A piece of Hartford history that probably won't be missed

A Hartford institution that opened in 1940 and served pretty much everyone who had anything to do with the city is about to disappear.

Don't rack you brain for the name of a bank, restaurant, or store. We're talking about the landfill in the North Meadows.

The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority (CRRA), which has leased the landfill from the city since 1982, announced this week that it has awarded an $11.6 million contract for the final phase of capping the site.

Reading a CRRA fact sheet on the landfill serves as a reminder that not everything about Hartford's past deserves the glow of nostalgia:

The City of Hartford opened the landfill on Leibert Road in the North Meadows for use as an open-burning dump in 1940.

In 1951, the Hartford Fire Department burned shacks erected on the landfill by "dump dwellers."

Between 1953 and 1977 all waste produced in the City of Hartford was burned in the then-state-of-the-art Hartford incinerator. Byproducts from the burning were emitted into the air without any pollution controls. During this period the landfill received incinerator ash and bulky wastes.

The city leased the landfill to the CRRA in 1982. By 1988, the landfill's days of accepting raw garbage were over. Instead, CRRA began using it to deposit ash from its Hartford trash-to-energy plant, along with assorted bulky and special wastes. Still, it emitted a smell that gave visitors driving into Hartford along Interstate 91 a bad first impression of the city. It was no fun for the neighbors, either.

In 2008, CRRA began the process of installing a state-of-the-art synthetic cap over the entire 80-acre landfill. The cap, made of a thick plastic material, will mean there will be 90 percent less infiltration of the landfill by rain water, according to CRRA.

The agency also announced that the closing will allow the making of more history. The final section to be capped, measuring about 35 acres, will have photovoltaic panels mounted on top of a special artificial turf. The project is expected to generate about one megawatt of electricity, or enough to power about 1,000 homes at peak efficiency."The Hartford landfill will be the first in the state – and one of only a handful in the country – to generate solar power," according to CRRA.

Remembering the Hartford Circus Fire

City fire officials and Mayor Pedro Segarra led a ceremony Friday to mark the 68th anniversary of the Hartford Circus Fire, which killed 168 people and injured an estimated 700. The ceremony was held at the memorial created in 2006 on the site of the fire, behind the Behind Fred D. Wish Elementary School on Barbour Street. It was a very hot and sunny day--a lot like that awful day on July 6, 1944. For more on the fire, go to www.hartfordhistory.net/circusfire.html.

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Hartford's darkest day remembered

Tuesday is the 66th anniversary of the Hartford circus fire, which killed 168 people and injured nearly 500.

The Mark Twain House and Museum will mark the anniversary by hosting a discussion among authors who've written about the fire, including novelist Mary-Ann Tirone Smith ("Masters of Illusion"), poet Paul Janeczko ("Worlds Afire"), and investigators Don Massey and Rick Davey ("A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and the Mystery of Little Miss 1565.") Kathy Maher, executive director of the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, will serve as moderator.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of the Connecticut Public Television documentary on the fire. The panel discussion, entitled "Telling a Tragic Tale: Writers on the Hartford Circus Fire," follows at 7:30 p.m. Afterward, the authors will sign copies of their books, and visitors can view a collection of artifacts that will be on display in the Great Hall of the museum through July.

Admission is free. The Mark Twain House Museum is located at 351 Farmington Avenue. You'll find directions and a map here.

On Saturday morning, Cedar Hill Cemetery will hold its own event, including presentations from Pat Weibust, who attended the circus the day of the fire, and playwright Anne Pié, whose "Front Street" deals with the fire's impact on a local immigrant family. Following the presentations, there will be a tour of the graves of some of the people who lost their lives in the fire.

Cedar Hill Cemetery is located at 453 Fairfield Avenue, in the city's South End. (Map)

WNPR kicks off 'Basement Tapes Project' with recording of MLK at The Bushnell

Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR-FM, 90.5) has launched "The Basement Tapes Project," an effort to find "long-lost audio gems" and put them on the air. The station invites listeners to scour their basements and attics for records, tapes, or any other audio recording that represents a piece of Connecticut history. (Look under the "Services" tab on the left side of the station website for contact information.)

To prime the pump, the station has posted a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at The Bushnell in 1959. King, invited by the University of Hartford’s Hillyer College to give a speech on "the future of integration," was just 30 at the time. The U of H has posted an article on the visit, along with audio clips from the speech, the flyer advertising the speech, and King's publicity photo from the period.

By the way, check the Hartford Courant's Capitol Watch blog for Chris Keating's MLK Day entry on the summers a teen-aged King spent working on a Simsbury tobacco farm. It was King's first time out of the segregated South, and his wonder at the different way of life here was apparent in his letters home. The most moving quote: "Yesterday, we didn't work, so went to Hartford. We really had a nice time there. I never thought that a person my race could eat anywhere, but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford."