Historic brick townhouses with fenced-in and maintained front yards is what you will see on the north side of the first block of Buckingham Street.
Just around the corner on Main Street is the Hartford Dispensary. Next to that, on the corner itself, is a small park that appears unused, and until a few months ago, did not have a sign posted indicating it as an actual park. This patchy strip of grass — larger than Charter Oak Memorial Park, smaller than Barnard Park — has its own fencing, which was spiffed up about a year ago during a neighborhood clean up. It was then that participants heard Charlie Ortiz, Mayor Segarra’s husband, begin to talk about extending a sidewalk to Whitman Court from the area alongside the dispensary.
After that day of cleaning up litter and arranging for almost all the trees to be removed from Buckingham Square Park, everything was quiet until Wednesday night when Ortiz told some residents that he was spearheading a project to extend Buckingham Square Park from where it currently ends — at the driveway between homes and the dispensary — to Whitman Court.
The South Downtown NRZ did not approve this project, which, if it moves forward, would take over the space residents on this block consider to be their front yards.
In fact, this announcement was news to homeowners that their front lawns are actually City-owned property. The green space — fenced in a way that suggests this is attached to the condos and is separate from Buckingham Square Park — has been maintained by residents now and since at least the 1980s. The assessor site is vague about parcel lines, but HartfordData provides some backing for this being owned by the City of Hartford.
As this is not an initiative coming from homeowners on that block or
from the South Downtown NRZ, it is unclear the motivation for expanding this particular parcel, especially given the number of less attractive, less maintained City-owned properties in the area that have not been acting as anyone’s front yard for decades.
According to those who would be immediately affected, Ortiz has renderings for work that is allegedly scheduled to start in September of this year. There is nothing in HartfordData to suggest that this park, in its current or future form, is going to be a DPW CIP Project.
Joe Bianco
City Should Leave Well enough, Alone. Looks beautifully maintained now by Condo Owners. Will become A POS, if City gets involved!
Donna Swarr
This has not come before the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission. I will ask the park superintendent, Thomas Baptist, what he knows.
Rich H
Question: What’s a dispensary? That building has no sign. Different people have given me answers to the question of what that building is ranging from a soup kitchen to a meth clinic, and I’m going to trust your knowledge more than most. What do they dispense? Is it public or private?
Ken Krayeske
Methadone clinic. Most of their business is done by noon. Been there for decades. Should probably be alongside a healthcare infrastructure instead of main street. but that’s a question for another day.
Judy G
Methadone clinic
Kerri Provost
http://www.ct.gov/DMHAS/cwp/view.asp?a=2902&q=335226
Judy G
By the way, this article is not accurate. There are no such plans to expand the park. Sorry but not real in this case.
dave r
Which part isn’t accurate? The expansion of the park or Charlie Ortiz’s comments? Not sure why you are faulting Real Hartford for reporting what was said.
Kerri Provost
http://www.realhartford.org/2015/06/19/master-plan-for-buckingham-square-park/
Kerri Provost
But thanks for coming over here to say that directly instead of on a closed Facebook page.