Wondering about the Heublein Cafe in the Gardens, Hartford branding or the plans to install eight new footbridges? What about how the proposed brook would impact 286 trees in Bushnell Park? What are the plans to deal with the 46,000 parking spaces in Downtown?
Find the answers within the 120-page iQuilt Plan Overview that is now available.
After reading through, leave a comment with your impressions of this.
Karen
I tend to be the unpopular one here, but I’m going to go ahead and write it for the record. The idea of the “Hartford Walks” is my favorite. Boston, Philly – historic cities – have historic walks. Connecting Twain/Beecher-Stowe/Bushnell Park/Wadsworth with walking tours is brilliant. I think it reinforces all the issues that I’ve ever had with Hartford trying to come to terms with its “red headed stepsibling of Boston/NYC” in the perfect way. Even people who move to the area are often unaware of the historic impact of the city. I know, it doesn’t automatically make life better for residents, but the flip side is – more people being aware of Hartford’s historic impact means more money to businesses, fewer businesses failing, etc. In fact, a lot of events like Stitches East or Connecticon bring in people who may have no idea about what the city’s history is – yeah, they’re tourists here for a specific purpose, but there’s a lot of down time. Why not make the most of it?
The water stuff? Not practical. Agreed. The walkways? Not brilliant. And I’d love to know where they got those pictures of kids splashing in the water at what is supposed to look like Bushnell Park.
I liked the idea of greening the streets. For several reasons. Most importantly, Main Street and Trumbull Street are incredibly unfriendly to pedestrians. Green ways in the middle of streets psychologically slow traffic. People drive more slowly when the streets are narrower. I can buy into some of that.
I’d like to see more about mass transit. Let’s all be honest – regardless of whether you live in Hartford, visit Hartford, or just drive through Hartford, Union Station is an unfortunate pit stop. Connecting it to the city and making it less monstrously dilapidated feeling and less difficult to travel around would make living and visiting easier. There are some amazing apartments (or, ok, they WERE amazing the very long time ago when I wanted to move downtown after college grad and couldn’t afford them) near there. However, if the area itself is generally run down and hard to travel (difficult to even cross the street to walk up to The Hartford from there if you work there because of the 84 exit/entrance AND taxi traffic), not a lot of people would pay that money for the long term.
I liked the ideas for making Bushnell Park East have food vendors and be more in line with the ideas of a Central Park with the potential for chess tables or other public spaces. Bushnell Park is another one of those spaces in Hartford that most residents but not too many others understand the historical importance of. I’d love to see it become a greater highlight. I’d love to see it become a place where there’s more than a playground and carousel with benches. I’d love to see it be more connected to the idea of community and become a central focus because, really, that’s what Olmstead would have wanted.
I don’t live in Hartford. So, technically, I don’t have an investment since I’m nothing more than a suburbanite that just comes in for a few hours or a day. However, regardless, I love the city, have lived within ten minutes of it my whole life, went to school there, lived there out of college, and want to see the city thrive. It is a walkable city in ways that many of the larger cities aren’t. It has many of the best and worst parts of urban life. The iQuilt plan has a ridiculous name, many problems, but there are also some benefits. The one major upside that I see to iQuilt is that it can be implemented in pieces – with different pieces being more or less important than others – allowing funding allocation to be put less on an overall “MUST DO ALL THE THINGS” focus to a more manageable “What are our top 3-7 MUST DO List items”. (And also, because I started late, I made it only to page 46 of 63 in the PDF but my eyes got tired).
Yes, the schools and government need work. I doubt that Hartford is unaware of these issues. However, if making Hartford a more connected city as a whole – whether for residents or visitors – brings in greater revenue for the city as a whole and if some of those parts can be accomplished through a variety of funding decisions (i.e. what will best tie the city together, give residents and visitors a sense of connection to Hartford’s history, and be done in small pieces that allow the individual projects to be within a more limited budget even if it takes more time) then even with all of the negative aspects that can be found within iQuilt, there are aspects to embrace that can benefit both residents and visitors.
Kerri Provost
I think you’ve clocked in enough hours on that ice rink to be allowed to give your opinion 🙂
Karen
My legs. They still scream in pain. As in as soon as I move from this chair…
Karen
ETA – FWIW – the reason I moved out of Hartford to my second apt was because I got a lower rent on my WeHa one (that apt was $750/month for 1100 sq ft) compared to $900 for a similar apt over by Spigot. It had nothing to do with urban issues in the city but, y’know, old fashioned cash flow.
Tim
As I did with their preliminary report last year, I will again attempt to see where one can acquire a printed copy of the this report. Hopefully the will have taken my suggestion from the September input session and make copies available at Hartford Public Library (for check out).
I noticed on the last page of the final report PDF in the upper left-hand corner it says “$20.00”. Ouch! There is still not a corporation in Hartford that can help underwrite the printing? Where exactly are they selling these for $20?
Why do I care? Call me old fashioned, but I spend 8 hours a day glued to a computer screen (two, actually) and in my free time when I could read such a report, I’d like to do so by reading a printed page. I don’t have an iWahtever to consume the iQuilt message.
But, I do look forward to reading it and sharing my comments. Thanks again for posting this information.
Kerri Provost
I vaguely remember hearing something about printed versions being made available at the library and agree that it is a good idea. Happy it’s available to download, but my eyes also are strained enough as it is. Print format also makes it available for those who do not have computers/internet at home, which is still quite a few people here.