Ward S. Jacobs House (1929)

The Colonial Revival house at 70 Terry Road in Hartford was built in 1929 and is currently home to the Gengras family (only the third family to live in the house). It was designed by the architectural firm of Smith & Bassette for Ward S. Jacobs. The architects’ plans for the house are in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, as well as a color film of the property from 1941 that shows Editha Jacobs tending to her garden and her husband, Ward S. Jacobs, mowing the lawn. Ward S. Jacobs was a mechanical engineer. In 1908, he acquired the patent and equipment for a device to remove broken taps, created by John Kinvall of Worchester, Massachusetts in 1902. Jacobs named his new enterprise the Walton Company, after the maiden name of his grandmother, Albina Walton Jacobs. He sold the business in 1936. The above photograph was taken in December, 2017, during the 37th Annual Friends of the Mark Twain House Holiday House Tour.

Connecticut Science Center (2009)

Happy New Year!! For New Year’s Day, here’s a relatively new “historic” building that’s become a modern Hartford landmark. The Connecticut Science Center, designed by César Pelli, was erected as part of the city’s Adriaen’s Landing development. The Science Center is nine stories, 154,000 square feet and is the first science center to generate most of its power from an on-site fuel cell. The Center opened its doors in 2009.

Union Station, Hartford (1889)

Hartford’s Union Station is located between Union Place and Spruce Street, north of Asylum Street at the western end of the city’s downtown. The original Union Station was an Italianate structure built in 1849. It was replaced by a new station, built in 1887-1889. Hartford architect George Keller initially conceived the design, but the plans were drawn up by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge of Boston. A fire in February 1914 gutted the building‘s roof and interior. The structure was repaired and rebuilt, but instead of the original hipped roof with large gables on the Prospect Place Side, the building was raised to a full third story. A major restoration of Union Station was completed in 1987. Future alterations to the rail line and platforms will need to be made as part of the I-84 Hartford Project. (more…)

Atlantic Screw Works (1902)

At the corner of Charter Oak Avenue and Wyllys Street in Hartford is a former factory complex erected by the Atlantic Screw Works, which built machines to manufacture screws. The company was established in 1877 in New York State, but moved to Hartford in 1879. It was originally based in rented space in the Colt Armory. By 1902 the company was ready to erect its own building. The earliest section of their new factory (on the right in the image above) was built in 1902-1903. The longer section (on the left in the image above), designed by Davis & Brooks, was built c. 1910 and more than doubled the company’s operating capabilities. The company lasted into the 1970s and the building was converted to office space in the 1980s.

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Our Lady of Fatima Church, Hartford (1988)

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Parish was established in Hartford in 1958 to serve the local community of immigrants from Portugal and the Azores. The founding pastor, Father José Dias Martins da Silva, purchased a vacant Danish Lutheran Church on Russ Street where the parish worshiped until the basement chapel of a new church was completed in 1986. Our Lady of Fatima Church, located at 50 Kane Street in Hartford, was dedicated on April 30, 1988. The parish also later erected a community center.