Progress on the new Hartford Fire Insurance Company office building

1. Initially, a horse-drawn team carried the dirt from the reservoir to the meadow, but now a narrow-gauge railroad with a “donkey engine” and a “bob-tailed freight car” had been installed to speed this process.
2. The pile of dirt in the meadow “runs sheer up from the meadow grass, to a height about equal to the eaves of the barns at the rear of Sumner street properties.”
3. Prior to this construction project, the meadow had drained toward Collins Street, but the pile of dirt shortened the path water could take to the street, overwhelming the sewers.

1. Blasting was conducted during the excavation for the foundation, reported on November 21, 1919, because the ground had been frozen.
2. The Courant provided an update on construction on May 24, 1920.

The Courant would report that the building neared completion on October 29, 1921.

1. The local children found the massive dirt piles to be an excellent to play.
2. The older residents remembered taking in sunsets and moonlight nights on the reservoir.
3. The Courant predicted that the completed building would be a tremendous benefit to Asylum Hill and to the city.

1. “And as a result of demolition and construction, many of the old neighborhood landmarks are speedily passing.”
2. “Many speculations have been indulged as to exactly what the eventual plans of the company will be.”
3. “Much of the dirt has already been dumped, but it would conservatively seem as though about three-quarters of the reservoir still remains, and the question arises, will the meadow hole take it all?”
4. “For the children of the neighborhood, the Hartford Fire’s future site is one of the most ideal playgrounds in the city – because most dangerous. The lovely Alps of moist dirt down which to slide, the little track with its funny engine, the very muddy pond-hole, and the pleasing prospect of delight and immediate damage to clothes make the spot an irresistible attraction the youngfolk.”

1. “During heavy storms in the past a good deal of water has swept from the Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds, in the worst rainfalls even running through the yards and over the curbstones into Collins street.”
2. “During this period the neighborhood jokingly alluded to the attacks by the Germans, and the shivering householder at times shrunk as the booms came, and glanced at his ceilings."

Unattributed, “New Hartford Fire home fast rising on Asylum Avenue,” Hartford Courant, page 15.