With its low self-esteem and high urban blight, Hartford is the ultimate underdog city. Sad City Hartford documents the joys, sorrows and eccentricities of New England's Rising Star.

Monday, June 27, 2011

More Hartford Houses Of Worship


We continue our series on Hartford Houses Of Worship with this hodgepodge collection of Houses scattered pretty much all over the city except the South End, which reminds us that we haven't got out to the there enough lately.  This brilliant mural is on the side of the North End Church of Christ on Albany Ave and is a welcome colorful addition to the cityscape.

One of our real disappointments in Hartford is the lack of good graffiti. We feel like all cities, especially somewhat downtrodden cities, should have a lot of exciting, vibrant graffiti. For whatever reason Hartford seems to be lacking in that respect. Maybe we are just looking in the wrong places.  Either way this is a welcome addition.






In stark contrast to the mural on its side, the North End Church of Christ has a very plain and nondescript  front.



A little further down Albany Ave we find this great church.  It is designed in a way that a mammoth church would be but is in fact not all that big. The front appears to be an addition onto an older building.



This tower really reminds us of something out of a trippy cartoon.  Like at any minute a cartoon girl with kaleidoscope eyes would appear at the top of the tower and drop a long mane of hair down the side.


Looks like an addition to us.




While we were checking out that church we spotted what looked to be another pay phone to add to our Hartford Pay Phone Guide.  Looks exciting, has to be something interesting going on up there right?



False alarm. Didn't see anything more exciting than the empty King Cobra box.


This Grace Lutheran Church can be found on Woodland St.  Many anonymous Sad City readers are very particular about making sure each Hartford neighborhood is properly noted. Perhaps they can help us with this inquiry, if traveling on Woodland St towards Albany, when does the North End start? Over Asylum? Homestead? At Albany? No doubt some of these readers can help.


We move across town a little ways to find this church on Park St. Pretty cool use of the angles on that light post right? Totally intentional camera work there.


Here we have A Church For All Nations, located on Washington Street literally right next to the abandoned buildings we profiled last week.  No word if Primera Iglesia Bautista is of any relation to Jose Bautista, best known for terrorizing American League pitchers.


We finish up this segment of Hartford Houses of Worship with a look at the United Methodist Church on the corner of Farmington Aven and Whitney, directly across from the Farmington Ave CVS.  While the Farmington Ave CVS is famous for one particular incident a couple months back, this CVS itself seems to exist in some type of twilight zone.  There always seems to be something wacky going on in there.  If you don't believe us, try at any time of any day, to simply go in there for one quick item and get out without witnessing something weird. It's basically impossible, yet as frustrating as that can be it is still one of those quirky things that makes the city so enjoyable.

4 comments:

  1. There's good graffiti in the train tunnels. Also, there's famous graffiti next to the Carl Pope.

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  2. I like the message on the North end Church. And the bars on the windows.

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  3. I could be mistaken but I think that mural was a project done by some art majors at Uhart. I know that they did a mural for a church in that area so it's probably a good guess that it's that one.

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  4. There's good graffiti if you know where to look. You guys should go on a hunt for some of the hidden gems of the underworld of Hartford! or do a submission contest like your payphone contest Also, i think this city needs way more murals... you should bring that up to all the candidates for mayor you talk to!

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