21 Church Street, Waterbury (1886)

As related in Frederick John Kinsbury’s A Narrative and Documentary History of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church (formerly St. James) of Waterbury, Connecticut (1907): “In 1884 John C. Booth and Mrs. Olive M. Elton presented to the parish the lot at the corner of Church and West Main streets, and a rectory was erected thereon, which was completed in the spring of 1886 at a cost of about $16,000.” The Queen Anne-style building, at 21 Church Street, features a Romanesque Revival archway on the front porch. In the 1970s, this former minister’s residence was converted into an office building.

Fisk Hall (1904)

One of Wesleyan University‘s most impressive buildings is Fisk Hall, built in 1904. Named for Willbur Fisk, Wesleyan’s first president, Fisk Hall was designed by Cady, Berg and See of New York in the Romanesque style and is constucted of Portland brownstone. On February 21, 1969, Fisk Hall was the location of a takover by African-American students challenging the University’s administration. In addition to classrooms and offices, Fisk Hall housed the campus store and post office from 1974 to 1984. Today, it contains most of Wesleyan’s foreign language departments.

Agudas Achim Synagogue, Hartford (1928)

Agudas Achim is a Orthodox Jewish congregation founded in Hartford in 1887 by immigrants from Romania. Meeting at first in private homes, the Congregation moved to a building on Market Street around 1902 and then to a larger synagogue on Greenfield Street, constructed in 1928. Like the similar Beth Hamedrash Hagodol on Garden Street, Agudas Achim (1928) was designed by the firm of Berenson & Moses. Following the movement of Jews out of Hartford’s Upper Albany neighborhood, the Congregation constructed a new synagogue on North Main Street in West Hartford in 1968. The 1928 building has since been a Baptist Church and is now the Glory Chapel International Cathedral.

Old Middletown High School (1894)

The old Middletown High School was built in 1894-1896 on the southwest corner of Court and Pearl Streets. The Romanesque Revival-style building was designed by the Hartford architectural firm of Curtis and Johnson. Additional wings were added in 1912 and 1931. The 1912 addition matches well with the original structure, but the 1931 addition stands out more as a newer separate construction. The building served as a school until 1972, when a new high school was built. In 1979, the old school was sold to a developer and converted into apartments for elderly housing.

Beth Hamedrash Hagadol (1922)

The construction of Temple Beth Israel, on Charter Oak Avenue in Hartford in 1876, established a model for future urban synagogues in Connecticut. Influenced by the design of the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburger Straße (1859-1866) in Berlin, Germany and Temple Emanu-El (1868) at 43rd Street and 5th Avenue in New York, Temple Beth Israel has broad steps leading to a series of round arched doorways in a center section recessed between two projecting square towers. Other synagogues to follow this model include Congregation Tephereth Israel (1925) in New Britain and Beth Israel Synagogue (1925) in New Haven. Beth Hamedrash Hagadol, an Orthodox congregation organized on Hartford’s East Side by Eastern European immigrants in 1905, moved to the city’s North End in 1921. The following year, the congregation commissioned the Hartford architectural firm of Berenson & Moses to design a synagogue on Garden Street that was to be similar to Beth Israel in New Haven. The completed building, later known as the Garden Street Synagogue, was used by the congregation until 1962. Following the movement of Jews from the city to the suburbs, Beth Hamedrash Hagadol merged with Ateres Kneset Israel to form the United Synagogues of Greater Hartford, which moved to West Hartford in the 1960s. The Garden Street Synagogue’s Torah Ark, which remained in the building’s basement for two decades, was recently restored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. The former Garden Street Synagogue is now The Greater Refuge Church of Christ.

The Linden (1891)

The Linden is an apartment building, built in 1891 on Main Street in South Downtown in Hartford by Frank Brown and James Thomson, owners of Brown, Thompson & Company department store. Designed by Frederick Savage Newman, the Linden was designed to echo Richardson’s Cheney block, where Brown & Thompson was then located. An addition on the south, designed by John J. Dwyer, was constructed in 1895. Having fallen into disrepair, the building was rehabilitated in the 1980s, with the storefronts and interior being significantly remodeled.

Taylor Memorial Library (1895)

The first library in Milford was established in 1745 and belonged to the First Church. The city’s first secular library began with the chartering of the Milford Lyceum in 1858. The Milford Lyceum Library was eventually dissolved in 1894, when the Taylor Memorial Library was founded. Dedicated in 1895, the Taylor Library was the gift of Henry Augustus Taylor, a financier and philanthropist. It is constructed of local fieldstone, red sandstone and yellow brick. The design of the Richardsonian Romanesque building was based on that of H.H. Richardson’s Crane Memorial Library in Quincy, Massachusetts. In 1976, the new Milford Public Library was opened at the corner of New Haven Avenue and Shipyard Lane, officially replacing the Taylor Library. The old library building was converted to office space and is now home to the Milford Chamber of Commerce.