The legacy of a century-old factory in Hartford’s North End will be transformed due to a development project which includes more than 150 new apartments.
Fuller Brush Company’s former factory on Main Street manufactured bristled brushes from the 1920s to the 1960s. The company’s brushes were designed to clean everything from silk hats to radiators and Victorian furniture.
In homage to the building’s history, the apartments will be named Bristle & Main.
The building also once housed the Connecticut Department of Social Services and was nicknamed “The Welfare Building.” Single mothers and fathers went there to pick up government aid like food stamps.
Janice Flemming-Butler, founder of Strategic Outreach Solutions, which helps facilitate such projects, grew up in the North End. Flemming-Butler worked with developer Shelbourne Global on the redesign.
She recounted her experiences as a child growing up in Hartford and picking up food stamps in the Fuller Brush building.
“It is here where the shame began. It is here where we sat in the hallway for hours in 90 degree weather to be told if you qualify,” Flemming-Butler said. “It is here where I learned that if my daddy’s shoes was in the hallway at home at any given moment, when some woman from this building came and seen my daddy's shoes, that I would no longer eat.”
Flemming-Butler realized in the redesign planning phase that the building could hold a new purpose.
“I started to see that young professionals could come back home and they could come to this building and have the aesthetics of downtown but not leave the community to get it,” she said.
The redevelopment will include 160 apartments, five of which will be designated affordable. For the market rate units, rent will range from $1,050 to $1,400.
The project will cost $36 million and is funded through various revenue streams, including city and state loans through the Capital Region Development Authority.
Bristle & Main is the latest in a series of efforts to revitalize and improve the neighborhood.
Helen Nixon, chair of the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Zone Association, has lived in a home next door to the factory for decades. She’s looking forward to seeing the 10 buildings on the plot improved.
“This project will raise property values, attract new businesses and it will provide housing for our young professionals in the neighborhood,” Nixon said.
