Putnam Building, Hartford (1860)

The Putnam Building is on Central Row in Hartford, sandwiched between two early skyscrapers, the Hartford-Connecticut Trust Company building of 1920, on the right, and the Travelers Insurance Company building of 1928, on the left. Built around 1860, the Putnam Building is typical of the many brownstone commercial buildings, influenced by the style of the Italian Renaissance, that were constructed in downtown Hartford at the time. A historic photo in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society shows the building in 1904, with the two skyscrapers’ predecessors on either side of it: the old Hartford Trust Company building on the right and the Marble Block on the left. Another historic photograph, found in the 1895 book, Hartford and its Points of Interest, shows the building when the Hartford Coffee House Co. was one of its tenants.

The presence of the Putnam Building was acknowledged when the Hartford Trust Company skyscraper was built (to the right) in 1920, as the limestone base section of that later building matches the height of its nineteenth-century neighbor. In turn, the ground floor of the Putnam building was remodeled in granite in the 1920s, reflecting the style of the then recently built adjacent structure.