FREE TV!

Over the last few months, televisions have joined mattresses as staples of the Hartford sidewalk scene. With the price of flat screen tv's dropping, old tube television, as antiquated as much of the City's methods of doing business, now adorn sidewalks across the city. The phenomenom seems to know no racial or neighborhood boundaries. Televisions can be found scattered across the South End, West End and North End.

Why don't they pick up the televisions? Well, that job has been contracted out to a private company. Twice a week the company goes around Hartford and picks up televisions. But, they will only pick up televisions that have been reported and logged into the City's illustrious 311 system. So if a television is reported outside of 48 Bond and by some miracle the contractor arrives in a timely manner, they will pick up the reported television at 48 Bond, but if there are 10 more on the block, they will simply ignore them and leave them on the sidewalk.

Quite a system huh?

Hartford Pic Of The Week

In honor of The Traveler's Championship, we call this one "In The Weeds"

The Party's Over

There's some sort of irony in seeing balloons shoved into a dumpster. We found these discarded and still inflated balloons in the West End. Birthday party? New baby? Dejected Red Sox fan?

Sad City History: Hartford, The CRRA, and Enron

Last week we investigated the abundance of mattresses that populate Hartford sidewalks. We learned that mattresses were expensive to dispose of and that Hartford and many other towns waste disposal is handled by the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority (“CRRA”). While doing some research we also learned some interesting stuff about the CRRA. 

The CRRA was established in 1973 as a quasi-public entity by Connecticut General Statute §22a-261.The goal of the CRRA was to modernize the system of town dumps with a commitment of trash-to-energy and recycling. Today the CRRA website defines its’ misison “is to work for, and in, the best interests of the 96 Connecticut towns and municipalities that it has contracts with.”

Mattress Pile: Main Street

Hartford residents and visitors are surely familiar with the apparent overabundance of mattresses in the city. The glut of mattresses leads to many of these mattresses living on the side of Hartford streets for a while. Here at Sad City, we like to document some of the more impressive mattress colonies that congregate on our streets. This colony was found on Main Street this weekend. Upon close inspection one can see that this mattress colony has merged with a couch colony in a rare instance of mattress-couch cross-breeding.