Picture Enfield - Then And Now

ENFIELD, CT — Today's installment of this weekly Enfield history series is the beginning of a new chapter, as we have added another tremendous source of great photos to our collection. In addition to the Facebook group Picture Enfield and the photo book by the late Ed Malley entitled Enfield: 1950-1980, we have just secured permission to delve into the book I Took a Little Trip to My Hometown. Self-published by retired freelance photographer John Zirolli, the book contains hundreds of pictures of Enfield taken between 1973 and 1985, as well as anecdotes from Mr. Zirolli about those days. It is available on amazon.com; in fact, I ordered it from there last week, and it arrived Tuesday.

The first selection from Mr. Zirolli's book is a restaurant which was frequently mentioned early in 2019 when Patch asked readers, "Name a restaurant from your childhood that isn't around anymore." Hotzy's Italian-American restaurant was located at 920 Enfield St., just north of High St. and Freshwater Brook.

To register for free Enfield news alerts and more, click here.

Alphonse "Fofo" Albano owned Hotzy's from 1967 until his death at age 56 in 1977. Among the employees who worked there during that period were cook Frank "Cheech" Ferrante, Shirley Watton and David Derosiers.

During the "urban renewal" project of the late 1970s, the building was torn down and replaced with a small strip mall in 1979. Among the current tenants are the Whole Donut, Domino's Pizza and Enfield Liquor and Wine. Here is how the property currently looks (I took this photo yesterday):

Last week's trivia answer:
Last week's trivia question was, "For a half-century, the photo below has been called "my all-time favorite picture" by my sister Patti. It was taken exactly 50 years ago, in April 1970, shortly after we moved to Enfield from Vernon. I was a few months shy of entering kindergarten, and she had just turned three. Contrary to rumor, this is not a picture of my son Alex and Patti's daughter Erica, though it looks like it could be. Today's question is: where in Enfield was this portrait taken?" The answer: W.T. Grant, a department store chain which originally had an Enfield location on Pearl St., but by the time this photo was taken, it had moved into the Elm Plaza at 95 Elm St. The store closed in 1976 and was replaced by Caldor, which operated for more than two decades. After extensive renovations, Kohl's opened at that site in 2001.

This week's trivia question:
What future 12-season NBA veteran, who then became an NBA head coach for five seasons, played summer ball in Enfield in the mid-1980s at the old outdoor courts at Asnuntuck Community College? Post the answer in the comments section below, or on the Enfield Patch Facebook page.