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Remembering Nick Carbone, Hartford's Unlikely Power Broker

Ed Lescoe/Hartford Times
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Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
Rep. Ella Grasso surrounded by major supporters after her primary victory in 1974. From left are Nick Carbone, Mayor George Athanson, Mrs. Grasso, Tom Sampognaro, and William DiBella.
Nick Carbone’s reach extended far beyond the city limits.

As deputy mayor of Hartford, Nicholas Carbone was a blend of old and new -- a bare-knuckles, lapel-grabbing pol wrapped around a dreamy urban visionary.

“He talked like a street guy and thought like a Harvard professor,” said Bill Curry, former state comptroller and two-time gubernatorial candidate, one of the many politicians mentored by Carbone.

Carbone, 78, died Tuesday evening, just a few hours before the start of another Hartford Election Day, one of many environments in which he excelled. Although defeated the one time he campaigned for mayor, Carbone ran the city of Hartford for a decade, starting in 1969, from a City Council post that was far more powerful.

But Carbone’s reach extended far beyond the city limits. He was well-known among national politicians and advised Jimmy Carter, Paul Tsongas, and Michael Dukakis on national issues. In 1976 and 1980, he played a leading role in writing the urban policy platforms of the Democratic National Committee.

“There are two great strains in urban policy,” Curry said. “The development of downtowns and the economic and political empowerment of the poor and racial minorities. In a way that was unique, Nick was the perfect avatar of both.”

Credit Einar G. Chindmark/Hartford Times / Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
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Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
I-84 West through Hartford in 1964, under construction.

After riots devastated Hartford in the summer of 1967, Carbone was the strong leader who emerged as both Democratic Town Chairman and the most powerful person on the City Council. He fused those two roles into a single position more powerful than the sum of both. The position was called “Nick Carbone” and was non-transferable.

Other cities responded to the pervasive late-'60s riots with law and order measures. Carbone courted federal block grants for the hardest-hit zones, pushed for neighborhood policing, and rebuilt the downtown. He was a driving force behind the Hartford Civic Center and helped lure an NHL franchise to the city. His power base was strengthened by his ability to work with The Bishops, the city’s informal council of business leaders.

Credit Juan Fuentes/Hartford Times / Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
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Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
Puerto Rican Peter Castillo speaks at a meeting on August 15, 1969 with Hartford city officials. Others are Councilman Nicholas Carbone, at far right; city Manager Elisha C. Freedman; and Mrs. Maria Sanchez.

In 1974, Carbone pulled off an improbable political feat. Ella Grasso and Robert Killian were in a fight for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and Carbone engineered a 2,000-vote winning margin for Grasso in a primary in Hartford, Killian’s hometown. The win cemented Grasso’s hold and ended Killian’s chances. In 2015, Carbone endorsed the brief mayoral run of Robert Killian, Jr.

His political honeymoon with Grasso was fleeting. In the late 1970s, Carbone was frequently up at the State Capitol, button-holing lawmakers and cobbling together unlikely coalitions, occasionally in the service of ideas Grasso disliked. He was dogged, and she was prickly. It was a doomed marriage.

In 1979, Carbone’s political chops were not enough to win him the primary for mayor against longtime incumbent George Athanson. The mayor’s job was largely ceremonial, but it paid around $30,000, an unimpressive sum but more than five times what Carbone was making on the City Council. Carbone, the de facto mayor since 1969, ran as an act of economic survival and lost by more than 3,000 votes.

He transitioned into private business and maintained a strong influence behind the scenes at the city and state levels. Carbone was an early supporter of Ned Lamont’s 2006 challenge to U.S. Sen Joseph I. Lieberman.

At first blush, Carbone was an unlikely power broker. His speech was studded with malapropisms, almost on the order of Casey Stengel, and, in an age of ubiquitous three-piece suits, he never, ever wore a tie.

In 2008, Carbone’s life hung in the balance after he was attacked and brutally beaten by a gang of youths as he walked near his apartment. His recovery was long, slow and required multiple surgeries; but Carbone resumed walking the city streets. He later told The New York Timeshe did not completely condemn his attackers.  “I don’t know what they’ve been through,” he said. “It is the broken system, the poverty of Hartford that creates this kind of violence.” 

Carbone liked to challenge himself. In his ?60s, he decided to take up sailing, bought a used sailboat, and started teaching himself by trial and error on a Connecticut lake, occasionally with a terrified passenger.

In the 1970s, Carbone was a jogger, and Dan Reese was a young aide to Grasso during one of those periods of incendiary relations between the governor and Carbone. As a rookie runner, Reese was content to gasp his way through a single trot around Bushnell Park. One day, Carbone intercepted him at the downtown YMCA. "He told me I could do much more, and ran me down to the South End, about a mile and half,"? Reese remembered. "He stopped and said, ?'now we run back.'? I thought I was going to die, but we finished. He looked at me, and said: ?'Let this be a lesson: you can do much more than you think you can.?'"

Carbone died after a long battle with leukemia. 

Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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