Postcards from Hartford

Downtown Hartford's original YMCA building, built in 1873 at the corner of Ford and Pearl streets. If you had been looking through the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch from the Capitol side, this great building would have filled your view. Despite protests, it was torn down in 1974, with the site becoming a parking lot for the new YMCA building, which today is vacant. The demolition sparked a preservation movement in Hartford, led today by the Hartford Preservation Alliance.