Month: February 2018

David Rosado: the latest in a long line of police chiefs

In light of David Rosado becoming Hartford’s new police chief, it seemed appropriate to track down and publish a list of previous chiefs. It wasn’t as easy as expected; the list below comes mostly from from an archived page of the Police Department’s old website.

As for Rosado, he’s new to the Department but hardly new to Hartford. He grew up in the old Charter Oak Terrace housing projects and graduated from Bulkeley High School, returning there last week for a swearing-in ceremony meant to send a message to city kids. “Bulkeley means something to me; that’s where I grew up,” Rosado told the Hartford Courant. “There’s significance to that; it sends a message to kids there that ‘You too can accomplish something if you set your mind to it.'”

Here’s video of the ceremony by NBC Connecticut (WVIT-TV).

After graduating from the University of Connecticut, where he also obtained a law degree, Rosado rose through the ranks of the Connecticut State Police, including stints leading Troop H in Hartford, Troop W in Windsor Locks, and the internal affairs unit. He was a a lieutenant colonel, with more than two decades of service, when he left the state police to take the Hartford post.

In a January 23 news release from City Hall, City Councilman Thomas “TJ” Clarke II referred to Rosado as the city’s first Latino police chief.

This list dates back to 1901, though the Police Department was formally created in 1860. Anyone with material on the Department’s history is welcome to send it to kevin@hartfordhistory.net or P.O. Box 370202, West Hartford, CT 06137-0208.

Hartford police chiefs

David Rosado: 2018-

James C. Rovella: 2012-2018

Daryl K. Roberts: 2006-2011

Patrick J. Harnett: 2004-2006

Mark R. Pawlina: 2003-2004 (acting chief)

Bruce Preston Marquis: 2000-2003

Joseph J. Croughwell: 1994-2000

Jesse Campbell: 1993-1994

Ronald J. Loranger: 1989-1993

Bernard R. Sullivan: 1982-1989

George W. Sicaras: 1980-1982

Hugo J. Masini: 1974-1980

Thomas J. Vaughn: 1968-1974

John Kerrigan: 1963-1968

Paul Beckwith: 1958-1963

Michael J. Godfrey: 1944-1958

Charles J. Hallissey: 1941-1944

John J. Butler: 1939-1941

Garret J. Farrell: 1913-1939

Cornelius Ryan: 1901-1904

Thank you, David Zwick

It’s easy to paint the second half of the 20th Century as a time of decline for Hartford and most other American cities, but let’s remember the work of environmentalists who succeeded back then in forcing a clean-up of our rivers—a vital precursor to all the waterfront revivals we see now, including Hartford’s. Without laws like the federal Clean Water Act of 1972, there probably would be no Riverfront Plaza today. After all, who’d want to hang out by a stinky, polluted Connecticut River?

One of those instrumental in writing and securing passage of the Clean Water Act was David Zwick, who died on Feb. 5 in Minneapolis, at age 75. The New York Times has published an inspiring obituary of him, including quotes from activist Ralph Nader, who recalled recruiting the young Vietnam-veteran-turned-law-student for “Nader’s Raiders.” In 1971 Zwick and Marcy Benstock wrote “Water Wasteland,” a lengthy report that detailed the nation’s failures up to that point in trying to control water pollution. He then went to work on drafting the Clean Water Act, helping to make it bulletproof from opponents’ attempts to undermine it.

The Times noted that when it came time to commemorate the Act’s 25th anniversary in 1987, then-Environmental Protection Secretary Carol M. Browner remarked: “By any measure, this landmark legislation has been hugely successful. Once-dead rivers, lakes, and estuaries are now pulsating with life. People are returning to them — to swim, to fish, to ply the waters in their boats and to relax on their shores.”

The work of connecting people to the Hartford and East Hartford riverfront is continued today by Riverfront Recapture, founded in 1980.

History getting unstuck on Pearl Street

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It’s nice to see progress in the plans to rehabilitate the long-vacant office buildings at the corner of Pearl and Trumbull streets.

The Hartford Business Journal reports that a New York-based partnership has secured $12.6 million in financing to convert the 12-story building at 101 Pearl Street in 157 market-rate apartments. The partnership also intends to convert neighboring seven-story building at 111 Pearl Street into 101 apartments.

Those of us who frequented downtown watering holes in the early 1980s best remember 111 Pearl as the home of Sean Patrick’s, a basement-level bar; you could look down into it through street-level windows on the Trumbull Street side.

The building was to have been torn down in the early 1990s to make way for one of several downtown skyscraper projects that, thanks to an epic real-estate collapse, came to nothing. The 101 Pearl site would have become the Cutter Financial Center, planned as the tallest building in New England. The project never made it to the demolition stage (developer Anthony F. Cutaia ran out of money and eventually ended up in prison for running a Ponzi scheme in South Florida), but the other sites weren’t so fortunate. For more on those debacles, read “What Hartford Was Supposed to Be,” an article on the Connecticut Historical Society’s website.

H/T Facebook’s “Old Hartford” group