Endangered Historic Site Spotlight
Goodwin’s Wild
Goodwin’s Wild (photo: Mary Pelletier – www.parkwatershed.org
NOTE: In lieu of our annual publication of an Endangered Sites list, HPA will be spotlighting endangered buildings and sites throughout the year.
NEIGHBORHOODS: Asylum Hill & West End
STYLE: Natural Heritage
YEAR BUILT: Continuous, starting prior to the Revolutionary War
ARCHITECT: Evolution & Environment
Did you know that Hartford has significant and historic forests worthy of conservation and preservation?
“Goodwin’s Wilds,” part of the North Branch of the Park River (straddling the border between the Asylum Hill and West End neighborhoods) is an Old Forest with Old Growth elements. Incredibly, there are trees in Goodwin’s Wilds that date to before the Revolutionary War making it, along with the Ancient Burying Ground and the South Green, one of the oldest historic sites in Hartford.
Hartford needs to protect and steward these magical old public forests as nature preserves and thereby align with President Biden’s executive order on mature and old-growth forests and Raised Bill H. 5992 in the Connecticut Legislature. Old forests and legacy trees are living touchstones for everyone. But without explicit recognition – as a “Community Wild,” a nature preserve, or as part of the national Old Growth Forest Network, these crown jewels of our natural heritage may be damaged or devalued, thereby causing unnecessary and irrecoverable losses to our ecology and health – and to our leadership in historic preservation.
More information:
“US Plans New Forest Protections, Issues Old-Growth Inventory,” NBC Connecticut, April 20, 2023
Olmsted in CT Landscape Documentation Project
Austin Serio, Urban Indigenous Collective, next to a Northern Red Oak in Goodwin’s Wild (Photo: Susan Masino)
Our mission is to revitalize the historic fabric of Hartford,
connect us to our heritage and
collaborate to impact community economic development
by providing historic preservation and revitalization technical assistance, education and advocacy for those who live and work in Hartford.
Old State House circa 1886
On May 14, 2019, HPA Executive Director Mary A. Falvey was the featured speaker at the Old State House’s “Conversations at Noon” series. Click the following link to view the Connecticut Network video recording of her presentation “The History of the Preservation of the Old State House” followed by a panel discussion (including Mary, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Mary Dunne and CT Trust Executive Director Jane Montanaro) on the future of preservation. http://ct-n.com/ctnplayer.asp?odID=16343
HPA’s previous Executive Director Frank Hagaman presented Historic Preservation: The Foundation for Community Economic Development at the 2013 TEDx Bushnell Park event.