A series of entries designed to capture the ongoing adventures of NINA! See how we came to be where we are today, and follow along as we enter the new century of social media!
Page: 55We started pouring the foundation today -- views include the crew at work as well as shots overlooking today's completed work from the southwest corner (future front of the house), the east (future rear of the house), and west (future front of the house).
Mary Falvey of the Hartford Preservation Alliance led a group around the four major churches on the Hill today. Mary focused on how the churches' architecture spoke to their congregants as well as to passersby, and then she took the group into the Cathedral of Saint Joseph. The other churches on the tour were Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Asylum Avenue Baptist Church, and Trinity Episcopal Church.
We now have a proper hole at 54 Huntington Street. Next step will be to pour the foundation.
Views from outside of the hole are looking west toward Huntington Street, from what will be the rear of the house. Views from inside the hole are looking east toward the rear of the house and north up at 182 Collins Street, which was the inspiration for the design of our new house.
It's not much, but it's a start! The earth-moving equipment is on site, and the first shovelfulls of earth have been removed. We're looking forward to getting started on our second new construction project, our first since completing 33 Sargeant Street back in 2011.
Today, Larry Gallmeier led our intrepid group of neighborhood explorers on a walk through Aetna. A highlight of the tour was the vault: a massive concrete structure with an even more massive, multi-ton door! Word is (unconfirmed) that the vault was the first thing built in the building back in 1930, and then the rest of the building was built around it.
Speaking were: Ken Johnson, Executive Director of NINA (with Bill Russell, AHCC); yasha Escalera, Director, Housing & Property Management Division, Hartford Department of Development Services; Donna Manocchio, Assistant Pastor, AHCC; Rich Grobe, ServCorps; and Matt Laney, Senior Pastor, AHCC. And that’s Rhonda Mitchell, communications director at AHCC, trying to escape the shot.
Our latest project, the construction of a new home at a vacant lot at 54 Huntington Street, officially got underway today as we broke the ground and consecrated it to its new use with our partners on this project. The land here had been owned by the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, which bought it a few years back from Broad-Park Development Corporation, and AHCC generously donated the land, along with funding for construction, to NINA. Our other partners and funders on this project are The Hartford, the City of Hartford, and ServCorps, and of course ServCorps will be working on this project, too, as they have been on all of NINA's recent projects.
With shovels, from left to right, are: Ken Johnson, NINA; Andrew Daly, The Hartford and NINA Board; Matt Laney, AHCC, Tony Mein, AHNA; Donna Manocchio, AHCC; Yasha Escalera, City of Hartford; Bill Russell, AHCC; and Jennifer Cassidy, AHNA.
Lovely! This is Ashley Street, and you should come up for a walk around before the flowers run their course.
We had a good crowd for our tour inside the Courant and Fox 61 today. After a brief introduction, the group split into two, with half going up to the television studio and the other half going down to the printing press.
Well, not really. It's the first Fresh Express of the 2014 summer season, and the Happy Giant Carrot greeted people as they arrived at the Farmers Market at Billings Forge. HGC highlighted the importance of good nutrition as well as the difficulties inherent in finding fresh produce in Hartford. The Farmers Market at Billings Forge, now a mainstay of the Frog Hollow neighborhood, offers fresh produce from local and regional farmers every Thursday through October from 11 AM until 2 PM on the Billings Forge Green (just north of the Firebox Restaurant), and the Farmers Market doubles SNAP benefits, so that each SNAP dollar spent at the Farmers Market counts as two.
And yes, that was Larry the Stag there in the background, just in case HGC went crazy or something.
