On the Hartford skyline

The Hartford skyline isn't much of a skyline at all. The city is by a river, as most cities are, of course, but the most of the buildings are short and the surrounding countryside is hilly so that by the time you can actually see Hartford, you're already inside of it. So there can be no shape to the scattered skyscrapers or the gold domes that sit atop the State House and Bushnell and the Aetna building because as you move through it, everything is always shifting in one direction or another. There are small stretches of road to the east--especially on route two--where you get an idea of what the Hartford skyline might look like if it were a real skyline, but it mostly just resembles the bits around skyscrapers in larger cities. It feels like there is a landmark missing from the center of it.

What you can see isn't distinct because the city is a strange amalgamation of the old and the new and improved. There are the old ugly boxy buildings built back when everyone was too taken with the idea of height to be worried about architectural aesthetics. There are the Capital Towers, standing at the very edge of the city, ludicrous in front of a small grassy hill and an old neglected plaza, two squatting brick squares topped off by strange green pyramids that look like they were designed for towers of different dimensions. The worst is an old building--about half the size of the buildings around it, thankfully--covered entirely in gold glass. More than anything, it looks like Boston's Hancock Tower if it somehow rusted. Luckily, it can only be seen heading into the city from the west, and usually the eye is distracted by the two fat smokestacks that pump out steam or smoke or something only about five feet off the roof of a factory. Even more distinct are the old brick buildings, long abandoned if not in practice then in spirit, with broken windows, patchy neon signs and graffiti. City officials, savvy fellows that they are, have adorned other brick buildings with retro signage and art with chalk or spraypaint so that it's harder to tell from the abandoned buildings from the ones that are just abandoned-chic these days.

And then there are the new buildings, like the convention center overlooking the Connecticut river bordering the east side of the city, and the adjacent hotel. More out of place than anything, especially a few blocks away from the woefully-dated and once-crumbling Civic Center, the flashy architecture and bright façade at least shoot for something like beauty, which is a start. This is the crown jewel of the city's ongoing rehabilitation project that has been going on in one form or another for as long as I can remember. It is a difficult task, since the city's attractions--the convention center, Bushnell, the Mark Twain House, Hartford Stage, etc.--are all, for the most part, separated by blocks and blocks of busy streets and empty sidewalks. It's just a scattershot affair, overall, and it doesn't so much resemble a city as much as it does the first successful city a new SimCity player gets going. Too excited there are really people moving in to worry about beauty or function.

Driving through the city at night is eerie, even before you consider the crime rates. More than any other city you will find, I think, Hartford is dark. The darkest buildings, invariably, are the hotels. Either the rooms are empty or nobody bothers opening the shades to look outside.