings that existed there at the time. In the video I talk about the people who occupied these structures, including a pastor who was dismissed for drunkenness, an indebted surgeon and apothecary who sold enslaved people, and a young widow who took the Connecticut Courant newspaper.
Check out my latest article on Substack. It’s the story of a shoe store manager who left Hartford (and his wife and family) the day after Christmas, 1917 on a cross-country spending spree with a young woman using embezzled funds.
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