ctman987
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Posts posted by ctman987
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I personally am opposed to this project. And someone earlier mentioned that we need hospitals close to where ALL people live...having a hospital in Farmington is close to where most of the affluent people in Greater Hartford live...the Farmington Valley. If we need hospitals close to people live how come there arent major hospitals like this south of Hartford (Rocky Hill/Cromwell) and east of the river (Glastonbury/Marlborough/Portland)...even though there is an allright hospital in Manchester
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Only in CT...geese absolutly amazing. It amazes me that they build a replacement in Farmington...there are a lot of UCONN med students who do work with Hartford Hospital and CCMC doctors...pathetic.
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I cannot stress how much something needs to be done with this site. These two properties are located at Constitution Plaza which as we know today could be called a "mistake" but we cant take away our mistakes or go back in time but we can fix them and this is the chance.
Some of the major problems with Constitution Plaza are that it is all office space with no retail space to encourage any real pedestrian traffic. If we bring street life to these to vacant properties by possibly as suggested earlier..a mixed use condo/office or even better a condo/hotel we can start fixing the problems created years earlier with Constitution Plaza.
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I shouldve specified and said downtown. Younger professionals and college grads typically cant afford to live downtown.
Young professionals and college grads are the ones we want living in downtown Hartford. These individuals have the opportunities to start businesses in Hartford, they need to be drawn to this city. These individuals are also the ones who if they moved downtown would walk around the streets, frequent city businesses, have a date at a downtown restaurant and enjoy a Friday night at a downtown club or bar.
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This area has so much potential. I think the city should go ahead and try to get the property by eminent domain. My only fear is that after the city may set out an RFP (Request for Proposals) and hand pick someone and take all this time...and create a similar situation to Front Street.
Personally, yes condos would be perfect in this location because the rest of the new residential units in downtown are closer to the park and the Civic Center or by the Colt building...not by Adriaens Landing..yet that is (Front Street). But we need to occupy the residential units that are already coming on board in this city before we make huge new proposals.
There is a hotel shortage and the Clarion site could be a perfect place for a botique hotel for the city. An idenpendantly owned and operated one similar to the Hotel Providence near the Providence Performing Arts Center in downtown Providence.
This area has potential and we cannot just sit here...
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Glad my pictures could help...
I havent read through this whole section but I can tell a little bit about those Baltimore pics I took...
Urban Big Box Store: That building where the Best Buy is located is an office building located at the Inner Harbor. There is currently a Best Buy there and soon a Whole Foods will be opening up there. It was interesting to see a mid size city incorporate a big box store into an urban area (as opposed to NYC which has been doing it for quite some time...there are countless Staples for example in Midtown)
The parking meters: Those systems where everything is on one machine were very helpful. They had them in Baltimore and in Ocean City, Maryland. All I had to do was pay and it printed out a ticket that I put on my car. It also helped the streets look much nicer because there werent hundreds of old falling over parking meters
Overhead Street Sign: That pic is from N. Charles Street which is a major north south street in the city. It starts by the Inner Harbor and travels straight uptown through the CBD and into the Mt Vernon Cultural District. These signs signified the crossing streets...similar to a NYC situation.
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Which retailers has he worked with before?
I was just talking about the tenants in some of his other properties which are:
Shops at Somerset Square in Glastonbury (upscale lifestyle shopping center)
Greenwich Financial Center in Greenwich
Greenwich Avenue Retail in Greenwich
Lockworks Square in Brandford
Cromwell Square in Cromwell
100 Newtown Road in Danbury
150 Boston Post Road in Orange
116 Boston Post Road in Orange
2600 Post Road in Southport
Playhouse Square in Westport
410-420 Tarrytown Road in White Plains
330-360 Tarrytown Road in White Plains
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Lets hope he comes through...Nitkin has well reputable national retailers at his other (suburban) retail venues lets hope he can get them into Hartford
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Hartford is really at a pivotal point right now where it can add a development similar to the mall in providence, mall in waterbury, times square in NYC and inner harbor in Baltimore and the mall in downtown Stamford that has chain stores and entertainment venues that arent really locally owned and operated.
Front Street would be Hartford's thing
Do people thing Hartford should have such a thing? New Haven doesn't for example.
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Maybe Hartford should model itself after the theater and the museum district?
Hartford has a lot of theaters and museums which are in my view due in part to the wealth that Hartford had and the strong corporate and business scene it had and still has.
Hartford has the Hartford Stage, Bushnell and TheaterWorks - 3 theaters all downtown
The Webster - minutes from downtown
Meadows & Civic Center - draw big name bands to the city
Old State House, Wadsworth, State Capital, Mark Twain, Harriett Beecher Stowe, etc - history and the arts
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Isn't NYC one of the cities that unknown bands want to get noticed in? Smaller cities like Hartford have mega concerts, but little going on as far as a local scene.
