One of the many buildings constructed in the wake of the 1902 fire in downtown Waterbury (or was it built in 1900, before the fire?) is the Mullings Building at 95-103 Bank Street. It was originally home to John Mullings‘s clothing store.
The Cathedral Lyceum (pdf) in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood was built in 1895 by the Archdiocese of Hartford for the Cathedral Lyceum Society, a catholic club for young Irish men. Located at 227 Lawrence Street, the Renaissance Revival building, designed by John J. Dwyer, served for many years as a community center for the city’s growing immigrant population. The church sold the building in 1920 to the Hartford Box Company. The structure later served as as the home of the Lithuanian-American Citizens Club. It has since been a restaurant, a dance club, a roller skating business and a balloon manufacturer. In 2003 it was purchased by the Melville Charitable Trust, an organization dedicated to promoting affordable housing, and was renovated to become the Lyceum Conference Center.
Mentioned in Tour 8 of my new book, A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut (which is now available on Amazon’s Kindle e-reader), is St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church, located at 7 Clark Street in Hartford. Originally serving Irish-Americans, St. Michael’s parish was created out of the northern portion of St. Anthony’s parish in 1900. That year, a basement chapel was dedicated, with the upper portion being dedicated in 1906. The Renaissance Revival-style church, designed by Irish American architect John J. Dwyer, today serves a predominantly African American and Latino congregation.
To celebrate the release of my new book this week, A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut, I’ll be featuring Hartford buildings. The Henry C. Dwight School, at 585 Wethersfield Avenue, consists of two attached structures. The earlier one (image above) was built in about 1885 and is a polychromatic High Victorian Gothic building designed by Jacob Bachmeyer. In 1901, a larger addition (see below) in the Renaissance Revival style was constructed, which more than doubled the size of the school. Known as the Wethersfield Avenue School, it was later renamed for Henry C. Dwight, wool merchant, president of Mechanics Savings Bank, mayor of Hartford in 1890–92 and chairman of Hartford’s South School District. (more…)
In 1893, Jacob Stueck built the commercial structure at 460 Main Street in Middletown, which housed his bakery. In 1914, his son, Philip Stueck, built an attached structure at 62-70 Washington Street. Philip operated a restaurant on the upper level, called Stueck’s Modern Tavern, and rented out the first floor to various retail shops. The restaurant remained in business until 1939. The Renaissance Revival building, which features bold notched brick-work, was sold to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1946.
The Hotchkiss Block is a late-nineteenth-century commercial/residential building at 598-614 Main Street in Middletown. A large structure, it has Renaissance Revival elements and its impressive roof cornice, bay windows and first floor cornice are clad in pressed metal. The building is named for Frederick Hotchkiss, who built it c. 1894 and whose family owned it until 1919. It was then owned by Israel Mittleman, whose ground-floor clothing store had been in the building since 1910.
This is my 200th Hartford Post! To celebrate this milestone, I’m announcing that I have a book coming out later this summer called A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut, published by The History Press.
Please watch this site for more announcements soon and “like” the Facebook page for the book:
http://www.facebook.com/AGuideToHistoricHartfordConnecticut
Also visit the site I’ve created for the book at
http://guidetohistorichartford.historicbuildingsct.com/.
The Flatiron Building in the above picture (called flatiron for its distinctive shape, resembling the famous Flatiron Building in New York City) is at 529-543 Ann Uccello Street in Hartford, between Ann and High Streets. The Neoclassical Revival commercial structure was designed by Frederick R. Comstock and was built in 1896. It has been vacant since a fire in 2004.
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