Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Savitt Jewelers was a beloved Hartford institution, famous for the slogan P.O.M.G. (Peace of Mind Guaranteed). For half a century the store was located on the south side of Asylum Street. In this video, I talk about Savitt’s and some of the earlier businesses that existed in the same section of Asylum Street going back to the nineteenth century. These included a number of clothiers, one whose fame was compared to that of Lord Byron. Another clothing store was run by a former Hartford mayor and yet another was damaged during a major riot caused by the distribution of free suspenders.

This video is about a lost section of Allyn Street, between Trumbull and Ann Streets in Hartford Connecticut, before the Civic Center (now called the XL Center) was built in the early 1970s.

The Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut opened in January 1975. The roof collapsed in 1978 and was rebuilt in 1980. The Civic Center became the XL Center in 2007. Long before the Civic Center was built, the block of Trumbull Street between Asylum Street and Church Street had several notable (and now lost) buildings, like the lavish Allyn House Hotel, the Hartford County Court House and the City Club Building.

This is my presentation recorded live earlier today for the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum: “When Hartford Was a Retail Hub: the Growth of the City’s Great Department Stores (1890s – 1960s).”

This video is about the buildings that Hartford Hospital erected at its main campus between 1857 and 1972. Many of these are now lost, including many of the hospital’s brownstone buildings erected in the early nineteenth century and early twentieth century.