A Real Hard Hittin’ Museum
New Britain (Google Maps location)
August 8, 2015
I can’t even pretend this is a real museum.
Keep in mind who just wrote that. I’m the guy that accepts pretty much anything as a museum that calls itself a museum. I’ve been to some very, very tiny museums in Connecticut.
But they always have some redeeming quality about them. Something unique, perhaps.
This one? This one is… suspect. (Police Museum joke!)
Some caveats:
I can’t remember from where I first learned of this museum’s existence. It was several years ago when it was housed in a previous headquarters building. If I recall correctly, it was mainly a thing for local Boy Scout troops to visit on interminable rainy Saturday trips.
I reached out to the police department a few times over the years and never – literally, never – received a response. Granted, the NBPD has far more important things to worry about than some West Hartford nerd with a nerdy website trying to visit. I understand.
This is half of the museum.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2015 and the inaugural Connecticut Hops for Hope Brewfest. My friends planned the whole (wonderful) thing and selected a location in New Britain. We agreed that hiring a police officer would be the prudent thing to do, so we did that.
If you’re curious, retaining a cop for a 4-hour event in New Britain costs $428.95. Of course, if you hold your event in beautiful New Britain, you’ll have to drop another $10 for the bank check that the NBPD requires you pay them with. But you’ll save the 49-cents on the stamp, because the NBPD also requires that you pay them in person.
I figure that they just want to spread their good cheer and simply can’t do that through the mail. I didn’t mind, of course, because that meant I’d finally get in to check out the New Britain Police Museum!
I even brought Damian along for the ride… or, don’t they call it “the ride-along?”
I again reached out prior to my visit to inquire about their museum. I again received no response. Unfazed, I brought my camera and geared up for my 299th Connecticut museum visit!
Damian and I entered the glorious new lobby and marveled at the impressive vaulted ceiling. “Wow,” I told my son, “this is really gonna be something!”
A surly looking gentleman sat on the bench, staring off into oblivion. An agitated young citizen paced uneasily by the locked “fingerprinting and documentation” door. I stood at the finely polished bulletproof glass-enclosed front desk, smiling politely.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Handsome men and women of the force walked back and forth behind the window and pretended not to see me. Granted, they had much more important things to do than to deal with me. Totally understandable.
So I wandered the lobby. It’s a very nice lobby. There are two display cases, so I went to go look at one. Some pictures of heroic New Britain policemen, some words, and…
Holy cow! The top of the plaque said, in bold font, “The New Britain Police Museum”(!) It exists! I pretended to read the sign while I excitedly looked around for the information on how to get to the actual museum, not this introductory sign about it.
I galloped over to the other display case, happy as a clam… and stared at an old police uniform. I skipped around the lobby, giddy at the idea of finding the door to the museum proper.
The scary dude stared at my special needs son as he clapped and yelped at his LeapPad game. Damian doesn’t care and it’s a beautiful thing. As I continued my search, the mailman showed up and stood at the front desk window and waited for help.
And waited.
And waited some more.
I returned to the first case and actually read the sign this time:
The New Britain Police Museum is dedicated to the members of the New Britain Police Department, past, present, and future, and to the courage, dedication, honor and sacrifice of all law enforcement officers everywhere.
We are grateful to the New Britain Foundation for Public Giving for its funding of our museum, as well as to those officers, their families and friends, who have generously given their time, memories, and artifacts to commemorate and preserve our police heritage.
Holy Cow, put out an APB for a period for whoever wrote that sign. Geeze.
The mailman was still waiting for help.
I looked at the other display again and wondered (again) where all these “artifacts” were hidden away. Or why this “museum” demanded public funding. I can only guess there’s more to it, but since I had now been waiting 20 minutes to give them a check, I knew I wasn’t getting any answers during my visit.
The mailman was finally helped, so I caught the officer’s eye. Annoyed, he asked me what I wanted. I told him. He said, “let me go find someone else.”
All I could think of was what if I had a knife in my back or some time-sensitive Jack Bauer information? This was… weird.
Another guy arrived a few minutes later, heard my plea, and said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll take care of it,” and took my check through the slit in the security glass and disappeared. No receipt, no confidence-instilling mention of the brewfest. Nothing.
I turned around and noticed that the angry guy was staring at me. I said, “that’s how they do here I guess. Make you wait 20 minutes then just take your money and don’t even say ‘thank you’.” He grunted, “yeah.”
