I never drove down this street until I heard that residents were complaining about people traveling at excessive rates of speed. So, of the half dozen times I have walked, biked, or driven on this road, I have never seen anyone speed. My impression is that it is a deafeningly silent street that makes the occasional reckless driver take up too much space in the minds of residents. In contrast, a street I live near provides the opportunity for one to pull up a lawn chair and sit, counting on one hand, the vehicles that manage to actual travel the speed limit. Anyway, this is not a contest for whose street invites the most obnoxious drivers.

I tend to be averse to mansions. I think this home qualifies as one, but it is still on the smaller side as far as those go on this street in the West End. It’s not the kind of place where I can imagine a family living. It does not seem remotely cozy to me. I like it because it seems like the place for fantastic dinner parties, croquet games, and wedding receptions in the backyard.

What I like about this house, besides the fantasy that I just invented, is that it counters something that Laurence D. Cohen wrote in the Hartford Business Journal (08/30/10): “The population [of Hartford] is sufficiently undereducated, unsophisticated, disinterested and besieged….” Critiques of capitalism aside, to own a home in this neighborhood, one has likely been sufficiently educated and can be assumed to have a degree of sophistication. Judging by the presence of political lawn signs on this street, there is indeed interest. And besieged? That seems to overstate the case. What I like about this house is that it symbolizes how heterogenous Hartford is. Not every single street has homes riddled with bullets, cars up on cinder blocks, or residents who are living paycheck-to-paycheck.