A walk down an alleyway reveals the entrance to BiCi Co., where its Women’s Committee will be meeting on Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

BiCi Co.’s entrance is not on the main street, but there are signs posted. Not hidden.

I hear the phrase “hidden treasure” tossed around to describe even restaurants on Park Street. Treasures? Sure. Hidden? Not even close.

An establishment is not a hidden treasure simply by being located outside of Downtown Hartford or West Hartford Center, or by getting on without benefit of billboard advertisement.

 

 

The thing is, if you are in one of the neighborhoods and take the time to see it at a human pace — on foot — you are not surprised by the existence of places like an ice cream shop, a tattoo parlor, and a hookah lounge on Park Street. Not Park Road, Park Street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few years ago we published a piece that sarcastically referred to “gangbangers and thugs in Pope Park” to go with photos of nothing exciting or dangerous happening there. If we want to gauge how people perceive Hartford, there’s some evidence in the large number who still find Real Hartford by searching Google for signs of trouble in this neighborhood park. People-from-not-here or who lived here three decades ago, moved away, and never returned, have tried to argue with me (if that’s what the shouting, bullying language used could be called) about the safety of this park. They would never go there, they say. It’s loaded with drug dealers and delinquents, they say.

There’s the standard graffiti and vandalism, such as we see in any of Hartford’s parks. Anyone who thinks the “south end” (not South End) got favorable treatment by the previous administration need not look beyond the sidewalk conditions on Park Street or damaged benches and fencing in Pope Park to see that much of Hartford has gone without proper maintenance.

But all of that alleged danger?

Noise pollution? Sure, at times. Annoying crotch rockets speeding? That’s everywhere.

Danger? Isolating yourself, binge-watching television shows, living a sedentary life — that’s dangerous. Drinking oneself blind in a “safe” town is dangerous, and even more so if this includes driving.

Pick your poison. So far the only gang I have encountered in Pope Park has been the hundreds of geese that guard the pond. They’re no joke.