Chevry Lomday Mishnayes (1926)

Congregation Chevry Lomday Mishnayes was founded in Hartford by Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia in 1918. Having no permanent home for their first seven years, the congregation built a shul in 1924-1926 on Bedford Street in Hartford’s Clay Arsenal neighborhood. The building‘s exterior has the same design as the many standard brick apartment buildings that were being constructed in Hartford at the time, but with adaptations for its use as a synagogue. In 1964, the congregation moved to a new shul at 191 Westbourne Parkway and in 1983 merged with Teferes Israel, which merged with Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford in 1993. The former shul on Bedford Street is now the Temple of Prayer and Worship for the House of God.

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.

87-89 Atwood Street, Hartford (1911)

This month’s issue of Hartford magazine has an article about the restoration of a “Perfect Six” apartment building at 87-89 Atwood Street in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood. Perfect Sixes, with three floors, double bow-fronts, and six apartments, were very popular in Hartford at the start of the twentieth century. The one on Atwood Street was a particularly stylish one, intended for middle-class residents. Built in 1911 by two Russian immigrants, Louis and Morris Schoolnik, the building had become run down by the 1980s and was shut down by the city in 1997. The Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, which works to revitalize Asylum Hill, sought to acquire and restore the building, a process which took some time, during which the building further deteriorated. The roof collapsed in February 2009, but the reclamation project was able to retain the building’s historic facade facing the street, while the rest was demolished and rebuilt. The converted structure now contains two townhouses.

1144 Prospect Street, Hartford (1912)

This Sunday is the Annual Holiday ouse Tour, held by the Friends of the Mark Twain House & Museum. One of the houses to be featured on the tour is the impressive mansion at 1144 Prospect Avenue. Located near the highest point in the City of Hartford and with views of the Hartford skyline, the house was built in 1912 and designed by Smith and Bassette. Earlier this year, the house’s owners won an award from the Hartford Preservation Alliance for their extensive restoration of the home’s historic facade and entry bridge.