USA Gymnastics

The Visa Championships are in Hartford this weekend.  At lunch on Friday, three acrobatic gymnast champions put on an exhibition at the Old State House.  They also invited some young girls to try some gymnastic moves.

Noah Webster

Noah Webster is a West Hartford native who devoted decades to writing the first American dictionary.  Those of us old enough to remember books (those things with sheets of printed paper encased in hard covers) all learned how to look up the spelling and meaning of words in a Webster dictionary.

Today Noah stands in front of West Hartford's main library, oddly enough called the Noah Webster Library (in brick to his rear), and Blue Back Square, a new development that will get some ink (er, some pixels) in the coming days . . .

This 13 1/2 foot statue was a gift from a West Harford-based sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski.  Mr. Z later helped Gutzon Borglum with the large-scale carving at Mount Rushmore, before going on to carve the Crazy Horse Memorial into another South Dakota mountain.

Red House

I have always liked this house.

The photo was taken on a searingly hot morning, with a sun so bright that it turned the black roof to white.  I was tempted to re-take another photo on a less scalding day, but I thought that the photo captured the sizzling moment.

I like the auto-posting feature.  You didn't even know that I was away from Hartford, visiting my daughter in London for the past week, did you?

Travelers

Aetna and The Hartford have already had their day.  Today is Travelers' time.

Sorry.  No red umbrella.

Stone Field

Now, you might think this is a bunch of rocks, but you would be wrong.  They aren't rocks.  They are sculpture. 

In 1977 Hartford contracted to pay a noted sculptor, Carl Andre, $87,000 for an installation of 36 boulders on a small plot of land in downtown Hartford.  The project was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.  Some narrow-minded citizens objected, and a controversy ensued.  Eventually, Andre was paid and the rocks -- er, the art objects -- are still there.  (I have become used to them.)

More people heard of Carl Andre a decade later when he was acquitted of charges that he murdered his wife by pushing her from the window of their 34th floor Greenwich Village apartment.

Fashion

I don't know.  I just thought she fit the scene.

This is the Goodwin Parlor at the Wadsworth Atheneum.  They took apart a room in a mansion before it was torn down and recreated it inside the museum.

Gold Building

This is the Gold Building, home of United Technologies Corporation.  Among UTC's main businesses are Pratt & Whitney (aircraft engines), Hamilton Sundstrand (a variety of aviation and space products), Otis Elevators, Carrier (air conditioning) and Sikorsky Aircraft (helicopters).  See the helipad on the roof?

The Gold Building adjoins the Ancient Burying Ground, featured yesterday.  Quite a contrast, isn't it?