Armenian Church of the Holy Resurrection (1980)

There are two Armenian churches in New Britain. One is St. Stephen’s Armenian Church on Tremont Street, which was consecrated in 1925. Due to a dispute among the Armenian diaspora over the church hierarchy at a time when the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church resided in Soviet-controlled Armenia, there was a split in the Armenian Church in America in the 1930s. The Dashnak political party, which opposed Soviet rule in Armenia, formed a different wing of the church, focused on the authority of the Holy See of Cilicia, now located in Antelias, Lebanon. St. Stephen’s is part of that group, while non-Dashnaks formed a separate church. In in 1940 they purchased the former Ukrainian Hall on Irwin Place, which was consecrated as the Armenian Church of the Holy Resurrection on March 19, 1941. In the late 1970s, the City of New Britain purchased the Irwin Place property for redevelopment. The church decided to erect a new building, designed by architect Ramon Hovsepian of Worcester, Massachusetts, at 1910 Stanley Street, on land it had acquired in 1969. Ground was broken on April 1, 1979 and the new church was dedicated on September 28, 1980.

Jacob J. & Charlotte Ritz House (1875)

Construction of the house at 25 Vine Street in New Britain, which displays Victorian Gothic and Eastlake elements, has been dated to 1867, c. 1875, or, in A Walk Around Walnut Hill (1975), between 1885 and 1890. That same book indicates the house was built by Jacob J. and Charlotte Ritz (Jacob Ritz was a city councilman in 1882) and was purchased by George Tyler, an engineer, about 1900. The property includes an original carriage house.

James S. North House (1913)

9 Sunnyledge

Located next door to the E. Allen Moore House on Sunnyledge Street in New Britain is the house built for Moore’s friend, James S. North, at 9 Sunnyledge. North was president of the C. J. White Manufacturing Company, makers of hose-supports and garters. He was later the superintendent of the New Britain General Hospital. Before moving to Sunnyledge, North had previously lived at 21 Franklin Square. His stuccoed house on Sunnyledge, built in 1913, was designed by architect William F. Brooks.

Sunnyledge (1899)

Sunnyledge

In 1899 work began on a large Colonial Revival mansion, completed in 1900 in what had been a field just southwest of Walnut Hill Park in New Britain. It was erected by E. Allen Moore, son of the artist Nelson Augustus Moore (1824-1902). In 1899 Ethelbert Allen Moore was a manufacturing superintendent at the Stanley Works and would become the company‘s president in 1918. He retired in 1929 and in 1950 published his book Tenth Generation, a history of the Moore family in America. In 1891 Morse had married Martha Elizabeth, daughter of William H. Hart, then president of Stanley Works. She named the new property “Sunnyledge,” after a traprock ledge just west of the house. The new road they opened was called Sunnyledge Street. The house was designed by William F. Brooks of Davis & Brooks, with two later additions by architect Oliver M. Wiard.

Erwin Home for Worthy and Indigent Women (1891)

Erwin Home for Worthy and Indigent Women

Cornielius B. Erwin (1811-1885) was a leading industrialist and philanthropist in New Britain. At his death he became the benefactor of the Erwin Home for Worthy and Indigent Women, leaving funds for the project to the Pastor and Standing Committee of South Congregational Church. Opened in 1892, the Erwin Home continues to operate today as a non-denominational residence for “worthy women of limited means.” With an address at 140 Bassett Street in New Britain, it is a large structure with several additions. Architecturally the Erwin Home is an example of the English interpretation of the Queen Anne style. The earliest section of the building, designed by Melvin H. Hapgood of Cook, Hapgood & Co and erected in 1891, consists of two wings that extend along Bassett and Ellis Streets and join at a three-story corner tower. At the rear of the Ellis Street side, facing the building’s inner courtyard, is a small gable-roofed tower. The first addition to the Erwin Home, made in 1894 and designed by Hapgood & Hapgood, extends along Warlock Street. This connects to another addition built in 1914. These later sections feature elements of the Tudor Revival style. Further addition were made in 1971 and 1973.

An early description of the building appeared in The American Architect and Building News, Vol. XXXIII, No. 814 (August 1, 1891):

The late Cornelius B. Erwin, of the Russell & Erwin Mfg. Co., left a large sum in the hands of the committee of the Congregational Church, of which he was a member, for the purpose of having a building put up which should be an actual home for such beneficiaries as the committee should approve, saying in his will: — “it being my object in establishing said Home to aid the really worthy and deserving poor, and not to encourage those who neither are, nor desire to be self-supporting.” The architects have endeavored to carry out as closely as possible the desires of Mr. Erwin, and, instead of planning a large high structure having the appearance of an asylum, a low, rambling cluster of cottages has been arranged for, all under one roof, yet each little portion retaining its individuality.

The Domestic English style of architecture was selected as being the one best adapted for giving the desired picturesqueness and homelikeness so attractive to destitute and homeless women. [. . . .] It will be seen that the key-note of the whole design is the furnishiug of independent homes for worthy and indigent women. It is well-known that many poor but respectable people have a strong prejudice, even horror of anything which is suggestive of surveillance or a binding down to rules in an institution.

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Temple B’Nai Israel (1929)

Temple B'Nai Israel

The former Temple B’Nai Israel at 265 West Main Street in New Britain was built in 1927-1929 as a Masonic Temple. It was designed by architect Walter P. Crabtree. The Masons sold the building to the Jewish congregation Aheyu B’Nai Israel (Brethren Sons of Israel) in 1940. Aheyu B’Nai Israel was organized in 1889 as an Orthodox congregation, but reorganized as Conservative in 1924. Members who held to Orthodox views split off and built Tephereth Israel Synagogue. Temple B’Nai Israel closed in the summer of 2007. Its Torah scrolls were transferred to the Hillel organizations at Trinity College, the University of Hartford, and the University of Connecticut