last Wednesday: after the flight, before the train

[15_the_circle]

[OT from cottage renovations]

Hartford has the crumbling sort of downtown that's struggling to find its way back to viability.  lots of tall buildings for those insurance companies, conterbalanced by the swaths cut through the heart of the city for freeways and the general decrepitude of what hasn't already been demolished.  it is to their credit that they are trying and a few signs of regeneration are bravely if tentatively visible. 

one part of the city centre that hasn't been unduly harmed in the name of progress is Bushnell Park.  though altered from its original plan it's still a neat open space and sports a couple of nifty features, one of which is the city's Civil War monument. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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Bushnell Park,
Hartford CT

what a grand piece of 1880s design it is.  if a few features and embellishments are a good thing then, by golly, more of them are even better.  could it have been, one wonders, designed by a committee? 

   

trumptets and cymbals suggest music from on high. 

the more you look at it the better it gets: towers!  turrets!  windows!  a heraldic crest!  crenelations!  a Latin inscription!  a bas relief frieze that would do the Assyrians proud!  crossed swords and muskets!  a pointed archway!  and more! 
what's not to like? 

look who's got a walk-on part! 
why, it's Big Bob (a/k/a Shoney in some parts of the country)! 
I'd know him anywhere. 

O.K., so maybe they got a bit carried away with some of the decorative elements.  it's an excess that's easy to forgive. 

the one detail that showed up in last week's teaser image is worth another look: the intersection of curved arch into rounded tower, the merging of shapes and texture.  they pulled it off in a way that works out quite well. 

Soldiers and Sailors Civil War monument

Comments

[duccio.livejournal.com]

I noticed that carved curving molding, the outline of the arch, plunging into the rusticated stone work of the tower last week and thought it was pretty outstanding. The stone masons were really first class. Thanks for the architectural heritage tour.

[nienna-nineve.livejournal.com]

Grand indeed, but also startling in the way it mixes styles. It's strange to see sculptures with that sort of Greco-Roman realism on a construction that's essentially Gothic Revival!