The Seven Visible-From-the-Highway Wonders of Hartford

Most people who have not spent any significant amount of time in Hartford will often will comment that they have, “driven through a couple of times on the highway.” And they always seem to notice the Seven Visible-From-the-Highway Wonders of Hartford. As much as anything else in our fair city, the Seven Visible-From-the-Highway Wonders are icons that ground us all, giving us a sense of place and, for better or worse, making Hartford feel like home.

Have you ever wondered what monuments actually make up the Seven Visible-From-the-Highway Wonders of Hartford? Let Sad City Hartford’s handy guide show you the way.

The Colt Building

Built in 1855, the blue onion domed building is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Hartford. In the nineteenth century, America’s Wild West was tamed by the firearms that were manufactured in this building. In the twenty-first century, the Colt Building has some comically over-priced loft apartments.

Mount Trashmore

While the Colt Building welcomes visitors approaching Hartford from the south, Mount Trashmore welcomes visitors from the north. Nestled alongside I-91, Mount Trashmore was the home of the city dump. As far as we can tell, the site is currently closed and no longer accepting garbage. When we were children, we remember driving by the dump on the highway and all you could see was a much smaller pile of garbage. Today, Mount Trashmore is covered in green grass and black tarps and is roughly three times the size. It stands as a sobering reminder that the garbage that mysteriously disappears from our curbside every Wednesday, eventually winds up somewhere.

In the name of economic development, we suggest that the city reopens the landfill and we fill it even higher. After a few years, once it has reached an acceptable altitude, we should get some snow machines and cover it with snow. Then, KA-POW! You’ve got yourself a man-made ski resort.

Connecticut River

We’re not really sure why we included it on the list, but isn’t really weird that the Connecticut River not only runs through Connecticut, but it’s also in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. Weird, right? Other than that, we have no idea why it would be significant, but you can see it from the highways.

Elf Storage

Every December, some “hysterical” person always dims the “S” bulb on the self-storage building located that’s visible from I-84. We can’t stress how funny that joke is. It’s right up there with Ziggy comic strips and “Hoof Arted” t-shirts.

The Cupcake Building

Most people drive by the Cupcake Building on I-84 and wonder some very logical questions. Why does the building look like four orange Hostess Cupcakes? Why would they stick something like that right next to the highway? Why do they belch mysterious smoke? Is that building a pollution factory, and if so, why would anyone manufacture pollution in the first place?

While we don’t have all of the answers to some of these burning questions, Sad City Hartford did do a bit of digging and came up with the following:

• According to Google Maps, the building is officially known as the Capital District Energy Center.
• It’s apparently a power plant that generates roughly 56 MW (???). The plant runs primarily on natural gas.
• The smoke you see belching out of the cupcakes is actually steam.
• Odds are that this blog post was written using electricity that was produced at the Cupcake Building.
• Sadly, no cupcakes are produced at the Cupcake Building. But if they did, Hartford would smell like a bakery. And that would be awesome.

Connecticut Science Center

The newest entry on our list (it bumped the Convention Center off), the Science Center has a cool, wavy roof. We are not sure if the roof serves any functional purpose, but we like it. Plus, the science stuff they have inside is also cool, albeit overrun with obnoxious children.

Infinite Pulaski Circle

Visible from the Whitehead Highway, the Infinite Pulaski Circle serves an important purpose for those heading downtown from I-91. Its rotary design allows them to quickly determine if they have made a mistake and allows them to get back on the highway without dealing with any traffic lights. If only other things in life allowed you to change your mind as easily as the City of Hartford.