Hartford Audio Walking Tour

Highlights

• Trinity College

  Welcome to Trinity College, the private liberal arts college perched here in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded as Washington College in 1823 and opened by Bishop Thomas Brownell in 1824 to nine male students, this place began amid the vigorous protest of Yale alumni.

• 
  Mark Twain House

  From 1874 to 1891 Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, lived with his family in the Mark Twain House you now face. The Clemens family had it designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and built in the America High Gothic style; Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan called the house "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock.

• 
  Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

  Something like a castle sits at 600 Main Street in downtown Hartford: the Wadsworth Atheneum. This is the museum founded in 1842 and opened in 1844, the oldest continually operating public art museum in the United States.

• 
  Connecticut State Capitol

  Just north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the Connecticut State Capitol is the building in front of you. From this spot you can feel the building’s role in state life: it houses the Connecticut General Assembly, the upper house, the State Senate, and the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the office of the Governor of the State of Connecticut.

• 
  Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building

  Locals call it the Boat Building: the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building, a Modernist office tower on Constitution Plaza in Hartford, curves in front of you. Designed by Max Abramovitz and completed in 1963, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is described as the world’s first two-sided building.

All 30 stops

• Bulkeley Bridge (Hartford)

  Look up at the stone arches of the Bulkeley Bridge, arching over the Connecticut River since 1908.

• Connecticut Science Center (Hartford)

  Picture César Pelli's nine-story design rising over the Connecticut River, opened to the public in June 2009.

• Constitution Plaza (Downtown Hartford)

  Notice the two plazas ahead, linked by an elevated bridge and anchored by a granite clock tower.

• Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building (Constitution Plaza)

  Locals call it the Boat Building: the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building, a Modernist office tower on Constitution Plaza in Hartford, curves in front of…

• Corning Fountain (Bushnell Park)

  Corning Fountain rises 28 feet in bronze and granite in Bushnell Park.

• Bushnell Park (Hartford)

  Picture Hartford in the 1850s, booming and crowded, when the Reverend Horace Bushnell first proposed this public park.

• Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch (Bushnell Park)

  Brownstone towers and a Gothic arch mark the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Bushnell Park.

• Statue of Israel Putnam (Bushnell Park)

  General Israel Putnam's statue has kept its post in Bushnell Park, Hartford, since its dedication in 1874.

• Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts (Hartford)

  Picture Radio City Music Hall's designers at work here, raising Mortensen Hall as a living memorial.

• Connecticut State Capitol (Bushnell Park)

  Just north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the Connecticut State Capitol is the building in front of you.

• Connecticut State Library (Hartford)

  Directly across the street from the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, the Connecticut State Library serves as both the state's library and an executive branch…

• Old State House (Hartford)

  Charles Bulfinch's career in public buildings is generally believed to begin right here, with the Old State House, completed in 1796.

• Christ Church Cathedral (Downtown Hartford)

  Christ Church Cathedral holds the corner at 955 Main Street in downtown Hartford.

• Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Downtown Hartford)

  Something like a castle sits at 600 Main Street in downtown Hartford: the Wadsworth Atheneum.

• First National Bank Building (State House Square)

  Seven stories of brick and stone at 50-58 State House Square make up the First National Bank Building, in the heart of Downtown Hartford, Connecticut.

• Hartford Times Building (Downtown Hartford)

  Newspapers once rolled out of the Hartford Times Building, the Beaux-Arts headquarters completed in 1920 for the now defunct Hartford Times, and its colonnade faces…

• Cheney Building (Hartford)

  Silk money raised the R. and F. Cheney Building on this corner at 942 Main Street.

• Pratt Street Historic District (Downtown Hartford)

  One block of Pratt Street, between Main and Trumbull Streets in Downtown Hartford, makes up the Pratt Street Historic District, and you are on it.

• Butler-McCook Homestead (Pulaski Mall)

  Clapboard and twin chimneys at 396 Main Street mark the Butler-McCook Homestead, a historic house museum on the east side of Main Street at the…

• Mark Twain House (Hartford)

  From 1874 to 1891 Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, lived with his family in the Mark Twain House you now face.

• Day House (Nook Farm)

  Built to rival Twain's house next door, the Katharine Seymour Day House at 77 Forest Street holds its corner of Nook Farm in Hartford.

• Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Hartford)

  Gray brick, two stories, 73 Forest Street in Hartford, Connecticut: this is the Stowe Center for Literary Activism, once the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• Nook Farm (Asylum Hill)

  Nook Farm spreads across the Asylum Hill section on the western edge of Hartford, and you have just walked into it.

• Trinity College (Hartford)

  Welcome to Trinity College, the private liberal arts college perched here in Hartford, Connecticut.

• Trinity College Chapel, Hartford (Trinity College)

  Gothic Revival on a grand scale, the Trinity College Chapel in Hartford was completed in 1932 on the campus of Trinity College.

• Cinestudio (Trinity College)

  Tucked into the Trinity College campus in Hartford, Cinestudio is the independent film theater ahead of you.

• Armsmear (Coltsville)

  Armsmear, the meadow of arms, was Samuel Colt's family home, and the firearm manufacturer's stone villa faces you here at 80 Wethersfield Avenue.

• Colt Armory (Coltsville)

  Along the Connecticut River in Hartford, Samuel Colt created the Colt Armory, the historic factory complex for the manufacture of firearms that spreads out ahead…

• Coltsville Historic District (south of downtown Hartford)

  Factory, worker housing and owner residences, all tied to Samuel Colt, born 1814 and died 1862, make up the Coltsville Historic District, the 260-acre area…

• Colt Park (Sheldon/Charter Oak)

  Elizabeth Jarvis Colt's death in 1905 gave the city these 106-acre grounds, once the Armsmear Estate she shared with Samuel Colt, and today Colt Park…

How it works