We bonded.
To wrap up, the total contents of this museum are: Two old uniforms, an old typewriter thing, eight pictures, and a sign telling us about it.
No, I never asked anyone there if there was more to the museum. And no, I’ve not yet received any responses to my emails over the years about the mysterious museum. Perhaps now that this, ahem Hard Hittin’ page exists, someone will let me know the score.
I’ll let you know.
Oh yeah – the policewoman who worked the brewfest was wonderful. I should have asked her about the museum, darnit.
Michael says
September 30, 2015 at 9:46 pmI don’t believe you really lived in New Britain or at least not for long enough. Your description sounds exactly as what I would have expected.
Was probably downsized to almost nothing after the new station was built, even though the new station is bigger than the old one.
I’d tell you to go to the industrial museum next door but that also got downsized to a small room but there’s still a lot to learn from it.
Steve says
October 1, 2015 at 8:15 amI’m genuinely curious what in the world led you to think I never lived in New Britain? Or what was “what you would have expected?”
Not only did I live in New Britain for a year or so in 2001, I visit the city every other week or so and have been doing that for 11 years. My wife grew up in New Britain from 1975-2002. Her family still lives there. I dropped off and picked up my son there every day for the first two years of his life. I love New Britain for many reasons.
Of course it’s not without its faults. Pretending those faults don’t exist would be lying.
Anyway, your suggestion of the NBIM is a great one. You may find it cool that the NBIM was the very first museum I visited for this project, way back in 2006. I’ve become quite friendly with the staff, I mention them in every interview I do as a huge reason for doing what I do, and I hold it up as a great example of what makes CT’s smaller museums so great.
Oh, in case you don’t believe that either.
Thanks for reading!
Michael says
October 1, 2015 at 10:24 pmI read that you had lived in NB for a little white, but your writing style gives off the tone of someone unfamiliar with the town. NB cops don’t pay attention to you unless you’re really causing some actual crime.
Jealous you got to see the industrial museum in its full glory. I had seen the industrial museum for the first time a year or two before you visited. I didn’t know what it would come to mean to me until recently and by the time I went back and knew what I was looking at there was little left.
Luckily the flea markets of CT are the real living museum of New Britain’s legacy where you can still find the tools and hardware of Stanley, Corbin locks and Landers, Fray & Co home goods and give them a second life.
Jakub says
October 23, 2015 at 4:33 pmWhen was New Britain Police established and around what years city/town police forces were established?
William Sencio says
December 31, 2015 at 1:00 pmHello: In response to the question above, New Britain was incorporated as a city in 1871 and that’s when the police department was formed. I was the chief of police from 1994 until I retired in 2005. In 1999, the superior court moved from the 3rd floor of the (old) police department at 125 Columbus Blvd. to a new facility. We received permission to convert the former court clerk’s office on the 3rd floor (approximately 1500 square feet) into a full museum, eventually with a board of directors. It featured a chronological history of the NBPD in bullet form along the walls, our last NBPD motorcycle (Harley Davidson Servicar), generic as well as NBPD specific historic police items, 2 restored vintage police call boxes, our last Tommy gun, a functioning 1950’s-period radio dispatch office with teletype (which was programmed to print a souvenir welcome message), and a museum entrance that was a replica of our old station (1800’s-1967), There was even a display of police-related toys. Although this site speaks disparagingly about scout group tours, they and other members of the public enjoyed and appreciated our efforts, and hopefully learned something about duty and responsibility. NBPD officers and police officers from other departments (even other countries) learned about those who came before them and the challenges they faced. By the way, almost all the work done to establish the museum was performed by NBPD employees on their own time. The museum was funded through grants and donations. When the new NBPD facility was built, the City decided it couldn’t reserve the necessary amount of space for the museum and would instead install display cases here and there. There was also talk of incorporating parts of the police museum into a larger City museum. The artifacts are still, to my knowledge, locked away in storage, except for those that were probably returned to donors.
Jean Moore says
March 4, 2021 at 4:44 pmDear William Sencio,
Your response is very helpful. I am trying to find out where the police court would have been in 1918. I suspect it was in the police department building. Can you help with that information? Where would the police court have convened and would you know the address? Or the address of the NBPD of the replica you mention? Are there any digital photos of that building?
Thank you!