Hartford Times Building
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The Hartford Times Building is an historic Beaux-Arts building in downtown
Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
built as the headquarters of the now defunct
Hartford Times ''The Hartford Times'' was a daily afternoon newspaper serving the Hartford, Connecticut, community from 1817 to 1976. It was owned for decades by the Gannett Company which sold the financially struggling paper in 1973 to the owners of the ''New H ...
. The newspaper commissioned architect
Donn Barber Donn Barber FAIA (October 19, 1871 – May 29, 1925) was an American architect. Biography Barber was born on October 19, 1871 in Washington DC, the son of Charles Gibbs Barber, and the grandson of Hiram Barber. He studied at Holbrook Mili ...
, who had designed the nearby
Travelers Tower Travelers Tower is a 24-story, skyscraper in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Travelers Tower was the seventh tallest building in the world when it was constructed in 1919, and is currently the second tallest building in Hartford. Travelers Towe ...
and
Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building The Connecticut State Library is the state library for the U.S. state of Connecticut and is also an executive branch agency of the state. It is located in Hartford, Connecticut directly across the street from the Connecticut State Capitol. The St ...
, to build it a new structure to house its office and newspaper plant. At the time the paper was at the height of its influence with the top circulation in the state in 1917.


Architecture

The building is sited on a platform facing Burr Mall. Originally the facing mall was a street, Atheneum Square South, with the intention that the building be seen from that direction with the view flanked by the Beaux-Arts Municipal Building and Morgan Memorial addition to the
Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...
. The platform enables the roof line to match that of the flanking buildings and the inspiration for a columned end to an urban vista was drawn from famous Parisian examples such as La Madeleine, the
Panthéon The Panthéon (, from the Classical Greek word , , ' empleto all the gods') is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, atop the , in the centre of the , which was named after it. The edifice was b ...
, and the
Palais Bourbon The Palais Bourbon () is the meeting place of the National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French Parliament. It is located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, on the ''Rive Gauche'' of the Seine, across from the Place de la Concor ...
. The view of the building is currently blocked by trees in the eastern end of the mall. When planning this structure Donn Barber, the architect, was aware of the imminent demolition of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. That church, while built only twelve years before and acclaimed as one of
Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in additio ...
's finest works,Staff
"RAZE PARKHURST CHURCH.; Famous Piece of Architecture Making Way for Office Building."
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', May 6, 1919. Accessed November 16, 2010.
was being displaced by an expansion of the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, wi ...
. Barber salvaged not only the six green granite columns but also the pilasters, pulling them flush with the columns to transform the church's porch motif of five bays into a colonnade motif of seven bays. It proved necessary to replace the original
Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...
capitals with Ionic and to add a plinth to each column base to provide the desired height for the number of stories of the new building. The original steps, platforms and base courses are all fitted together as in the original church and the
terra-cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta i ...
cornices were carefully adapted. The circular-headed windows from the 24th Street facade of the church serve as the doors of the Times Building. The openings in the arcade of the Times Building are also all repurposed windows or doors from the Church's portico and southern facade. The building's arcade is decorated with original murals by Connecticut artist Ralph Milne Calder, uncle to
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
whose Stegosaurus sculpture now sits in the facing mall. The
Sgraffito ''Sgraffito'' (; plural: ''sgraffiti'') is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive laye ...
murals are in a
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
style and allegorize Space, Time, Poetry, and Prose. They also illustrate the motto, "News is an immortal bubble (vagrant but outlasting those who make it,) and the press endures within."


History

The ''Times'' occupied the facility until its demise in 1976 after which the building came under government ownership and was used as an annex to the adjacent Municipal Building. It was the backdrop for speeches by four presidents, Truman,
Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
,
Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
, and a crowd of 100,000 for the final speech of
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
's election campaign. The building had been in disuse for more than a decade and was the subject of various redevelopment proposals, including as an expansion of the Wadsworth AtheneumMaker, Elizabeth, "Smithsonian Arts Director Takes Top Job at Wadsworth Museum",
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, Connecticut and the Region section, February 24, 2008, p CT6
and as a home for the Thomas Hooker Brewing Company. In 2017, the site was rebuilt and expanded to provide a new home for a downtown campus for the
University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
designed by
Robert A.M. Stern Architects Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP (RAMSA), is an architecture firm based in New York City. First established by Robert A. M. Stern (as Stern Hagmann Architects) in 1969, it is now organized as a limited liability partnership with 16 general partner ...
.


References


External links


University of Connecticut planJFK in Hartford
{{Coord, 41, 45, 45.3, N, 72, 40, 21.0, W, FR_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Hartford, Connecticut University of Connecticut