Mattatuck Museum (1986)

Mattatuck Museum

The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury was first established in 1877 as the Mattatuck Historical Society. Initially dedicated to preserving the history of Waterbury and its surrounding towns, the Museum‘s mission later expanded its focus to include the work of Connecticut artists. From 1912 to 1987, the Museum was located in the John Kendrick House on West Main Street. It then moved into a former Masonic Temple, located at 160 West Main Street. Built in 1912, the steel-framed Temple, with a facade of brick and limestone, was designed by Waterbury architect W.E. Griggs. The Museum’s new home comprised two distinct structures, meeting at a right angle: the West Main Street building and the Park Place auditorium building. Located between the two wings of this “L” was a former service station (144 West Main Street), built c. 1930, that had a modern retail front added in 1966. This structure was replaced, in 1986, by the Museum’s new entrance and courtyard garden, designed by renowned architect César Pelli, who also renovated the interior of the 1912 building. The materials of the new addition match the brick and limestone of the original building, while the new main entrance has a copper crown, indicating the Museum’s public function. (more…)

St. Alexis Orthodox Christian Church (1999)

St. Alexis Orthodox Christian Church, Clinton, CT

The parish of St. Alexis was founded in 1995 in Clinton as a mission of the Orthodox Church in America. The parish was named for St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre. Originally a Carpatho-Rusyn Eastern Rite Catholic (Uniate) priest, Alexis Toth came to America in 1889 to serve at St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Confronted by a Roman Catholic clergy which, seeking to Americanize Catholic immigrants, was hostile to to ethnic parishes, St. Alexis and his parish entered the Russian Orthodox Church in 1892. He would be responsible for many conversions of Uniate Catholics to Orthodoxy. St. Alexis died in 1909 and was canonized in 1994 as St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre by the Orthodox Church in America. The church in Clinton, at 108 East Main Street, was constructed in 1997-1999 to plans drawn by the firm of Hibbard and Rosa, Architects of Middletown.

Goodwin Square (1989) and City Place (1980)

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Happy New Year from Historic Buildings of Connecticut! Hartford’s three tallest buildings are City Place, at 163 meters (535 ft), the Travelers Tower, at 161 meters (527 ft), and Goodwin Square, at 159 meters (522 ft). In the image above are Goodwin Square (left) and City Place (right), both designed by the architectural firm of Skidmore Owings And Merrill. City Place I was built in 1980 and has thirty-eight floors above ground (the adjacent City Place II was built in 1989 and has 18 floors). Most of the building is office space, with retail and restaurant space on the lower floors. Goodwin Square was built in 1989 and has thirty floors. This modern skyscraper connects to and shares a lobby with the Goodwin Hotel, originally built as an apartment building in 1881. The facade of the Goodwin Hotel remains, but the interior was completely replaced in the 1980s. The skyscraper was eventually deemed to have been a bad investment and the hotel closed in 2008. Also visible in the lower left of the above photograph are the tops of the two towers of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch.

Care Endodontics (2007)

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Care Endodontics PC, , a dental practice specializing in root canals, was founded in 2004 by Dr. Christopher Carrington and Dr. Lester Reid. They purchased an old house on Farmington Avenue in Hartford’s West End for their expanded practice, but eventually decided to raze the original structure and replace it with a retro-Victorian house that would fit in with other structures in the neighborhood. The building features Victorian-influenced siding which disguises the fact that it is made of vinyl. The practice opened its new facility in June of 2007.