Smaller cities like Northampton and New Haven have a strong local scene and they like it. If you are good and have the resources to handle NYC then you should go for it. But NYC is very competitive and expensive. I think we should work to make Harford a bit more like New Haven and Northampton and NYC's Greenwich Village
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The streotypical image of the average college kid is someone that lives with 1500 roommates and eats Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This demographic spends all their money on school and leisure activities.Then there is the other demographic that comes from wealthier families with more disposable income that can afford to send their children to Yale, Brown, or Trinity. A city can incorporate both demographics with a large college population in the area and Pvd, New Haven, and Northhampton already have established areas where college kids can hang-out, relax, and unwind after a long day of study.( Ctman987, I don't think you even went to Thayer St. when you visited here)The closest resemblance to anything of the like in the entire metro Htfd. area would be West Hartford center....and how appealing is that to a group of college kids that want to hear some music, catch an independent film, or go to a vintage store on a dime. There is no cohesiveness on the main streets of Htfd to attract the "poor" college kids to the entertainment venues nor the retail to attract the wealthier kids with their disposable income.
If Front St. could somehow incorporate the 2 together, it would be a smashing success. You need to give the college kids in the area a reason not to hang out in West Hartford.....
This all brings up a great point that Hartford needs a place that attracts college students. Im a student in NYC so I dont frequent Providence or New Haven or Northampton so I cant talk for them...although I have visited New Haven hundreds of times since im from Hartford and know that New Haven is always filled with activity thanks to Yale, QU, SNHU, Albertus Magnus & UNH. Anyway the areas around Columbia University, Fordham University (both campuses), FIT, Manhattan College, CMSV, etc. do not cater especially to students. But in the city NYU is in Greenwich Village and the village caters to all college students...especially the NYU crowd. There are hundreds of restaurants, bars, clubs, theaters, movie theaters and more that are all filled with NYU students. The village has become one of the hottest areas in the city for the younger crowd. Hartford and yes even Providence, Northampton and New Haven do not have one huge school like NYU that has 40,000+ students who all obviously all need a place to go but nevertheless Providence, Northampton and New Haven have all made niches for there students and Hartford should do the same. The differance in Hartford I think is that we want the students downtown and we also cant forget that downtown is the city's center of business and is becoming a more expensive area with all these new condos and apartments. There is nothing wrong with this but we need to work to incorporate this all into downtown Hartford. For example downtown New Haven has lots of corporations but is not the major center of business that Hartford is so it works out for New Haven.
Well, I think you're wrong on this one point: bigger cities do indeed have places where smaller bands can play, and they do well. You've heard of CBGB's haven't you? That place is definitely not huge. There are a ton of other places, like the Middle East in Boston (not sure if it's around anymore), every big city has places like that. Some places,like the former Anthrax in Norwalk, were just run by young people. There's nothing stopping younger people from renting out a place and getting smaller bands to play there. Is it more difficult downtown? Sure. One place I had found was a basement below where Pasti's was. Not sure if Pasti's used it at all, but it was empty, had a bar, and could handle small bands. In my memory I never knew of a place down there, but there it was in front of me. There also used to be a place on Asylum that was a basement, right near Main St, it had 2 or 3 names in the time I had gone there, one of them had something to do with a fish. Another: the Comet, the basement below the Diner used to be a dance club, very small, but a stage could be set up and it would do well for small acts. You just need someone that knows where to go, what they want, and have the gumption to put up their money to run it.When I meant bigger cities I meant like NYC....Hartford, Providence, etc. are all great smaller cities that can cash in on this other market for smaller bands. Im sure there are places for smaller music in NYC but it is a lot harder to find cheap space and advertise then it would be to go into Hartford and have everyone at UCONN, UHART, Trinity, etc. know about your music
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I guess the Meadows and Lena's doesn't count.....
I know many people who go to the concerts at the Meadows and at the Civic Center (Hilary Duff, Dave Matthews, etc) but these music venues that Providence, New Haven and Northampton have feature smaller sometimes not as well known bands. They are not the biggest names in music but have real music. It is something that smaller cities have as opposed to bigger cities mostly. In NYC it would be really hard to support a place that didnt draw in big name bands but in smaller cities it works and so we should make it work in Hartford
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Making Hartford a music destination would have been perfect... Something to set it apart from other Northeast cities... Not only Hip Hop (which I admit I don't care for but I still think is essential to our city), but jazz clubs, rock venues, whatever, would have been a perfect compliment. Kind of a music destination, something to get people into the city... That seriously pisses me off...
