Videos

Many buildings with interesting histories were torn down to make way for the construction of the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Municipal Building in Hartford, Connecticut. Buildings that used to stand between Main Street and Prospect Street, north of Arch Street, included the house of a notable figure from the American Revolution who was visited there by George Washington, the home of the Atheneum’s founder, the home of a prominent minister, and an Episcopal Church. Find out about these and other lost buildings in this video.

This video is about the buildings that once lined the south side of Pearl Street, east of Trumbull Street in Hartford, Connecticut. In the mid-1920s, when Pearl was considered the “Wall Street of Hartford” its buildings included the State Savings Bank, the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, the National Fire Insurance Company, the Dime Savings Bank and the Judd Building. All of these were demolished by the mid-1970s.

This is the first of a series of three videos about Pearl Street in Hartford. Here I cover the north side of Pearl, between Main & Trumbull Streets. I talk about the Phoenix Fire Insurance Building (later owned by Connecticut General Life Insurance), which was designed by H. H. Richardson,; the Mechanics Bank Savings Bank; the Corning Building; the mansard-roofed Halls of Record (built in 1853 and demolished in 1940) and others.

This video is about three colonial houses that once stood on Main Street in Hartford that were all torn down over 100 years ago: the Joseph Whiting House (built in the 1600s and torn down in 1914), the Governor Joseph Talcott House (built c. 1725 and torn down in 1900), and the Col. Samuel Talcott House (built in 1770 and torn down in 1898). These demolitions have interesting stories attached to them: the Whiting House had become a saloon which stayed in business even while the house was torn down around it and a new 6-story building was constructed in its place; the Joseph Talcott House was subject to years of legal wrangling between the property owners and the city that wanted to eliminate it; and numerous Revolutionary War relics were discovered during the demolition of the Samuel Talcott house. At the end of the video I also read a bonus newspaper story about a police carriage pursuit out to West Hartford in the year 1901.

My latest video is about Travelers Tower which was built in 4 stages between 1906 and 1927. The tower was built on the site of several older structures, including the Universalist Church and a house designed by Henry Austin. Two buildings that once housed the Aetna Insurance companies were later demolished to create the plaza just south of Travelers Tower.