William H Thompson Archives - Page 4 of 6

Morgan Street from Market Street, Hartford, Connecticut

August 27, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking west on Morgan Street from Market Street, in May 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Morgan Street in 2016:

Like the view a little further east on Morgan Street, nothing is left from the first photo. Along with the other scenes of this neighborhood, the first photo shows a mix of architecture, dating as far back as the first half of the 19th century. By 1906, the street included some mid-19th century commercial buildings as well as several Greek Revival homes mixed in. Most of the signs are not readable with the photo resolution, but one on the far left indicates that the building was the home of the Socialist Educational Political Club.

Today, along with all of the buildings being demolished, even Morgan Street itself has been changed. In the first photo, it had trolley tracks running down the middle, but it now has an interstate highway in the middle. The street now consists of parallel eastbound and westbound sections, separated by Interstate 84. To the right in the 2016 photo is one of the highway ramps, connecting eastbound traffic on I-84 to northbound I-91.

Temporary Bridge, Hartford, Connecticut

August 27, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The bridge across the Connecticut River at Hartford, seen from the East Hartford side on September 9, 1903. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

For many years, the only bridge across the Connecticut River at Hartford was here at the site of the Bulkeley Bridge. In 1818, a covered bridge was built here, and it survived until May 17, 1895, when it was destroyed in a fire. With no other crossings available, a makeshift bridge was quickly built upstream of the ruins, opening just three weeks later. Before the end of the year it was washed away, but was replaced with the temporary bridge that is seen in the first photo.

As inconvenient as the loss of the old covered bridge may have been, it allowed Hartford the opportunity to build an elegant new bridge that reflected the city’s prosperity and importance. When the first photo was taken, work had already begun on building the Bulkeley Bridge and reconstructing Morgan Street on the Hartford side of the bridge. The temporary bridge was demolished after the new one was completed in 1908. The bridge has since been joined by two others in Hartford, but it still plays an important role in the city’s transportation, carrying Interstate 84 and US Routes 6 and 44. At over 100 years old, it is possibly the oldest bridge in the Interstate Highway System, predating the actual establishment of the highway system by nearly 50 years.

Morgan Street, Hartford, Connecticut

August 27, 2016August 17, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking west on Morgan Street from near the corner of Front Street (today’s Columbus Boulevard), on August 21, 1903. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The view just two months later, on October 25, 1903. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

The scene in 2016:

For many years, the only bridge across the Connecticut River at Hartford was here at the foot of Morgan Road, just behind the photographer. The original covered bridge that had been built here in 1818 burned down in 1895, and although a temporary replacement was soon built here, a more permanent bridge was in the works. The city ultimately chose a stone arch bridge, which was completed in 1908 and is still standing as the Bulkeley Bridge. As part of the project, they designed broad avenues on either side of the bridge, which required demolition along Morgan Street.

As seen in the first two photos, Morgan Street was fairly narrow, and passed through the working-class neighborhood on the east side of the city. Looking to improve this and provide a more impressive entryway into the city, they demolished the buildings on both sides of the street to widen it. Although taken only two months apart, the first two photos here show the demolition progress, with at least five of the buildings gone by the time the second photo was taken. The buildings that were still standing were covered in advertisements, including the one on the far left that has posters for plays entitled “The Christian” and “A Working Girl’s Wrongs.”

In later years, further transportation improvements would reshape Morgan Street again. With the coming of the Interstate Highway System, this spot just west of the Bulkeley Bridge became the intersection of I-91, Connecticut’s primary north-south route, and I-84, one of the main east-west routes in the state. Any of the early 20th century efforts to make Morgan Street a grand boulevard were completely undone by the 1970s, when I-84 was built directly above the street. Today, instead of being lined with the tenement houses and merchant storefronts that once stood here, the street is now surrounded by parking garages and elevated highways.

Charles Street, Hartford, Connecticut (2)

August 18, 2016August 17, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking south on Charles Street from Talcott Street in Hartford, on March 4, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Charles Street in 2016:

This view shows the same block as an earlier post, just from the opposite direction, facing south toward Kilbourn Street. As with the other photo, most of the 19th century buildings here appear to be either industrial buildings or tenement homes, which would have housed this neighborhood’s large population of Italian immigrants. Behind the camera, Charles Street once continued north to Morgan Street, but that section of the road has since been completely destroyed to build Interstate 91, leaving just this southern one-block stretch of Charles Street, sandwiched between the highway to the left, an office building to the right, and an exit ramp for Interstate 91 directly above it.

Talcott Street, Hartford, Connecticut

August 17, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking west on Talcott Street from Front Street (now Columbus Boulevard) in Hartford, around 1903-1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Talcott Street in 2016:

As mentioned in previous posts, this neighborhood along Front Street in the eastern part of Hartford was once home to a large Italian community. When the first photo was taken, the building on the right was owned by Felix Mainello, an Italian immigrant who operated a saloon at the corner. His wife Mary was also an immigrant, from Ireland, and they lived in the back part of the building along Talcott Street. They also rented out apartments in the building, with the 1910 census showing 9 other households with a total of 42 people, nearly all of whom were born in Italy. A good number of them only spoke Italian, and many had vague occupations like “Laborer” working “odd jobs.”

As with the rest of the neighborhood, this entire scene was demolished between 1958 and 1962 to build Constitution Plaza. Today, there is nothing left from the original photo in the two blocks between here and Main Street in the distance. The site of Mainello’s saloon is now a parking garage, and in the distance modern high-rise buildings line Main Street, with several pedestrian walkways over Talcott Street as well.

Columbus Boulevard, Hartford, Connecticut (2)

August 16, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking north on Front Street (now Columbus Boulevard) from the corner of Temple Street, on April 1, 1906. Image courtesy of the Connecticut State Library.

Columbus Boulevard in 2016:

Taken just a little further north from an earlier post, there is a lot going on in the first photo. The photo was taken on a Sunday, and the shadows indicate that it was sometime in the morning, so the street is busy, perhaps with people heading to or from church. This neighborhood had a large immigrant population, especially Italians, and many of the boys posing for the photographer in the distance were probably first generation Americans. The buildings in this scene are a mix of architectural styles, with most probably dating back to the mid-19th century, and there are a number of shops in the first floor storefronts, including a grocery store on the far left at the corner of Temple Street, and what appears to be a bar on the far right.

It was once Hartford’s “Little Italy,” but the largely poor neighborhood was hit hard by floods in 1936 and 1938, and over the next couple of decades it continued to decay. Because of its close proximity to downtown, it was eyed for redevelopment, so from 1958 to 1962 the entire neighborhood was demolished to build Constitution Plaza. The project added high-rise buildings to the area, but over the years it has also received widespread criticism for displacing its residents and isolating the plaza from the rest of the city, creating nearly empty streetscapes like the 2016 photo here.