New Video: The old Lord & Taylor, Bishops Corner, West Hartford

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Lord & Taylor had its first department store outside the greater New York area at Bishops Corner in West Hartford Connecticut. In this video I describe the store, which opened with great fanfare in 1953 and moved out (to Westfarms Mall) in 1983. I also talk about the adjacent shopping center, the Dutchland Farms dairy restaurant and summer pony rides that had previously existed on the site in the 1930s and 40s, and the attempts by local residents to block the building of Lord & Taylor.

New Video: Before City Place (Old Asylum Street in Hartford, Connecticut)

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This video is about what once existed on a block of Asylum Street in Hartford, CT where the City Place office towers were built in the 1980s. This included the house where J. P. Morgan was born, the sites of many historic Hartford businesses (including music stores, Turkish baths, bakeries and clothing stores), and a controversial mural that sparked public debate in the 1970s.