Security Building (1904)

Photo: Mark Grindell, United Illuminating

The 8-story building at 1111-1127 Main Street in Bridgeport was erected in 1904 by the Security Building Company. The building features a central atrium from the second to the eighth floor, which provides natural light. The office building was remodeled in 1950, but fell out of use in the 1990s. In 2015, work began on a major project to redevelop the Security Building and two adjacent structures (the E. W. Harrall Building at 1103-1105 Main Street and the E. E. Wheeler Building at 1131-1137 Main Street) as apartments and retail apace. Known as Harral Security Wheeler, the development was completed in 2016 and features first-floor retail apace and 70 apartments.

Isaac W. Jones House (1854)

Various dates can be found for the construction of the house at 227 Ellsworth Street in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. The City of Bridgeport assessor’s field card gives a date of 1837. The book, History of Black Rock, 1644-1955 (1955), compiled by Dr. Ivan O. Justinius, indicates it was built around 1845. The nomination for the Black Rock Historic District provides a date of 1854, the same year as the Capt. Charles Allen House at 213 Ellsworth Street. The two houses were originally identical, but around 1910 the house at No. 227 was altered by the addition of the gable roof and the octagonal projection between the main block and the side wing on the left.

Whatever the precise date of construction, the house at 227 Ellsworth Street was built by Isaac W. Jones (1806-1863). The house was later owned by Joseph Smith, who married Capt. Allen’s daughter, Sarah Allen. The house passed to their daughter, Viola, wife of James E. Hurlburt, and then to her daughter, Viola Hurlburt Carpenter. She and her husband, Hubert Benton Carpenter, later moved to Fairfield between 1957 and 1964.

Seabright Cottage (1877)

The house at 174-176 Seabright Avenue in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport has a sign that names it “Seabright Cottage.” The Bridgeport assesor’s field card gives it a date of 1877. The building is listed in the Black Rock Historic District as one of two “William Nichols Tenament Houses” built in 1894 (the other being at 181 Brewster Street). They were located next to Nichol’s businesses: the Nichols Hotel and the General Store.

Old Y.W.C.A. Building, Bridgeport (1941)

The central portion of the building at 263/265 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport was built for the Y.W.C.A. in 1941, with rear wings added in 1959. The building replaced an earlier house on the site, built for Albert Bishop and torn down in 1936. The new building was designed by architect C.W. Walker to reflect the style characteristics of the Bishop House. It was built by the E & F Construction Company. When the picture above was taken a few years ago, the building was serving as the city’s Dwight D. Eisenhower Senior Center, which has since moved to a new address at 307 Golden Hill Street. The building is also home to the Downtown Cabaret Theatre.

Calvary St. George’s Episcopal Church (1930)

Calvary St. George's Episcopal Church, Bridgeport

Calvary St. George is an Episcopal parish in Bridgeport. St. George’s Parish was organized in 1892 with a church, first known as St. John’s West End Chapel, at the corner of Clinton and Beechwood Avenues. The current church was built in 1930 at the same location, 755 Clinton Avenue. Calvary Episcopal Church, once located at North Avenue and Wells Street, later at 510 Summit Street, merged with St. George’s in 2005.

Thomas C. Wordin House (1892)

Thomas C. Wordin House

Now home to Teamsters Local #191, the house at 1139 Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1892 for Thomas Cooke Wordin. The house, originally known as “The Pines,” was designed by the Bridgeport-based architect Joseph W. Northrop, who also designed such buildings as the Taylor Memorial Library in Milford (1895) and the Colin M. Ingersoll House in New Haven (1896). The Wordin House was illustrated in The American Architect and Building News, Vol. XLI, no. 921 (August 19, 1893)

St. Dimitrie Romanian Orthodox Church, Bridgeport (1961)

Former St. Dimitrie Romanian Orthodox Church in Bridgeport

The church at 569/579 Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1961 as St Dimitrie Romanian Orthodox Church. The church was founded by Macedo-Romanian immigrants in 1924 under the name of the Cultural Society of St. Vasile. It became St. James Romanian Orthodox Church in 1928. The church acquired its first building that same year, at 150 Lee Avenue in Bridgeport. The church moved to Clinton Avenue after its Lee Avenue building burned down in 1958. In 2009 the church held its first services in a new building at 504 Sport Hill Road in Easton. The church had rented space at St. Nicholas Antiochian Church in Bridgeport for three years while the new building was constructed. The former St. Dimitrie Romanian Orthodox Church in Bridgeport is now Iglesia Cristiana Renacer Inc.