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WFSB Broadcast House replaced by High Rise


grock

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I don't think this is a good place for a highrise. Buildings near the river should be low to allow more views of the riverfront area from different parts of downtown. Historically, the area near the river was full of low buildings, the taller buildings were further inland.

If we had kept the old neighborhood, we would have an area similar to that of Old Montreal. But even though we got rid of it....... we shouldn't give up now and allow more highrises near the riverfront.

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find a city that has screwed up its riverfront more than Hartford. We've taken away the neighborhoods and added dikes and highways. Riverfront Plaza is a nice attempt at recapture, but it is truly a shadow of what the riverfront in Hartford should be.

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I think this a tremendous location for a hotel. It offers very easy access to the convention center, science center, downtown, and the riverfront. I like the idea of including permanent residences (if the housing market remains relatively strong). I'm somewhat ambivalent about the height of a new building on the Channel 3 site. My only concern would be a tower that rises above 400 feet or so. Such a structure would -- in my view -- wreck the symmetry of the skyline in and around Constitution Plaza.

I hear the issue of the old East Side and the dikes come up periodically when Hartford's riverfront is discussed. Here are a few thoughts...

First, the old East Side was a largely impoverished and dilapitated section of the city. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were built between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were quite shabby in construction. The neighborhood essentially served as a way station for newly-arrived immigrant groups.

Now, I don't believe Constitution Plaza was the best strategy for urban renewal along the riverfront (although I can easily understand why city planners thought so in the early 1960s). However, I'm doubtful that the Old East Side -- if it had remained intact with its low-rise buildings -- would have provided city leaders or developers years later with an opportunity to create an "Old Town Hartford."

Second, and more importantly, the dikes in Hartford -- while acting like barricades to the river in some places -- are a vital necessity to the city. Without them, Hartford would not be able to grow or even function. Before the modern dikes were constructed in the 1940s, Hartford experienced some catastrophic floods (1936, 1938) that inundated large swaths of downtown, Asylum Hill, the Old East Side, Sheldon-Charter Oak, and South Meadows.

Maybe we can talk about development on top of some dikes (especially over the sunken northbound lanes of I-91 between the Founders and Bulkley Bridges), but the dikes themselves need to stay!

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I think this a tremendous location for a hotel. It offers very easy access to the convention center, science center, downtown, and the riverfront. I like the idea of including permanent residences (if the housing market remains relatively strong). I'm somewhat ambivalent about the height of a new building on the Channel 3 site. My only concern would be a tower that rises above 400 feet or so. Such a structure would -- in my view -- wreck the symmetry of the skyline in and around Constitution Plaza.

I hear the issue of the old East Side and the dikes come up periodically when Hartford's riverfront is discussed. Here are a few thoughts...

First, the old East Side was a largely impoverished and dilapitated section of the city. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were built between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were quite shabby in construction. The neighborhood essentially served as a way station for newly-arrived immigrant groups.

Now, I don't believe Constitution Plaza was the best strategy for urban renewal along the riverfront (although I can easily understand why city planners thought so in the early 1960s). However, I'm doubtful that the Old East Side -- if it had remained intact with its low-rise buildings -- would have provided city leaders or developers years later with an opportunity to create an "Old Town Hartford."

Second, and more importantly, the dikes in Hartford -- while acting like barricades to the river in some places -- are a vital necessity to the city. Without them, Hartford would not be able to grow or even function. Before the modern dikes were constructed in the 1940s, Hartford experienced some catastrophic floods (1936, 1938) that inundated large swaths of downtown, Asylum Hill, the Old East Side, Sheldon-Charter Oak, and South Meadows.

Maybe we can talk about development on top of some dikes (especially over the sunken northbound lanes of I-91 between the Founders and Bulkley Bridges), but the dikes themselves need to stay!

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I think this a tremendous location for a hotel. It offers very easy access to the convention center, science center, downtown, and the riverfront. I like the idea of including permanent residences (if the housing market remains relatively strong). I'm somewhat ambivalent about the height of a new building on the Channel 3 site. My only concern would be a tower that rises above 400 feet or so. Such a structure would -- in my view -- wreck the symmetry of the skyline in and around Constitution Plaza.

I hear the issue of the old East Side and the dikes come up periodically when Hartford's riverfront is discussed. Here are a few thoughts...

First, the old East Side was a largely impoverished and dilapitated section of the city. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were built between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were quite shabby in construction. The neighborhood essentially served as a way station for newly-arrived immigrant groups.

Now, I don't believe Constitution Plaza was the best strategy for urban renewal along the riverfront (although I can easily understand why city planners thought so in the early 1960s). However, I'm doubtful that the Old East Side -- if it had remained intact with its low-rise buildings -- would have provided city leaders or developers years later with an opportunity to create an "Old Town Hartford."

Second, and more importantly, the dikes in Hartford -- while acting like barricades to the river in some places -- are a vital necessity to the city. Without them, Hartford would not be able to grow or even function. Before the modern dikes were constructed in the 1940s, Hartford experienced some catastrophic floods (1936, 1938) that inundated large swaths of downtown, Asylum Hill, the Old East Side, Sheldon-Charter Oak, and South Meadows.

Maybe we can talk about development on top of some dikes (especially over the sunken n

orthbound lanes of I-91 between the Founders and Bulkley Bridges), but the dikes themselves need to stay!

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I agree that dikes are a necessity for a river like the Connecticut. However, instead of building cement walls that close off the city, the city sides of the dikes should have been infilled and raised to the level of the top of the dike. Then, you camn control the flooding of the river without disconnecting downtown from the riverfront.
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