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: 9
The new owners are advertising space available for lease in Veeder Place. If you’re looking for office space in a great neighborhood, look no farther! Veeder Place is a historic building – it was Curtis Veeder’s factory at one point, and he parlayed the money he made here into his home, which is now the headquarters to the Connecticut Historical Society – and you’d have some great neighbors. And I don’t mean us! We’re nice, sure, but we are very lucky to have a great community of non-profit agencies here with us.
The aluminum siding has started to come down, and now there’s a view of the wood clapboard beneath. Likely this is from the 1970s renovation of the house – gold was a popular color then, along with avocado, and I think I’m glad they picked gold (okay, mustard) over avocado.
The site is much cleaner now, which means we can now start the restoration work.
Huzzah! I finished up my street walking tonight with Asylum Avenue. I just beat Daylight Savings Time, too. Along the way, I also finished up Garden Street – you know, the part I don’t walk along to get home.
On my way out, I caught a marvelous view of the sunset down Sargeant Street. I also got some nice shots of the pedestrian tunnel under the railroad bridge on Asylum Street, the front portico of The Hartford, and the Alice Cogswell Statute, which it turns out has floodlights! In all my years in Hartford, I can’t ever remember seeing Alice lit up. There are also two photos of Aetna’s support for Ukraine: the light in its cupola alternates between blue and yellow.
Next step: I’ll collate these photographs and then start work on getting the lights turned back on. After that, we’ll continue geocoding streetlights and then look into mapping crime data against streetlights.
Based on my experience on Sigourney Street, I walked up to Farmington and Broad a little before 6 PM, and then waited. Sure enough, the lights popped on at 6, so that’s the time they’re supposed to go on, at least this time of year. Farther down the street, some of the decorative streetlights were out. One more thing to add to our analysis.
Note in the background The Hartford showing its support for Ukraine. Also, a couple of neat shots of 210 Farmington and the Cathedral.
The Stowe Center’s two houses looked nice in the twilight. Otherwise, the big story tonight was being followed briefly on my walk by someone who’d just bought a pizza at the Domino’s on Farmington Avenue and was walking to their parked car on Forest Street. It reminded me that I’ve been taking these walks at dinnertime!
One light out, down under the highway overpasses, and its absence made a huge difference.
A sampling – but it has caught my eye that almost every Blockwatch Protected sign is in sorry shape. Although not necessarily as important as parking signs or speed limits, these signs will likely become our priority.
Also, it’s really hard to believe that anyone in their right mind thinks that 30 miles per hour can be done on Ashley Street, let alone is appropriate to the street’s circumstances! Contrast this sign with the “Slow Children at Play” sign farther down the street at Sigourney Square Park.
The “buses only” sign is part of a 1970s crime prevention program funded by the Department of Justice. This program has been cited – and not just by me! – as the beginnings of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. Cars are prohibited from circling the park, which during the 1970s was seen as a way to prevent drug dealing and prostitution. Other spots in the neighborhood included in this program were the closed street at Sargeant and Sigourney; the closed street at Willard and Collins; the pinched intersection at Huntington and Collins; and the one-way direction on Huntington from Asylum to Collins.
A confession: surveying streetlights and street signs constituted the first and second times I’ve ever been on Woodland Drive in my 27 years of living in Hartford.
Woodland Street is the spine of the hospital district, and it is very bright, with or without the streetlights.
52 lights, 4 out.
I’m starting to feel the press of time, as in Eastern Daylight Savings Time, so I decided to take a walk on Sigourney Street on a Sunday night. One miscalculation, though: by going a bit earlier than normal, I discovered that the timers may run differently on either side of Sigourney. Am I sure that they weren’t just out? No, but at least one light popped on while I took a picture of it.
By the time I got to Hawthorn Street, however, there was no question that almost all of the decorative streetlights were out.
Yet another factor to include in our assessment of crime and quality of life data because, really, the lights should come on at the same time throughout the neighborhood, let alone on the same street!
Somehow I managed to forget that as I walk home, I turn off of Garden onto Cogswell and Broad.
