St. Mark the Evangelist Church (1945)

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, 467 South Quaker Lane in West Hartford, was dedicated on September 30, 1945. It replaced the original St. Mark Church on the site, which was destroyed by a fire of suspicious origin on June 24, 1944. Due to the scarciry of building materials during World War Two, that building had been a portable church, a narrow structure with a heating grate running through its center. St. Mark’s Parish Center was dedicated in 1971. As part of the Archdiocese of Hartford’s reorganization of parishes earlier this year, St. Mark’s merged with two other West Hartford parishes, St. Brigid and St. Helena, to form the new Saint Gianna Parish.

Mansfield Town Office Building (1935)

For many years, Mansfield’s Old Town Hall (built in 1843) was used to store town records and hold town meetings. Business was conducted at office holders’ homes. Eventually the need to have a central place for town offices led to the construction of the Town Office Building, a WPA project completed in 1935 (the date on the cornerstone), next to the Town Hall. An addition was constructed in 1957 and town offices were moved to another larger building in the late 1970s. In 1980, the Mansfield Historical Society moved into the old Office Building.

St. Rose Church, East Hartford (1924)

St. Rose Catholic Parish, located in the Burnside section of East Hartford, was established in 1920. The parish‘s first church was a Quonset hut on Church Street, situated between the current church (33 Church Street) and Burnside Avenue. A new church was dedicated on June 22, 1924. [see also Mike Sheridan, “St. Rose’s Church Parishioners Pitch In To Renovate Building,” Hartford Courant, July 28, 1974]. (more…)

Choate Rosemary Hall: Memorial House (1921)

Memorial House is a large Georgian Revival dormitory building on the campus of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. Completed in 1921, it was dedicated to the memory of the fifteen Choate boys who had fallen in the First World War. In 2014, new stair railings and new balustrade and columns for the entry portico were added in front of the building to mark the centennial of the war’s beginning. Memorial Hall was designed by Francis Waterman to be a mirror image of Hill House, which he had designed for the Choate campus a decade earlier.

Choate Rosemary Hall: Hill House (1911)

In 1908, George St John became headmaster of The Choate School in Wallingford. During his forty-year tenure, he oversaw a massive expansion of the school’s campus, which featured the erection of several large red brick Georgian Revival institutional buildings. The first of these was Hill House, completed in 1911. Designed by Francis Waterman, it set the style for the growing campus. The building was extended on the south side with the construction of the original Hill House Dining Hall in 1913-1914. Over the years, additional structures have been attached to Hill House, which remains at the heart of the Choate campus.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Centerbrook (1977)

The Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, in the village of Centerbrook in Essex, was founded in 1898. The congregation erected their original church building, next to the Falls River millpond on Main Street, in 1907-1908. Services continued to be held in Swedish until the late 1940s. The church was destroyed by fire in the early hours of March 21, 1975. A new Trinity Lutheran Church was soon rebuilt on the same site, 109 Main Street. After the fire, the congregation had investigated the old building’s cornerstone to see if something had been sealed inside by the Swedish immigrant founders of the church. Nothing was found there, but then the great-grandson of the man who had laid the original foundation shared the story, handed down to him, that there had been indeed been a box of artifacts placed in the foundation. A new search in the wall behind the cornerstone revealed a copper box, containing a historical account of the church’s founding in Swedish, coins, a 1907 Swedish almanac and other documents. The box was resealed with other items added by the congregation in a new container and placed in the new church’s cornerstone (see Emily Sigler, “Artifacts Going Back Into Church Walls,” Hartford Courant, May 25, 1976). In 2005, the church completed a renovation and expansion project that almost completely rebuilt the structure and added 1,600 square feet on its east side. A new altar was built as an extension with windows providing views of the neighboring pond and river.

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.