Barbour Street Circus Grounds
Tracking Down Site Took Applied Science
by Chris Brunson
related story
A fire hydrant stands on Barbour Street in Hartford, a mute sentinel for water access in an emergency.
On a desktop computer screen, the image of a thin blue line weaves from a brightly colored hydrant icon to the approximate site of where a circus tent once stood. The computer image of an aerial view of Hartford, specifically Barbour Street, appears on-screen inside the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) headquarters in Hartford as Gwen Carter, of the GIS department, taps the keyboard.
MDC maintains hydrants as part of its mission to provide water and sewer service to the city and member towns. Carter is the primary technician for the site documentation project.
GIS (which stands for geographic information system) combines layers of information about a place to give a better understanding of that unique place. What layers are selected depend on a stated purpose such as analyzing crimes to detect a pattern over time, or the assessment of a plot to determine suitability - or to design a memorial on site of a disaster.
Margaret Brown, who is principal planner for the City of Hartford, consulted the MDC after she read articles that talked about how firefighters hooked up to a hydrant and ran 500 feet of hose to fight the fire.
“There was a picture of that hose running alongside the small tent,” said Carter. “We keep the records for the water systems and the hydrants.”
Hydrants proved to be a key piece so the big top circus tent site memorial could be sited properly.
“It took a lot of research to get a little bit of information,” said Brown, principal planner, development services, City of Hartford. “Talking to firefighters who were there at the fire and their families was a unique experience.”
Pinpoint History
GIS is a tool usually called into action for planning. It can also be used for maps. This differs from GPS, which stands for global positioning system, originally used by the military, explains Carter. “Satellite and geometry are used to give an accurate position. In handheld GPS units, accuracy can be 20 feet - which can be fine if you are hiking. For us, a utility or for a city, more accuracy is needed, to the sub-meter, within a centimeter - that’s survey grade accuracy.”
GIS differs from GPS, she explains, “it’s kind of the pizza of technology in the sense that every ingredient that’s in it makes the pizza.”
GPS collects data - so that’s one of the ingredients that the GIS can use. Anything digital can be brought in as an ingredient, as a layer of information - geological, historical - for every geographic layer you can create anything you want - for instance, for a water line.”
With technology and community, what was memory is now made visible.
Time Travel: GIS
Barbour Street. 1934. Ten years prior to what would be a circus site in 1944 appears on an aerial view of the area, with more fields than houses.
“There is a distortion factor at first,” Carter explained. “But the image gives me an idea of what this looked like as an open field. Then I can reference it to 1944 and then add a layer.”
A click of the mouse and time rolls forward - a modern shot can be superimposed over older information in layers; historical photography can be stretched over an aerial view. Time shifts and comes into focus - here is where time stops.
“This is the school,” she taps the screen. “This was the original layout where the hydrants were located and where the hose ran - give or take - and pretty much at the time because we weren’t sure where the hydrants - which one, there are two hydrants - tied into one. It ran across the street and there are two proposed sites, but only one makes sense using the historical photos that document the disaster and the numbers of the houses in the background of the images. The sideshow tent that survived the fire stood near the front of the Barbour Street lot helps orient the site, too. The original plans for the city street’s water supply were hand drawn, so they have since been scanned and digitized.”
The project leaders for the memorial, along with Brown, used photos, eyewitness newspaper reports and points of information, such as photographs that showed houses that stood on Barbour Street. The circus rings were charted with help from historical photographs.
“One image had men standing next to the rings, so averaging the height, we could estimate the scale to draw the circles of approximate plot.”
After compiling the details and plotting the tract, the completed packet was given to Brown, who added her own research results, then turned over the compiled maps and information to Hartford Fire Chief Charles Teale and members of the memorial committee.
To Remember
The design of the circus fire memorial is the result of a collaborative effort involving members of the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial Foundation, DuBose Associates Architects and TO Design. Mountain View Landscape of Chicopee, Mass., did construction.
“Foundation members focused on the potential,” said Harvey Leibin, president and lead architect of DuBose Associates. “This was worst single tragedy, in regards to the number of people who died, in the state’s history. There were more than 7,000 people under the tent, it is a big area. So how do you designate that without spending huge amounts, but be appropriate?”
“It looked like just a field with no way to make a connection to the circus fire,” said Phil Barlow, founding partner and landscape architect, TO Design. “Our challenge was to engage the viewer and design for a site that is idle much of the time - for maintenance, but to create a lasting memorial.”
Kousa flowering dogwood trees mark entrance/exits that were in the big top that day.
“The trees mean people will be able to tell the size of the tent and locate the entrance. People will be able to figure out where their loved ones were during the fire,” he said.
The design is simple and powerful. The keystone of the memorial is the center pole location, where an 8-foot-wide medallion with names inscribed is placed.
To Change
In the wake of the tragic fire, a number of changes were made to improve circus and outdoor event fire safety, including The National Fire Protection Association, which formed a technical committee to study standards. Tents are relegated by a Life Safety Code.
The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) ranks the Hartford Circus Fire sixth in its list of the most deadly public assembly fires in the United States.
Resources:
The Hartford Circus Fire Memorial Foundation was established in 2002. Members have gathered first-person accounts from those present during the matinee performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on July 6, 1944. Stories are compiled for a booklet; for more information contact the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 231332, Hartford, CT 06123-1332, or visit www.hartfordcircusfirememorial.com.
Anyone who would like to share personal stories or donate memorabilia can write to the address above or send an e-mail to info@hartfordcircusfirememorial.com.
Other books about the fire include The Great Hartford Circus Fire: Creative Settlement of Mass Disasters by Henry S. Cohn and David Bollier, published by Yale University Press, New Haven. (This is a more scholarly reference book. Also, Masters of Illusion is a novel based on the circus fire by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith.
A film called The Wrath of God: Fire Under the Big Top can be seen on the History Channel; visit www.HistoryChannel.com to purchase the video or find local listings.
The Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 is a production of Connecticut Public Television that combines interviews with the people who were present that day with vintage film footage and photographs. To find local listings, visit www.cptv.org or call the station at (860) 278-5310.
