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Articles and photos added during
December 2009
Regular weekly Friday website updates commenced on April 1, 2011.
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Weather Vane Restaurant Fire
Monday, December 7, 1964
Gil Spencer has provided an 8mm home movie, taken by his uncle, Harold Spencer of Hamden, of the December 1964 fire that destroyed the Weather Vane Restaurant. The Weather Vane was a well known landmark that stood on the east side of Whitney Avenue, just north of Brooksvale Avenue.
The movie has been digitally transcribed and is now available on YouTube. Click on the photo at right to watch the YouTube video.
Posted 12/6/09
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| CLICK on photo to view video |
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| As firefighters were advancing their first lines into the building. (Photo by John Mongillo, Jr.) |
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Reilly's Restaurant Fire
2392 Whitney Avenue
Friday, December 25, 1964
Friday, December 25, 1964 was not going to be a white Christmas. There was no doubt about that. The weather was more like a mid-April Easter.
By mid-morning, temperatures in southern Connecticut were in the 60s. And despite the very un-Christmas-like weather, everyone was hoping that the Christmas of 1964 would foster much fonder yuletide memories than those of the previous Christmas, which had arrived only five weeks after a shocking national tragedy.
All Hamden firefighters who were on the job in 1964 will always remember that balmy Christmas Day when Reilly's Restaurant burned. Click on the photo to read news accounts of the day as well as present day recollections from HFD retirees who spent Christmas 1964 at Reilly's.
Posted 12/25/09
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| Memorial Day 1965 - Chief V. Paul Leddy leads a large contingent of department members, about half of whom at the time were WWII veterans (I.A. Sneiderman) |
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Butterworth's Giant Valley Farm
640 Tuttle Avenue
Monday, August 10, 1998
A large horse barn and two other buildings were destroyed by a fire at the Butterworth's Farm late in the afternoon on Monday, August 10, 1998. Hamden firefighters were hindered by dry weather, high winds and no permanent water supply at the Tuttle Avenue site.
Mutual aid companies from Bethany, Cheshire, Wallingford and North Branford provided portable ponds and tankers. CLICK and view a blend of two television newscasts.
Posted 12/7/09
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| CLICK photo to view video |
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| 2000 Christmas Party Photos |
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| 1983 Christmas Party Photos |
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| Deck the (Town) Halls |
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