Explore the real-world places that appear in The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Founders Bridge, Charter Oak Bridge, Riverfront Plaza and Riverwalk, Grazina's House (Burnside Avenue neighborhood), Main Street, East Hartford and 5 more.
Connecticut River — Hartford to East Hartford crossing, the likely model for the opening bridge
The novel opens on a late-summer evening in pelting rain, as nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge over the river, ready to jump. A voice calls out from across the water. It belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow slipping into dementia, who talks him into choosing another path. This one encounter binds the two characters and sets up the year they spend together. Since East Gladness is fictional, the Founders Bridge is the most plausible real-world counterpart.
The Founders Bridge opened in 1957 and carries traffic over the Connecticut River between Hartford and East Hartford. It replaced the earlier Bulkeley Bridge as a main downtown crossing. The river has long divided Hartford's urban core from its eastern industrial suburbs.
The bridge carries Route 2 traffic and has a pedestrian walkway offering skyline views of Hartford. It links riverfront parks on both banks.
Visit: Founders Bridge (landmark)
Connecticut River — alternate bridge setting south of downtown
The bridge where Hai stands at the edge of despair could equally be pictured as one of the highway spans linking the town to the city across the river. The setting captures the book's mood of a community hovering at a brink, with the dark water below and the lights of the city across it. It is the physical threshold between Hai's old hopelessness and his new life as Grazina's caretaker.
The current Charter Oak Bridge opened in 1991, replacing a 1942 bridge of the same name. It is named for the legendary Charter Oak, where Connecticut's colonial charter was said to have been hidden in 1687.
The cable-stayed-style highway bridge carries Route 15 over the Connecticut River. It is mainly a commuter route and is not designed as a destination.
Hartford riverbank — the water's edge that frames the town's story
The Connecticut River runs through the novel as a boundary between the story's two banks and between despair and survival. Hai and Grazina's relationship begins as voices calling across the water. The riverbank stands for the distance they cross to reach each other, and for a town that has turned its back on its own waterfront.
For decades Interstate 91 cut Hartford off from its river. In the 1990s and 2000s the city rebuilt Riverfront Plaza and a riverwalk to reconnect residents with the water. The riverfront had once been a busy port and industrial zone.
Riverfront Plaza is a public green space with walking paths and views of the river and the bridges. It hosts festivals and boat events throughout the year.
Visit: Riverfront Plaza (park)
East Hartford working-class streets — model for the widow's home
After the bridge, Hai becomes caretaker to Grazina, an elderly widow whose memory is fading. Their shared home becomes the emotional center of the novel. In these rooms, over the course of a year, a young man with nowhere else to go and an old woman losing her past form a bond built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak. The house is imagined here as one of the modest houses in a neighborhood like East Hartford's Burnside.
East Hartford's Burnside area developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as housing for factory workers, many of them immigrants. Rows of modest single- and multi-family homes still define the neighborhood.
The neighborhood remains residential and diverse. These are private homes, so visitors should respect residents' privacy.
The town's commercial spine — the setting for the community at the brink
Hai and Grazina move through a post-industrial town of struggling shops, aging buildings, and neighbors hanging on. Main Street stands in for the community the novel portrays as being at the brink. The town's economic decline shapes the choices open to Hai and the people around him.
East Hartford grew from a colonial farming settlement into an industrial town, driven by aircraft engine manufacturing in the 20th century. Its Main Street long served as the civic and commercial center.
The street runs through a mix of shops, restaurants, and municipal buildings. It remains the town's central thoroughfare.
Main Street — the industrial giant that defined the town
East Gladness is described as post-industrial, a town shaped by the loss of the work that once sustained it. The huge engine plant of East Hartford is the real-world emblem of that history. It stands as a reminder of the steady jobs that vanished and left characters like Hai with limited options.
Pratt & Whitney moved to East Hartford in 1929 and became one of the world's leading makers of aircraft engines. It employed tens of thousands during World War II and the Cold War. Later downsizing and restructuring cut local employment sharply.
The sprawling complex remains the company's headquarters and a major engineering site, though with a smaller workforce. It is a working industrial campus closed to casual visitors.
Former aircraft test airfield turned stadium — emblem of the town's changing economy
The reuse of old industrial land is part of the town's atmosphere in the novel, where the past is constantly paved over. This former airfield, now a stadium and commercial development, represents the post-industrial landscape Hai and Grazina live within.
Rentschler Field was built in the 1930s as an airfield and testing ground for Pratt & Whitney. After decades of use it was redeveloped, and a stadium opened there in 2003.
It is now the Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, home to University of Connecticut football and a venue for concerts and events. Shops and restaurants sit nearby.
Visit: Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field (landmark)
840 Main Street — East Hartford's public library
A place like the town library serves as a quiet refuge in the world of the novel, where language, memory, and the effort to understand one's life matter deeply. As Grazina's memory falters and Hai searches for meaning, such public spaces represent the community resources that hold a town together.
The Raymond Library has served East Hartford residents since the early 20th century as the town's main public library. It grew from smaller reading rooms into a modern lending institution.
The library offers books, computers, and community programs to local residents. It is open to the public.
Visit: Raymond Library (library)
500 Main Street, Hartford — across the river
Across the river from the town lies the city that its residents look toward for work, care, and escape. The big public library stands for the shared civic space that Hai, an outsider and a reader in a place with few options, might turn to. It sits on the far side of the same river that frames his first meeting with Grazina.
Hartford Public Library was founded in 1774, making it one of the oldest public libraries in the United States. Its central building on Main Street was a downtown fixture for generations.
The Central Library offers collections, exhibits, and community services including immigrant and language programs. It is open to all.
Visit: Hartford Public Library, Central Library (library)
80 Seymour Street — the region's major medical center
Illness, aging, and the limits of care run through the novel, as Hai looks after Grazina while her dementia deepens. A large regional hospital like this one is the real-world counterpart to the medical world that hovers over their year together. It marks the point where private caretaking meets the institutions that often fail those with nowhere else to turn.
Hartford Hospital was founded in 1854 and has grown into one of Connecticut's largest and most important hospitals. It serves patients from across the Connecticut River valley.
It operates as a major teaching hospital and trauma center. It is an active medical facility, not a tourist site.
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