The Corning Building is at the southwest corner of Main and Asylum Streets in Hartford. Today’s Corning Building was built in 1928–30 and replaced an earlier Corning Building on the site, which dated to the 1870s. Before that, the three-story Robinson and Corning Building stood here. Dating to the 1820s, it was long home to the Brown & Gross bookstore, which later moved to Asylum Street. Arriving by train to deliver a speech in Hartford on March 5, 1860, future president Abraham Lincoln walked up Asylum Street to the bookstore, where he first met Gideon Welles, the editor of the Hartford Evening Press. Welles would later serve as Lincoln’s secretary of the navy. Dr. Horace Wells had his office here, where in 1844 he had a tooth successfully removed without pain after first inhaling laughing gas–the first use of anesthesia. A plaque was placed on the Corning Building in 1894 to honor Wells on the fiftieth anniversary of his discovery.
This building was built by my great uncle Joseph S. Cohn of Central Realty Co., and his partners, Dr. James Naylor and Judge Solomon Elsner.
To be more accurate, this building is actually at the corner of Main and Asylum.
David Parker, thank you for catching that. (Wow, that error’s been up there a decade!) I’ve just corrected it.