Town Revisit: Hartford

When I first moved to Connecticut one of the few things I knew about the state for certain was that Hartford was the state capital. Shortly after moving here I realized two more things about Hartford: only about 100,000 people lived there but everything was so crammed together it gave the illusion of being a much, much bigger place. Then I learned the roads seemed designed by a team of madmen, so I decided to just stay out. Over the last ten years I've only been to Hartford three or four times (other than going to Real Art Ways) until last week.

Last week I ended up at the State Library. Quite a place. I've only seen the non-pubic spaces so far, but eventually I'm looking forward to seeing more. Especially now that I am getting my bearings and realizing what an architecturally interesting place the city is.
Usually when we visit a town we go to something that exists in the town. That might be anything from a structure like a museum to a gathering like an annual festival. However, the photo walk we went on in Hartford doesn't really fit our previous categories. It did take place in Hartford but it is not something you could actually do if you visited the city. There is the possibility that the photo walk will take place again in Hartford next year, so bookmark this site if you are interested.Anyway, we had a great time. All the pictures on this page were taken during the walk. The one above is a plaque to a counterfeiter which just seemed interesting. I found little information about Buel other than he was an inventor who designed the first American submarine and that he spent time in jail for his counterfeiting activities.

You can see more Hartford photos on my flickr page too. I was amazed at how little ground we actually covered in two hours. There was so much to see in Hartford that we could have spent the whole day taking pictures. The umbrella below is in the Travelers Insurance courtyard. It's their logo, of course, and probably isn't the biggest umbrella in the world, but it is huge and therefore worthy of inclusion in our big things category.
Check out our first Hartford visit.