Major Fire at Hartford's Sigourney Market Creates More of a Food Desert in the City

The FOX-61 10:00 pm newscast began a couple of minutes ago, and one of the opening images was that  of last night's fire at Hartford's Sigourney Market. Earlier today, I read the news story about the fire, and I've been thinking quite a bit about it.

Apparently, the fire started at approximately 3:00 a.m., and two firefighters were injured while fighting it. As a small food market in a densely-populated area, Sigourney Market was an important part of the local community.

Sigourney Market was housed in a historic building, and had been in business there for many decades. The Asylum Hill neighborhood where the store is/was located is basically another food desert; with very few retail food options available.

For many years, I drove Class II trucks for a local can and bottle redemption company. Every Wednesday afternoon for years, my route consisted of numerous small liquor and food stores in Hartford.

One of my longtime Wednesday afternoon accounts was Sigourney Market.

An Unusual Connection

The heavy plastic tubs filled with deposit glass bottles at Sigourney Market. were kept in the basement of the store.  Alongside the glass tubs were the plastic bags full of aluminum deposit cans and plastic deposit bottles the store had redeemed since its last pickup.

In order for myself  and my helper to access the empty containers, we had to go through the produce room and board a century-old, wooden elevator that went up and down with cables and a hand lever. Every time I got on board the elevator for the 12-foot ride below, I wondered how long elevators can safely operate. 

Once we got the empty containers upstairs to load on the truck, we had to carry all of the materials through the fresh produce room.

A few minutes ago, I was looking at news footage of the fire, and I saw the produce room door, where I used to park the truck. My thoughts are with family who owned the store, and I hope they'll have the opportunity to reopen.

It is hoped that residents of the Ashley Street area will be able to find the groceries they need without too much difficulty. As for the injured firefighters, the last article I read said their injuries were minor.