Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.
I thought I was going to be finishing my tour of the Clay Hill district today, hence the nondescript title, but I was wrong. Crawling through the images I have, I found one building that is just kind of cool, and I found a pair of buildings that are historically and socially significant. I also discovered that this latter pair of buildings are separately described in a National Register of Historic Places nomination form.
The first building is interesting because it has a corner door, two elevated porches and a series of bullseye dormer window. It’s a retail site with residential units on the upper floors. In a former life, in the late 1970s, it was a bar.
The pair of buildings are the remaining portion of what was the Hartford Widow’s Home. As in previous weeks, I’m going to let the NRHP nomination form speak for itself.
The Widows’ Home, constructed in 1864 and 1865, consists of two nearly identical brick buildings facing west along Main Street in Hartford. The property is now bounded on the north and south by empty land parcels, and to the east by modern housing projects. A small heavily wooded lot at the rear of the property once served for recreational use. Though now quite isolated from other historic buildings, the Widows’ Home formerly had a fine visual complement in the U.S. Arsenal, a three-and-a-half story stuccoed-brick structure built in 1805 a few hundred feet north of the site of the Home; it was demolished in 1909.
National Registry of Historic Places nomination form
The Widows’ Home is a rare local example of institutional architecture from the mid-nineteenth century. It has substantial historical significance as a physical embodiment of the 19th-century approach to social problems, which was to rely almost entirely on private philanthropy. One of several charitable facilities established in Hartford in the nineteenth century, the Widows’ Home is distinguished by the fact that its buildings survive with much of their historical appearance intact. Despite changing uses and recent (written in 1982) neglect, the property retains a high level of architectural integrity, featuring a well-preserved combination of vernacular design elements, After the 1843 Mather Homestead, the Widows’ Home is the second oldest building in Hartford’s North End. The citizens of nineteenth-century Hartford conceived of their city as one of the leaders in the establishment of charitable institutions.
From 1821 through the end of the century, organizations were created to address a wide variety of social needs. Some of these, such as the American School for the Deaf and the Retreat for the Insane, became nationally known and established Hartford’s reputation as a benevolent community.
If you are in a hurry and don’t wish to scroll through the comments, click to Jump to the comment form.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
No Facilities 
Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation.