F. A. Hull Building (1907)

In 1843, Charles Hull started a hardware store in Danbury that went under several names over the years: from 1860 to 1890 it was known as Hull & Rogers and it was later called Hull Brothers. Over the years the company’s home near the corner of Main and Liberty Streets was twice burned down. After the second fire in 1906, Frederick Hull hired the Bridgeport architects Meloy & Beckwith to design a new building. To avoid further destruction by fire the building was constructed of brick, reinforced concrete and steel. Completed in 1907, the building became home to the store under its new name, F. A. Hull & Son. Located at 181-183 Main Street in Danbury, the building has a distinctive multi-colored pressed brick facade on the third floor. A gymnasium on that floor was used until 1924 as Danbury High School’s gym (in the 1890s the High School was located on the third floor of the Union Savings Bank). The store was incorporated as the Hull Hardware & Plumbing Company in 1919.

There was also a firm called F. A. Hull & Co. which was a manufacturer of steel machinery and machinists’ tools in Danbury. The company, which produced such products as the Danbury Universal Jaw Drill Chuck, was controlled in the 1870s and 1880s by the machine firm of Hull, Belden & Co, established by Major Russell Albert Belden of New Haven. After a fire destroyed the company’s plant in Danbury in 1888, Belden retuned to New Haven, where he started the Belden Machine Co. It seems that F. A. Hull & Co. continued as a a wholesale hardware firm, although that may have been a reference to the separate F. A. Hull & Son.

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American Museum of Tort Law [former Winsted Savings Bank] (1925)

In 2013, Ralph Nader purchased the former Winsted Savings Bank building at 654 Main Street in Winsted to become the future home of the American Museum of Tort Law, which he first announced was in development in 1998. The museum, which opened in 2015, has a mission to inform and inspire Americans about trial by jury and the benefits of tort law (the law of wrongful injuries). The museum‘s building was erected in 1925 by the Winsted Savings Bank, which was incorporated in 1860. From 1867 until 1925 the bank had occupied the 1851 building at 690 Main Street that had originally been erected by the Winsted Bank.

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Masonic Temple, Wethersfeld (1922)

When forming a Lodge in 1921, Masons in Wethersfield chose the name Hospitality Lodge in honor of a nickname of the Webb House, located at 211 Main Street. Built in 1752 for Joseph Webb, Sr., the house became known as “Hospitality Hall” in the years before the Revolutionary War for the lavish parties hosted by Joseph Webb, Jr. and his wife Abigail. The house hosted a famous Mason, George Washington, when he met the French General Rochambeau in Wethersfield in 1781. Hospitality Lodge No. 128 AF&AM was chartered March 5, 1921. The Masonic Temple at 245 Main Street was built the following year and remained in use until 1997, when the Lodge merged with Stepney Lodge No. 133 from Rocky Hill to form Silas Deane Lodge No. 147, which later moved from Wethersfield. More recently, Masons in town wanted to form a new Lodge and were granted the old Hospitality No. 128 charter. The Lodge now meets at the Solomon Welles House in Wethersfield. The old Masonic building has remained vacant, although the town planning and zoning commission approved its conversion into a two-family home in 2014.

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Meeker’s Hardware (1883)

Meeker’s Hardware was a Danbury institution for 125 years. In 1883, feed and grain dealers Hendrick Barnum and Oscar Meeker began a partnership that Meeker, who came from Bridgeport, would continue alone after Barnum’s death in 1886. In 1885 Meeker opened his tool and feed store at 86-90 White Street in Danbury. The building, also known as the Red Block, was designed by architect Charles Crossley of Danbury and was erected over a period from 1883 to 1889. The upper floors were destroyed by a fire that swept lower White Street in 1896, but Meeker soon rebuilt. The tall rear section originally housed the company’s feed and grain warehouse and there was a steam-operated grindstone in the basement that was in operation until about 1912. Starting in 1983 (the same year the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places), the store became known for selling Coca-Cola for 5 cents, as advertised by a sign painted on the side of the building. This was switched to Pepsi in 2006, after a Coca-Cola sales representative wanted Mr. Meeker to install newer and more expensive soda fountain equipment. The store was renovated in 2009. After Meeker’s Hardware closed in 2013, it remained vacant until Vazquez  Soccerchamp Sports opened in 2016. Vintage fixtures from the old store, including cabinets, counters and other artifacts were removed in 2018 to be sold by Provenance, a Phildelphia salvage company.

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Prospect Public Library – Meeting Place (1905)

I have just completed a building index (by address) for the buildings on this site that are in the Town of Prospect. The most recent entry for Prospect is today’s building, the former Prospect Public Library, which is constructed of fieldstone and was erected in 1905. Earlier private circulating libraries (the Cheshire Mountain Library and the Oxford Circulating Library) had existed in the community even before the incorporation of Prospect as a town in 1827. The Library Association was organized in 1886 and its books were first located at the home of its first librarian, Sarah Tallmadge, and then in the vestry of the Congregational Church. Efforts for the construction of a free public library led to the erection of the 1905 building, designed by F. E. Walters of Waterbury. The principle donors for the library were the Tuttle family of Naugatuck, descendants of Eben Clark Tuttle (1806-1873) who had begun manufacturing hoes in Prospect before moving to Naugatuck in 1851. The family also funded landscaping of the grounds around the building on Prospect Green. A new library building was erected in 1991 on the former site of the Petrauskas farm at 17 Center Street. The former library, located at 30 Center Street, was renamed the Meeting Place and is used for community purposes.

Venetian Restaurant (1898)

The Venetian Restaurant has been a landmark at 52 East Main Street in Torrington for nearly a century. The rear wood-frame section of the building dates to 1844 and was erected as a store and residence. The front portion, with its Neoclassical façade, was built in 1898 by two German immigrants, William Witzke and Oscar Stoeckert, who opened a saloon in the building. An Italian restaurant opened in 1921 named Charles and Antoinette for its owners, Charles and Antoinette Finello Giampaolo. In 1925 they renamed it The Venetian. In 1931, the building was remodeled with the addition of a neon sign, art deco glass block windows and interior murals of Venice. In 1970, the Giampaolo family sold the restaurant to Michael and Fiorita DiLullo, who are only the second owners in The Venetian’s ninety-eight-year history.

Savings Bank of Danbury (1908)

The Beaux Arts building at 220 Main Street in Danbury, one of a row of three bank buildings, was erected in 1908-1909 as the headquarters of the Savings Bank of Danbury. It was designed by Danbury architect Philip Sunderland. The origin of the bank, which was founded by George White Ives, the grandfather of composer Charles Ives, is described in James Montgomery Bailey’s History of Danbury (1896):

Nearly a half century ago, when Danbury had no electric lights, no pavements, no street railway, but was a pretty town with grand old trees and beautiful gardens, one of her venerated citizens, Horace Bull, suggested to George W. Ives that a savings bank would be a blessing to many of the town people. To one so keenly alive to the interests of Danbury and of his fellow-citizens the suggestion had but to be made to be acted upon, and the Savings Bank of Danbury, chartered in 1849, commenced business on June 29th of that year [. . . .]

Notice was duly given that deposits would be received at the house of the Treasurer from 2 P.m. to 5 P.m. on Saturday of each week.

The old Ives homestead, so well known and so full of pleasant memories, thus became the cradle of the first savings bank. A desk in the dining-room was the safe, and in the absence of the Treasurer Mrs. Ives received deposits and attended to the business of the bank. After a time it seemed necessary to have a building and a safe, and Mr. Ives built at his own expense the little building, still standing in the corner of the dooryard of his old homestead, and the savings bank had a “habitation” as well as a “name.” From this small beginning the assets of the bank have increased to the sum of $2,869,922 on March 30th, 1895.

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