Soon after the emergence of hip hop culture in New York City, Hartford, too, had a burgeoning hip hop scene in neighborhood landscapes similar to those in the South Bronx. Breakdancing, graffiti, rapping, and DJ crews developed in Hartford in the late 1970s and early 1980s as small groups of teen and preteen boys and girls, emulating what they learned from the New York City-based styles, worked on their moves in the basements of houses from Charter Oak Terrace to Sheldon Oak to the Anawan Street projects to Bellevue Square and beyond. This small scene wasn’t fully recognized by a larger area audience until Peace Train, a Hartford non-profit better known for producing the New England Fiddle Contest in Bushnell Park from 1974 to 1984 (with a brief return 15 years later), produced a breakdancing and popping contest in Bushnell Park in August 1983. An estimated 15,000 Hartford residents swarmed the park to see 40 crews compete in a contest judged by dance teachers from Hartford area high schools, colleges, and dance organizations. The winners performed a couple of weeks later for another Peace Train event featuring the famed New York-based Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Peace Train held a state-wide contest in 1984. From 1983 to 1985 Peace Train developed the Peace Train Breaking & Popping All Stars, an all-male group of winners of the organization’s first contest. The group, from neighborhoods in the South End and the North End of the city, was paid to perform and teach workshops for students in schools and after-school programs throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and into New Hampshire. The All-Stars performed at a half-time show during a Boston Celtics basketball game at the Hartford Civic Center in January 1984 and on Peace Train’s mobile stage parked on Main Street in Hartford during summer weekday lunch hours. The All-Stars continued until 1985, when Peace Train ran out of funding. Several of the participants continued to get gigs after that, some through Peace Train and some on their own. Peace Train as an organization closed by 1986. The photographs and flyers in the archive were donated by photographer Wayne Fleming and former Peace Train Breaking & Popping All-Stars manager Tim Wolf in August 2017. These images illustrate the influence of Peace Train in fostering and documenting Hartford’s early hip hop scene.
