By Patrick Rucker
Hartford Advocate, July 31, 2003

If the recent fight to save a distinctive Queen Anne house on Asylum Hill's Sigourney Street had unfolded like most building preservation battles do in Hartford, the red-brick marvel would be a pile of rubble by now.

As it happens, the 19th-century house situated just blocks from the Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe houses could soon begin a new life once it is transplanted to a new plot in the neighborhood.

Aetna, the building's owner, has suspended plans to level the structure and lay a 30-space parking lot on the land while a new site for the building is sought. The insurance giant says it will donate the building and the expected cost of demolition – about $20,000 – towards the transfer to another site.

"We have pressing parking needs at our Asylum Hill campus but we're always sensitive to the community's needs, too," an Aetna spokesman says of the arrangement.

Matt Blood, President of the Hartford Preservation Alliance -- which helped negotiate the compromise with Aetna -- knows that this is a rare victory in a long, often-losing battle to preserve the city's historic buildings.

Hartford has no preservation ordinances. A landlord is only required to give 90-day notice before leveling a property. Even that modest waiting period is routinely waived; Aetna sought such an allowance before reaching the current compromise.

Were Aetna less mindful of its public image, the firm might have gone ahead with their demolition plans despite community concerns. More often than not, Blood says, that is what happens. Buildings are levelled before any opposition can be organized.

"This city used to be gorgeous," says Blood. "Twain once said, 'I think that this is the best built and handsomest town I have ever seen.' Hartford had industry, business, beautiful homes .Most of that is gone. We're fighting for what's left."

As head of the city's sole building preservation advocate, Blood aims to rally public opinion behind an effort to save Hartford's venerable buildings, and raise the alarm that the city's architectural heritage is in peril.

Much damage has already been done, Blood says, but much is left to be saved.

"An aerial photo of Hartford says it all," Blood asserts. "Downtown is a checkerboard of parking lots and skyscrapers. Why does Asylum Avenue open to four lanes out of the city at the end of the working day? No one lives here. Hartford dies at night."

Looking at the last 100 years through the eyes of a preservationist, one imagines a giant wrecking ball swinging over the city.

In that time, business development chewed like termites through residential neighborhoods, setting in motion a massive depopulation of Hartford that devastated the city's architectural heritage. Paths cut for Interstates 84 and 91 claimed the city's valuable riverfront and split many neighborhoods in two. More were leveled in massive slum-clearance programs carried out in the name of urban renewal.

"In the early part of the 20th century there was serious talk of tearing down the state capitol," David Ransom, a local architectural historian points out. "That Victorian style was considered too stuffy. They were going to build something more modern."

A certain architectural arrogance had gripped the city, Ransom says, and demolition became a form of social planning. As the sound of crashing buildings echoed around Hartford, many residents simply left.
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But like any living thing, cities can be healed. Many have recovered from destructive development plans, and have come to see the inherent good sense of preserving historic buildings.

"Most of the buildings being lost will never be built again," Blood says. "No one would commission that kind of craftsmanship. No one has the money. More than ever, what's left needs to be treasured."

Blood says Providence, Rhode Island offers a model Hartford should follow.

"We've had a head start," says Catherine Horsey, Executive Director of the Providence Preservation Society, which celebrates its 47th anniversary this year.

With over 1,000 dues-paying members, Horsey counts on a grass roots support network that Hartford can only dream of.

Historic tours, a preservation-awareness curriculum and a "10 Most-Endangered Buildings" list keeps the organization in the public eye.

"Everyone we talk to hears the same thing from us: preservation makes economic sense," Horsey says. "All cities are losing company headquarters and those anchor tenants. What cities are good at is promoting creative economies -- the artists, entrepreneurs and small businesses. Building preservation becomes a part of that."

Horsey points out that Hartford "already has an advantage in tourism. There are many more historic buildings in Hartford than there are in Providence."

Under an agreement with the city, the Hartford Preservation Alliance receives notice of all demolition requests. When Blood learned of Aetna's plans for the Sigourney Street site, he met with Bernie Michel, Chairman of the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, and other community groups to come up with a plan to save the building.

"This area was once covered in red-brick Victorians," says Michel. "There are only a few left now because of the expanded parking. When we heard about the Sigourney Street house, we knew that we had to do something."

In challenging the demolition, Blood and his allies had a few factors in their favor: the building's unique character, a vociferous community group and an image-conscious landlord in Aetna.

None of these conditions are likely to be in place when the Hartford Preservation Alliance stakes its next battle in a community where the rights of the landlord almost always trump.

Even the fate of the Sigourney Street building is uncertain. Blood calculates that it will cost about $250,000 to relocate the house. The property might sell for half that amount once it is resettled. Even with Aetna's donation, the Hartford Preservation Alliance will need more than $100,000 to save the building.

"The good news is that all the arguments for preservation are in our favor," Blood says. "Unfortunately, time is not."