Manchester Armory (1927)

In 1923, the Connecticut General Assembly approved funding for an armory in Manchester to house the town’s National Guard units. A drill shed was soon erected at 330 Main Street, followed by the remainder of the building (the front facade of the head house) after additional funds were approved in 1925. Designed in a military Gothic style by the New London architectural firm of Payne and Keefe, the Manchester Armory represents a move away from the picturesque castellated Gothic armories that were built in Connecticut in the first two decades of the twentieth century towards a more streamlined and rigidly symmetrical form related to the emerging Art Deco style. Earlier this year the state sold the armory, which had become vacant, to private owners who plan to convert it into offices and an automotive restoration shop.

One Heritage Place (1909)

The building at 945 Main Street in Manchester was built in 1909 to replace the Oak Hill Building that had stood on the site but was destroyed in a fire in 1909. Since 1897, that building had contained the dry goods store of Edwin E. House and Justus W. Hale, who quickly hired architect Isaac A. Allen, Jr. to design a replacement structure. The new House & Hale Building would be larger than its predecessor and a two-story wooden building (could it be this one?), next to the adjacent Cheney Block, was moved to the rear to make way for the structure. House & Hale, who had begun with two separate stores (begun in 1853 and 1875 respectively), soon evolved their joint businesses into a full department store which, by 1920, also had a self-serve grocery store in the basement. The department store was in business until January, 1980. The building was then converted into rental office space and is now called “One Heritage Place.”

Apel’s Opera House (1888)

A German immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1874, Bernard C. Apel established a furniture and undertaking business at Depot Square in North Manchester. In 1888 he erected the large brick commercial building that stands at the corner of Apel Place and Oakland Street (35 Oakland Street). The basement contained the undertaking establishment and above it was his mercantile showroom, which he had expanded to include a wide variety of products, from carpets, wall paper and curtains, to crockery, lamps, clocks, stoves and pianos. The upper floors of the building housed a large community hall/theater called Apel’s Opera House. A fire gutted the opera house in 1899. Apel rebuilt, but did not reconstruct the original audience gallery. Serving as a warehouse and salesroom in later years, the building was acquired by the Central Connecticut Cooperative Farmers Association in 1977. The Co-op, which had been located on Apel Place since 1942, was a major supplier of livestock feed to farmers and had a retail store and farm stand in the former Opera House. The Co-op closed in the summer of 2016 due to current economic conditions and the decline in the number of farms.

Temple Beth Shalom (1940)

The building at the corner of Myrtle and Linden Streets (63 Linden Street) in Manchester was built in 1940 by Temple Beth Shalom. The synagogue added a school wing in 1946. The Temple later moved to a larger building at 400 Middle Turnpike East and in 2009 merged with Temple B’nai Israel of Rockville to form Beth Shalom B’nai Isreal, which is one of the largest Conservative Jewish congregations east of the Connecticut River. The former Temple Beth Shalom building was purchased by the Town of Manchester in 1965 and was remodeled to become the Manchester Senior Center. Today it houses the Manchester Youth Service Bureau.