Picture Radio City Music Hall's designers at work here, raising Mortensen Hall as a living memorial. Known formerly as Bushnell Memorial Hall or simply The Bushnell, it is managed by a non-profit and billed as Connecticut's premier presenter of the performing arts. The theater you face, Mortensen Hall, was completed in 1930 by Dotha Bushnell Hillyer as a "living memorial" to her father, the Reverend Dr. Horace Bushnell (1802–1876), a Hartford minister, theologian, philosopher, and civic leader.
Take in the scale: Mortensen Hall seats 2,800 and was designed by the firm Corbett, Harrison, and MacMurray, the same designers behind New York’s Radio City Music Hall. The exterior here recalls a traditional Georgian Revival, while inside you would find a rich Art Deco interior. The building’s cornerstone was laid October 16, 1928 at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Trinity Street; inside the sealed copper box were local artifacts including the 1928 Hartford City Directory, issues of the Hartford Courant and Hartford Times, writings of Horace Bushnell, and the Memorial’s constitution and by-laws.
In 2002 the Maxwell M. and Ruth R. Belding Theater was opened as part of the center. Notice the Georgian Revival exterior giving way, inside, to a rich Art Deco interior.