Travelers Tower is a 24-story,
skyscraper in
downtown Hartford
Downtown Hartford, Connecticut is the primary business district and the center of Connecticut's state government. Due to the large number of insurance companies headquartered downtown, Hartford is known as the "Insurance Capital of the World".
B ...
,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
. 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 Tower is the fourth headquarters of
Travelers Insurance Company
The Travelers Companies, Inc., commonly known as Travelers, is an American insurance company. It is the second-largest writer of U.S. commercial property casualty insurance, and the sixth-largest writer of U.S. personal insurance through indepen ...
. The architect of Travelers Tower was
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 also designed the
Connecticut State Library
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 Sta ...
, Supreme Court Building and
The Hartford Times Building.
It was the tallest building in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
until
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
's
Prudential Tower
The Prudential Tower, also known as the Prudential Building or, colloquially, The Pru,subscription required'The Pru' everyone calls it: a resigned shrug of a name, as flat and uninflected as the wan moue its pronunciation requires." is an Inter ...
opened in 1964, but remained the tallest building in Connecticut until
City Place I opened in 1984.
The tower is actually an extension of two other buildings of which it begins at the tenth floor so it is sometimes considered to have 34 floors. At the 27th floor is an open
observation deck
An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclos ...
. The top of the building has become a nesting spot for
peregrine falcons, which are observed by web cameras. Due to maintenance to the tower, the web cameras have been taken offline and the nest box has been relocated to the Travelers Plaza Building.
References
{{reflist
Skyscraper office buildings in Connecticut
The Travelers Companies
Skyscrapers in Hartford, Connecticut
Office buildings completed in 1919