Hartford, Conn.: The City That Was Crossed Out

Main Street north from State Street, Hartford, Connecticut. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Commentary

Hartford, Connecticut was once one of the world’s great cities, a place where the best artists and most successful industrialists wanted to live, with walkable streets, a gorgeous river, the most modern of everything, a place of high civilization and beauty. In the 1880s, it was the grandest and greatest city in the country, before being surpassed by New York City, thanks mostly to the commercialization of steel.