In the 1960s, New Britain CT was one of only a few Connecticut cities of its size to not have a highway running through it, and local leaders wanted to change that. City officials thought that a highway would help the downtown grow and bring more customers into the city. With this as the backdrop, Route 72 was built right through downtown New Britain. The project was one of the most expensive highways ever built at the time, and required the taking of hundreds of properties.
Route 72 was not completed until 1978, and within a decade it was clear that building a highway through the city had been a disastrous idea. Route 72 cut off the bustling neighborhood of Little Poland from downtown New Haven, eliminated 20 to 25 percent of downtown real estate, greatly decreased foot traffic in the downtown area and led to the shuttering of hundreds of businesses. A 1988 Hartford Courant article began: “They took the city apart when they built Route 72, cutting the heart of downtown in half” (McKinney, 1988). The article went on to describe the city’s first major effort to reconnect itself despite the highway: a platform bridge that would include an apartment building on it, reconnecting the city and recouping some of the realestate lost to the highway.
The 1988 proposal never came to fruition, and neither did successive efforts over the years to create a platform connection to the downtown. Instead, the city was left with an unattractive and uninviting overpass with narrow sidewalks and the roaring sound of traffic: a structure that sent the message to pedestrians that they were in a space they did not belong. Although New Britain eventually gave up on building the platform bridge envisioned by city leaders for years, the city did recently succeed in building a new pedestrian-geared bridge. Known as Beehive Bridge, the bridge features greatly expanded sidewalks, and a honeycomb design which draws on the city’s beehive seal. It is too early to know how effective the redesigned bridge will be at attracting people to downtown, but city officials say that so far they have seen an uptick in pedestrian traffic downtown. The bridge is also noticeable from afar, hopefully helping to build a sense of place among both New Britain residents and visitors.
The harm that Route 72 brought upon downtown New Britain will not be solved by an expanded pedestrian bridge, but Beehive Bridge does seem like a step in the right direction for the city. As Middletown and the CTDOT consider removing lights from Route 9 in Middletown and improving riverfront access, an important takeaway from New Britain is that undoing the harms of a downtown highway are impossible, and even attempting to limit the harms is incredibly difficult. Despite that, there are steps a city can take to connect neighborhoods that have been divided, and a big part of that is simply making traveling across the highway feel safe and welcomed. New Britain and Middletown both had highways built through them that in retrospect look like costly and permanent mistakes, but thinking through how any changes are likely to impact people’s ability and desire to cross or just be near the highway is critical.
Works Cited:
Connecticut Route 72. 20 Feb. 2022, https://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/ct72.html.
Conway, Jack. “Route 72 Costly for City, State.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Feb 21, 1971, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/route-72-costly-city-state/docview/550726923/se-2
Crowe, Marc, “New Britain Projects Take a Step Forward.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Apr 14, 1988, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/new-britain-projects-take-step-forward/docview/1469626351/se-2.
McKinney, Jane, “Bridge would Link Downtown: State Money Sought for Platform Across New Britain Highway.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Feb 12, 1988, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/bridge-would-link-downtown/docview/1469084059/se-2.
Ofgang, Erik, “New Britain’s Beehive Bridge Aims to Sweeten Perceptions of the City.” CT Insider, 19 Nov. 2019, https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticutmagazine/article/New-Britain-s-Beehive-Bridge-aims-to-sweeten-17044930.php.
Special, “Plan, Zone Officials Tentatively Back New Plan for Location of Route 72.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Jun 30, 1960, pp. 1-34d. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/plan-zone-officials-tentatively-back-new-location/docview/564512463/se-2.
Special, “Mayor Fears Route 72 Will Increase Traffic.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Aug 30, 1960, pp. 1-10d. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/mayor-fears-route-72-will-increase-traffic/docview/551932003/se-2.
Special, “New Britain: Highway Plans Satisfy Mayor.” The Hartford Courant (1923-), Dec 28, 1967, pp. 1-34b. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/new-britain/docview/549652834/se-2.
Stacom, Don, “‘Beehive Bridge’ Giving a New Look to New Britain.” Hartford Courant, 1 July 2019, https://www.courant.com/2019/07/01/beehive-bridge-giving-a-new-look-to-new-britain/.Whittemore, Danielm, STRUCTURE Magazine “Beehive Bridge.” 20 Oct. 2020, https://www.structuremag.org/?p=16512.
