In the early 20th century, Harry Bond had a hospitality empire in Hartford, CT. He opened the Bond Restaurant downtown in 1908. The Hotel Bond on Asylum Street was built in two stages: 1912-1913 and 1920-1921. Bond also acquired two other nearby hotels, which he named the Bond Annex and the Bondmore. Bond died in 1935 and his hotel empire, facing competition from the new Hotel Statler, eventually went bankrupt in the 1950s. Special thanks to Lawrence Plourde for permission to use his photographs of the Thomas Hooker (formerly Bond Annex) Hotel.
Today, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Hebron has a brick Federal style appearance, but when it was erected in 1826, it was more extravagantly Gothic, with numerous turrets and pinnacles. It was thought to have been modeled on a church that Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis had seen in Italy (and was even referred to as “Jarvis’ Folly”). At the time, Bishop Brownell said that it was the second most beautiful church in the diocese after Trinity Church in New Haven. An unusual feature of the design is that the tower is located at the rear of the building rather than the front. The building has had a number of alterations and renovations over the years. The parish was established in 1734, when the controversial Congregational minister Rev. John Bliss and his followers declared themselves for the Church of England and formed the sixth Episcopal church in Connecticut.
This video is about an urban renewal project in Hartford’s old East Side that coincided with the construction of the Bulkely Bridge in the first decade of the twentieth century. The old riverfront area was cleared to make way for the construction of the new Connecticut Boulevard. The demolished buildings included old houses, tenements, warehouses and businesses dating to a lively period along the city’s waterfront. These changes took place almost a half century before the destruction that preceded the building of Constitution Plaza and the interstate highways.
This is my second video about the 1877 Bird’s Eye View of Hartford. I talk about 5 interesting things: 1) the State Arsenal that was located at Main & Pavilion Streets from 1818 to 1909; 2) the original Union Station that stood from 1843 to 1886; 3) the lost Lord’s Hill, or Garden Street, Reservoir; 4) the stalled development of Hartford’s West End in the 1870s; and 5) the Charter Oak Park harness racing track.
This video is about a Bird’s-Eye view of Hartford published in 1877. I talk about 5 interesting things that are depicted in this view: 1) the covered bridge that connected Hartford and East Hartford across the Connecticut River from 1818 until it burned in 1895; 2) the old Post Office building that stood on the lawn of the Old State House from 1873 to 1933; 3) the old Hartford Baseball Grounds where the Hartford Dark Blues played from 1874 to 1876; 4) Dutch Point, where the Park River meets the Connecticut River; and 5) the original grand plan for the campus of Trinity College
This video is about a long lost bank building and two stones lions that are now in front of the Arch Street entrance of the Municipal Building in Hartford, Connecticut. Between 1817 and 1964, there were four successive versions of the Phoenix National Bank building on main Street, across from the Old State House. The stone lions started out along the roof line of two wings that were added to the original Phoenix Bank in 1827. When the second Phoenix Bank was built in 1873, the lions were moved to the sidewalk in front of the building. There they remained until 1912, when the city ordered them removed for encroaching on the sidewalk and they were transferred to the Municipal Building. The second Phoenix Bank was remodeled with a totally new exterior and rear addition in 1905 and the final version of the bank was erected in 1924. It was torn down 40 years later.
I have written posts about the first three Phoenix National Bank buildings on this website:
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