Connecticut Appellate Court Hartford, Connecticut

The Elm Street Historic District encompasses a collection of architecturally distinguished institutional and residential buildings near the

Connecticut State Capitol The Connecticut State Capitol is located north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. The building houses the Connecticut General Assembly; the upper house, the State Senate, and lower house, the Ho ...

in Hartford, Connecticut. Located on Capitol Avenue and Trinity and Elm Streets, it includes the city's best concentration of early 20th-century architecture, including

Bushnell Memorial Hall The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts (formerly known as Bushnell Memorial Hall or simply The Bushnell ) is a performing arts venue at 166 Capitol Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Managed by a non-profit organization, it is marketed as Con ...

and several state office buildings. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1984.

Description and history

The Elm Street Historic District is located on the southwest of Hartford's downtown. It is bounded on the north by

Bushnell Park Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut is the oldest publicly funded park in the United States. It was conceived by the Reverend Horace Bushnell in the mid-1850s at a time when the need for open public spaces was just starting to be recognized. ...

and the west by the grounds of the state capitol complex. Its buildings extend along Capitol Avenue and the south side of Elm Street between Trinity Street and Pulaski Circle, and along Trinity from Elm to Buckingham Street. It is about in size, and originally included fourteen historically significant buildings. The largest of these is the State Office Building, between Capitol and Buckingham, a fine example of Classical Revival architecture with Art Deco details, built in 1930 to a design by Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Just to its north is Bushnell Memorial Hall, designed by the same firm and also completed in 1930. It features a Georgian Revival exterior and a rich Art Deco interior. Extending east from the Bushnell area on Capitol Avenue are the First Presbyterian Church (1870, Romanesque Revival), and parking lots, some of which on the site of early 20th-century residential buildings that were part of the district listing but have since been demolished. North of the Bushnell, at the corner of Trinity and Elm Streets, is the former Orient Insurance Company, now housing the state treasurer's office. It is a fine example of Beaux Arts architecture, built in 1905 to a design by Davis & Brooks of Hartford. Extending east from that building along Elm Street were three large buildings all built by insurance companies between 1917 and 1926, as well as the J.M. Ney building, a former factory. Two of these buildings have been demolished; one, the Scottish Union & National Building, now houses the state appellate court.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Historic districts in Hartford County, Connecticut Colonial Revival architecture in Connecticut Geography of Hartford, Connecticut Renaissance Revival architecture in Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Hartford, Connecticut Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut

Description and history

See also

References