In Your Neighborhood is a weekly photo series showcasing Hartford’s neighborhoods.
In Your Neighborhood: Clay Arsenal
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Real Hartford
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In Your Neighborhood is a weekly photo series showcasing Hartford’s neighborhoods.
Comments are closed.
Josh LaPorte
Does anyone know when and why the Clay Hill neighborhood changed its name to “Clay Arsenal”? I feel like this must have been when the NRZs were born. Almost all these pictures are taken in what I think of as Clay Hill. The Arsenal District is across Main St heading down towards the river, as I understand it.
Brendan
From what I’ve been told by a proud Clay Hill residents, that is entirely true. I think it was in the 80s or 90s. She doesn’t like that Clay Arsenal is a made up neighborhood.
I’ve also always challenged her to find me the hill in Clay Hill. Seems pretty flat to me. I guess the whole neighborhood slopes down to the river, but that’s true of the entire city.
I just think it’d be weird to have an arsenal filled with clay. You can’t make very good weapons out of clay.
Chris
People have been shooting at clay pigeons for decades, so they must be a very serious threat.
Pull!
Brendan
Is that a roundabout Obama joke?
Chris
Nope, it was a straightforward trap shooting joke.
Kerri Provost
Who the hell is “she”?
Two neighborhoods/districts merged. It happens. Get over it.
Josh LaPorte
A lot of neighborhoods were sliced and diced in odd ways when the NRZ’s formed. Some of these changed were rather confusing. I don’t think that these changes reflect a concensus on the part of neighborhood residents that the neighborhood boundaries actually changed, that neighborhoods divided, or that disparate neighborhoods merged.
Josh LaPorte
I love these pictures, by the way. Gorgeous.
Jennifer S.
I can’t make out the second to last word on Evgeni’s tombstone (the one who died on August 24, 1916). Almost looks like he was only 6 months old. Sad! But a gorgeous collection of photos.
Kerri Provost
Thanks!
I can’t read it either.
Erik
The Golem is made out of clay and he’s a one creature arsenal…
Richard
I found this little piece:
Clay Arsenal is one of Hartford’s oldest neighborhoods, developed in the middle and late 19th century. It was mainly farmland prior to 1847, when the Hartford-Springfield Railroad, which now forms the neighborhood’s eastern border, was constructed.
The section west of Main Street lies on a gentle rise above Downtown and is known as Clay Hill, so named for the type of soil there. The area east of Main Street has been known since 1812 as the Arsenal District, when a State Arsenal was constructed. The Arsenal was demolished in 1909.
http://hartford.omaxfield.com/clay.html
Very nice photo’s. The buildings are very beautiful. What is the little building with the turret? Was it a storage for bodies? If it was I wouldn’t want to live there if it isn’t I would love to.
Jen
wonderful pics. did you visit Olmsted while in the cemetery?