Mark Twain lived for 20 years in the neighborhood of Nook Farm in Hartford, Connecticut, 17 of them in his own house, which is now a museum. This video is about Mark Twain’s house in the context of Nook Farm and the houses of his neighbors, who included Harriet Beecher Stowe, John and Isabella Beecher Hooker, the young William Gillette, Charles Dudley Warner and his brother George H. Warner, and many others. Katharine Hepburn later grew up in a house in Nook Farm.
The building at Needham’s Corner, right at the point where Main Street in Hartford, CT bends to the northwest, existed for over 90 years before it and its neighbors was demolished circa 1961 to make way for Interstate 84. The building was erected in 1868 as the home and liquor business of Michael C. Needham and was later occupied by the liquor business of Colonel William Donague and his partner Philip S. Kennedy. During Prohibition, other businesses moved in, but from 1933, until it was taken down, the building was home to two restaurants: first the Tally-ho and then the Tiara.
North of Morgan Street, where I-84 passes under Main Street in Hartford, Connecticut, once stood Rev. Horace Bushnell’s North Congregational Church. It was later Germania Hall and then Herrup’s Furniture store, which burned down in 1932. North of it on Village Street was the Silver Brothers Building. South of Morgan Street, there’s now a parking lot that was once the location of the the Cadden Building (Demolished 1920), the First Baptist Church (demolished 1927), and the 7-story Pilgard Building (demolished in 1965).
This video is about the buildings and some of the businesses that existed on Main Street in Hartford, Connecticut, in the area where the new apartment building called the Pennant at North Crossing stands today, near Dunkin’ Park.
Before Dunkin’ (Donuts) Park was built in Hartford, Connecticut, there was a parking lot and before that a car dealership there. But before that there was a dense row of buildings that included a hotel, as well as wall paper, hardware and furniture stores. Find out about this lost piece of Old Hartford. Also, check out my 1 minute log YouTube short about the Webb House in Wethersfield: https://youtube.com/shorts/KRde3UyBGnc?si=_kkntKyBST93nRS5
My Books (These are links to Amazon and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases):
A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut: https://amzn.to/4bNbiAR
Vanished Downtown Hartford: https://amzn.to/3IhK7Ao
This video focuses on the buildings of Saint Francis Hospital that were built before the early 1970s, some of which survive and some of which are lost. These include the old Chinese Education Mission and Saint Thomas Seminary buildings on Collins Street that were later demolished. I also talk about the former National Fire Insurance Company Building on Farmington Avenue that the hospital acquired in the 1970s and the historic Collins and Dunham Houses once stood there. I end by briefly mentioning the hospital’s more recent buildings, including the parking garage currently under construction.
This video gives a brief history of the houses on Charter Oak Place in the city of Hartford, Connecticut. I talk about houses that survive from the nineteenth century as well as a few houses that have been lost.