At 228 Ellsworth Street, in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport, is an Italianate house with an ornate veranda and wide projecting eaves. It was built in 1853 by carpenter and housewright Oliver Burr as his own residence. After 1860, the house was home to two generations of the Burroughs family.
The church at the corner of Barnum and Noble avenues (235 Barnum Avenue) in Bridgeport was built in 1883 as the Washington Park Methodist Episcopal Church. The brick Gothic church with elaborate terra cotta trim was designed by Lawrence B. Valk of New York. Organized in 1853, Park Church was the first church in East Bridgeport. Today, the building is Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church. This parish was founded in 1950 and, the following year, acquired a church building and rectory on Grant Street. An adjoining building was purchased in 1958 to become the parish school, but in 1966, the parish was notified by the state that their property was required for the building of a hospital. In 1970, therefore, the parishioners voted to purchase the former Methodist church on Barnum Avenue to become their new home.
The North Side Properties Building, at the intersection of Broad and Cannon streets in Bridgeport, was built in 1942. The Art Deco structure was designed by William Ginsburg.
The Colonial Revival house at 480 East Washington Avenue in East Bridgeport was built in 1901 (or perhaps as early as 1893). It was the home and office of Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, who was appointed medical examiner in the city in 1924. In the 1970s, the house was bequeathed to the United Way of Eastern Fairfield County by Dr. Fitzgerald’s widow and was then sold to an immigrant resettlement agency. By the 1980s, many Victorian-era homes in the Washington Park neighborhood were in bad condition and abandoned as drugs and crime dominated the neighborhood. In 1989, the house’s owner was beaten over the head with a crowbar and tied up by a burglar, but managed to free himself and shoot the intruder three times. In 1995, the house was eventually foreclosed on and sold to investors who were anticipating the opening of a casino nearby that was never built. The house was then acquired by the Washington Park Association and in 1999 was the first of ten properties in the neighborhood to undergo restoration by the Association in a revitalization project supported by grants, a loan and Federal tax credits.
The Court Exchange Building, at 211 State Street in Bridgeport, is a grandiose commercial structure, built in 1896. It was built by C. Barnum Seeley, the grandson of P.T. Barnum. The great showman, who had no sons, wanted the family name to continue and so he had provided that C. H. Seeley would receive the sum of $25,000, in addition to his portion of his grandfather’s estate, if he added Barnum to his name. For the Court Exchange Building, Seeley hired architect George Longstaff, whose extravagant plans caused building costs to skyrocket. The top floor became the headquarters of the Algonquin Club, which moved to a new clubhouse on Golden Hill Street in 1931. The Club disbanded around 1998. (more…)
The Italianate house at 301 Arctic Street in Bridgeport, now a triplex, was built in 1872 for Calvin Lines, a grocer.
At the intersection of Barnum Avenue and Harriet Street in Bridgeport is an Octagon house, built around 1856. The structure has the gravel wall with stuccoed exterior typical of this type of house, popularized in the 1850s by Orson Squire Fowler. Traditionally considered to have been built by P.T. Barnum, the house was actually built by Nathan Gould.
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