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: 73
I live in Frog Hollow, due south from this view up the Hill.
A few shots from around the ceremony.
Today, we held a key conveyance ceremony to celebrate Asylum Hill’s newest homeowners, Tiana and Meschac Hercules.
This ceremony also gave us the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of our partners on this project. Participants included Andrea Pereira, LISC; Pedro Segarra, Mayor, City of Hartford; Barbara Fields, Regional Administrator, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; and Rich Grobe, ServCorps. The chair of NINA’s board, Lynda Godkin, oversaw the event.
Since we haven’t closed on the sale of the house just yet, we didn’t actually convey a key to the Herculeses – instead, members of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church presented the Herculeses with a quilt that they made especially for this occasion.
Along with these photos of the ceremony, we also preserved HUD's press release and the event program put together by the City of Hartford.
It’s a bit bold, perhaps even presumptuous, but we were in a “blue sky” frame of mind today and got to wondering about how to create off-street parking for 199-201 Sargeant Street, which looks to be the only house on Sargeant Street that doesn’t have access to off-street parking. There’s no room to run a driveway within the boundaries of 199 Sargeant – the driveway at 195 Sargeant presses right up against the property line – but there’s a relatively unused curb cut over on the May Street side of 195 Sargeant that could allow for a driveway to run right back to 199 Sargeant. Not to mention, it would preserve a lot of greenspace, while making use of derelict concrete. It’s almost as if this might once have been the driveway to 199-201 Sargeant ….
Anyway, it’s just a thought.
This is an experiment: can we install small, manageable gardens in the front yards of homes in Asylum Hill? We’re calling them “vest pocket gardens,” a riff on “vest pocket parks,” and the idea is to beautify the streetscape without overwhelming homeowners, some of whom won’t be gardeners. If this works, we’ll see about rolling it out more widely.
We are cheating by experimenting here at 89 Atwood Street, I should say by way of full transparency. The homeowner here is an exceptionally gifted gardener.
Work continues on the exterior, and framing has begun in the interior. In some of the pictures, there are clear views of previous wall treatments, ranging from tile to paint to wallpaper, and not always where expected.
This is it – or, at least, it’s probably the last time I’ll be over to take a photo of the old siding.
It won’t be missed.
Licenses & Inspections issued a building permit for our work on this house, so we are off and running as of today!
A peek inside 156-158 Sargeant. The photos go up 156 and down 158, because at least for now I can still cross between the two side on the third floor. Notice there aren’t a lot of stairs in yet, but framing proceeds apace.
Although it reveals the limitations of my skills as a photographer, I thought it would be fun to show off this wallpaper we found beneath the various layers that have accumulated over the years. Flash and no flash for the close-up: hopefully between the two you’ll get a sense of what it looked like.
