Videos

New Video: More Old Wethersfield

In this video I talk about the historic buildings on Main Street in Wethersfield from the intersection with Church Street north to Hanmer Park. I cover the Greek Revival-style John Williams House, the former home and office of Dr. Erastus Cooke, the former church that’s now Griffith Academy, the former Masonic Hall, the Simeon Belden House, Comstock, Ferre & Co., the Rev. James Lockwood House, Trinity Episcopal Church, the Charles C. Hart Seed Company, the site of the Stillman Tavern (where Rochambeau stayed in 1781), the Second Empire-style Edward Robbins House, the houses of Allyn, Timothy and Henry Stillman, the Lemuel May House, the former High Street School, the houses of Francis and Capt. John Bulkeley, Ebenezer Talcott and Maj. David Hills, the Mansard-roofed. Capt. Daniel Francis House, the Cape. Jesse Goodrich House, the Porter-Belden House (some of its paneling is now in the Brooklyn Museum), Hanmer Park and the impressive brick Samuel Woodhouse, Jr. House.

New Video: Some Great Buildings in Old Wethersfield

In this video I take you on a tour of the section of the Old Wethersfield Historic District on Main Street south of the Keeney Center and a bit eastwards on Garden Street. I talk about the Old Academy, the 1898 Grange Hall, Temple Beth Torah, the former Sacred Heart Catholic Church and several historic houses/taverns.

New Video: A Tour of the Center of Old Wethersfield

In this video I cover the historic area around the intersection of Main, Marsh and Church Streets in Wethersfield, CT. Highlights include the 1761 First Church, the Deming-Standish House, the Hurlbut-Dunham House, the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum and the Keeney Memorial Cultural Center.

New Video on Mark Twain’s Hartford Neighborhood: Nook Farm

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.

New Video: Hartford’s Lost Needham’s Corner, Main Street Before the Highway

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.

New Video on Lost Hartford CT: Intersection of Main and Morgan Streets Before the Highway

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).

New Video: Main Street, Hartford, Before the Pennant at North Crossing

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.