The Essex Savings Bank in Essex was founded in 1851. The bank was initially located above a retail business in Essex and in 1873 it moved into an 1849 building previously occupied by the Saybrook Bank. This building was remodeled and expanded into what it is today in 1922. The Essex Savings Bank was originally founded because of the wealth generated by shipbuilding. Unlike many other banks, it has never merged with another institution.
The old Post Office building at 114 West Main Street in New Britain was built in 1910 and was in use until the mid-1970s. The Neoclassical structure was designed by Frank S. Watmaugh of Worcester, Mass.
Founded in 1857 by D.M. Read, Read’s Department Store in Bridgeport became a retail landmark, evolving into a chain of stores that provided upscale merchandise for over a century. In 1869, the D.M. Read Company moved into a grand Second Empire-style building at the corner of Main Street and Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport. The store moved again in 1925-1926 into a Neoclassical building at the corner of John and Broad Streets. It was designed by Monks and Johnson of Boston. The downtown Bridgeport store was closed in 1981. In the 1990s, the building, now called Read’s Artspace or Sterling Market Lofts, was converted into apartments for artists as live-work spaces.
The Guilford Trust Company building, at 1 Boston Street across from Guilford Green, was built in 1912. The Guilford Trust Company and the Guilford Savings Bank shared the building until 1951, when the bank moved out. The trust company was acquired by a New Haven bank in 1957 and the building underwent alterations, including the removal of the front door. The structure is now a commercial building.
At the corner of Main and State Streets in Bridgeport is a bank building designed by Cass Gilbert and built in 1917. It was home to the Bridgeport Savings Bank, which was chartered in 1842 and merged with People’s Savings Bank in 1927. The bank’s first building was constructed at Main and State Streets in 1850, was replaced by a larger building in 1878 and then by the current building. People’s United Bank, as the company has been known since 2007, is now based in an office tower across the street. The 1917 bank building is now a restaurant. (more…)
The former building of the Home Bank and Trust Company, at 16 Colony Street in Meriden, was built in 1922. Originally chartered as the Home Bank of West Meriden in 1854, the bank was first located in the Collins Block, which was later destroyed by fire (the Hall & Lewis Building occupies the site now). In 1863, the bank moved to its own building, at the corner of Colony and Church Streets. Abiram Chamberlin, president of the bank, who served as Governor of Connecticut from 1903 to 1905, lived on the second floor of the brick building. The 1863 building was moved around the corner to make way for the 1922 building, designed by the firm of McKim, Mead and White. The bank became Shawmut Home Bank in 1987 and the following year was acquired by Connecticut National Bank. Today, the former bank building is home to a nightclub. (more…)
Henry Bacon, architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., designed the bank building at 18 Leavenworth Street in Waterbury. It was constructed in 1922 as the Citizens & Manufacturers Bank, which was formed from the merging of two banks: the Citizens’ Bank, which was established in 1853 and became a national bank in 1865, and the Manufacturers’ National Bank, established in 1880. The bank later merged again in 1959 to form the Colonial Bank and Trust Company. The structure is now part of the bank building at 81 West Main Street, which today is a branch of Sovereign Bank.
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