This beaux-arts beauty was not lacking embellishment. My eye is drawn to all the detail in and under the cornice. The date of construction is up there, 189 ... I'm guessing the last digit is 4. Each garland swag is occupied by two cherubs. My favorite piece is the lion's mouth straining to hold up the ornament around the oculus window. Then we have two rowdy office workers. We can only imagine what sort of things they're yelling down at pedestrians.

Instead of being at their assigned workstations, we have two young lasses achieving an early photobomb.

Growing up in the 1960's, our neighbors the Surette sisters lived well into their 90s. They attributed their longevity to eating sulphured molasses on bread.

If you bought something for 10 cents in 1913 (earliest data in the inflation calculator), it would cost three bucks today.

To Miss McManus:

There are a few McManuses down here. I was friends with "Mackie" McManus in Ponchatoula. She'd be 68 but I believe she's passed on. And my 3rd grade teacher in 1963 was a Mrs. McManus in Metairie!

"What are the benefits of sulphur and molasses?"

-- of the two, molasses smells better.

I'll try (almost) anything once.

As in the corner of Asylum (foreground) and Ann Streets. The cars don't stop at this corner anymore. (Well, they've stopped everywhere in Hartford, actually.)

The building was a member of the class of '95 - voted "best looking", perhaps? - but didn't quite make it to the 70th reunion: by then known as the Lincoln Building, it was destroyed by a fire in 1963. (Ironic? Perhaps, but note it was the home of Hartford Life, not the Hartford Fire Insurance company.)

The Hartford Life building is long gone, formerly residing on the block now occupied by the XL Center (formerly Hartford Civic Center) built in 1975. The building was on the corner of Asylum and Ann Streets. Ann Street was renamed Ann Uccello Street in 2008 after Hartford's (and Connecticut's) first woman mayor, who took office in 1967. Mayor Uccello is still with us having celebrated her 100th birthday last May.

I'll have to wash that kiss down with a slug or two of Moxie. Meanwhile I spy with my little eye, my maiden name on one of the signs ... although my people hail from Louisiana and not Connecticut, so, no relation. Hint: it's near Spear. Made you look.

This photo should be titled (you've got to sing it), "Standing on the corner, watching all the ghosts walk by".

At least, that's what the song says. Everyone knows that Moxie cures paralysis, softening of the brain, nervousness, and insomnia. That's what the label once claimed. What are the benefits of sulphur and molasses?