I started a new topic after reading in the Trinity newspaper that students travel to New Haven, Northampton and Providence for music venues because there is nothing besides the Webster in Hartford. Granted New Haven and Northampton are more "artsy" cities with more colleges and Providence is a bigger college town Harford could still attract more musical venues for the younger crowd
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I quite honestly am outraged....looking at the names of places signed up for space in the Foundry such as Wet Willies (Trenton will be there first northeast location..the rest are in Georgia, South Carolina, Lousiana, Florida and Paris, France), B B Kings Club (with the other locations being in Memphis, LA and Nashville), John Wehners Village Door from Florida and not to mention Toads Place. This shows that with hard work places like these could have been attracted to Hartford. Right now these places are probably experimenting with the northeast and so probably will not open more venues until they see how Trenton does.
These places are not opening in NYC, Boston or even Providence but in Trenton...and they probably couldve been in Hartford
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This is a disgrace. Hartford and the state need to show some leadership and get this project running. The residents of Connecticut read articles on the Front Street problems every week now and will think less and less of Hartford if projects like these cannot even be started.
Hartford could have thrived with a Toad's Place. People head over to the Webster all the time despite its locaton and people wouldve headed over to Toads Place. It wouldve been a hop skip and a jump for students like at the Sage Allen Building and a short drive for students on the main UHART campus and at Trinity.
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It definitly is leaving Springfield behind. The economic hub of MA is Boston and state goverment is based in Boston which is a long way from Springfield and the entire Pioneer Valley...at least Worcester can reak the benefits from the fact that its close to Boston
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Very interesting articles. Sounds like the State of Mass is not really interested in revitalizing it's smaller cities. Why bother when you got Boston
Boston will continue to thrive with or without public investments such as a new convention center so why not spend money on the mid sized cities in the state such as Springfield and Worcester. Worcester is seeing development (the town center, a renovated DCU center, Hilton Garden Inn, new courthouse, etc) but will still need to come a long way (for example the city needs residents downtown). Springfield now needs to get to start getting funding from the state to jumpstart some private investments.
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Great photos Spartan
Nice job. Do you especially like hotels? I noticed that you pointed out many of them.I pointed a out a lot of the hotels because I feel Boston has a very competitive (which is a good thing) hotel scene that includes both big name hotels (westin, hilton, sheraton, marriott, holiday inn, etc.) as well as numerous smaller chain and/ or independantly owned & operated hotels (colonnade, copley square hotel, lenox, fairmont copley plaza, boston park plaza hotel & towers etc.). I love to see independantly owned & operated hotels in a city because they are usually the most intresting (housed in old buildings, have some kind of a story to them, etc)
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Im actually having my graduation party at Hot Tomatos. My family was looking for a place to have my graduation party and I told them I wanted it in the city. Of course some of the downtown favorites can be quite pricy for a party and then my uncle suggested Hot Tomatos b/c he knows the manager. I had never eaten there and my parents had not eaten there since they moved to Union Station and I was amazed at how nice a restaurant both inside and outside it is. The restaurant was also packed with a nice probably suburban group of people as well
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Thanks sounds cool...Saw on Asylum Street a place called Feng and Asian Bistro & Lounge will be opening in the old Song Hays near the corner of Trumbull & Asylum
Coach's will also be reopening again it seems...as I walked by there last night after dinner at Hot Tomatos
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I read in the Hartford Magazine there is a place for jazz called the Messanine Lounge that opened back in Decemeber....where is this???
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It opened last Thursday.... It is bigger and better than I expected, it's unbelievable inside. They are still working on their function room and the patio outside. The name is Joe Black's...
Is this the former Society for Savings bank building near the end of pratt by Main st??
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Cool! My parents are from Melilli Sicly. They moved to Middletown back in the 60's, but we moved to Cromwell in 1996. Although I disagree on who you want to be President.
Wow small world...correct me if im wrong but there are a large number of families in the Middletown area from Mellili.
Hey CTman what did you think of this year's Feast? It seemed like their wasn't to many people when the Nuri ran.I liked it but I think there was some confussion when the pastor made a long speech and the runners got the wrong signal to run into the church which forced the police cheif to tell everyone to stop yelling and running on so they could listen to the speech...which noone could hear or understand. Nevertheless I liked it...it seemed like there were still a good number of people...I sat next to someone who came all the way from New York City.
COMPLETED: Trump Parc
in Stamford and Fairfield County
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Dont take the fact that its not Hartford personally because this project is just another string in the number of new towers (residential mostly) that Capelli and in some cases Trump have constructed in Westchester County and now the two are expanding into Stamford which is still metro New York. These two focused on places like New Rochelle and White Plains (north of Manhattan) so obviosuly the next major city in this market for them is Stamford and now there trying to take advantage of it.