Congregation Beth El in Norwalk was founded in 1934 as a Jewish Conservative Congregation. A religious school was established in 1938. The Congregation met at the Norwalk Jewish Center until constructing their own building at 109 East Avenue. Ground was broken for the new building on May 9, 1948 and the first two wings, for the school and an auditorium, were dedicated a year later. In 1954 the Sanctuary was completed.
At 104 East Avenue in Norwalk is a brick house built c. 1834 by Henry Selleck. By 1847 it was the residence of Storrs Hall A.M., who ran the English & Classical School in the house. He is described in Norwalk (1896), by Rev. Charles M. Selleck:
Dr. Hall graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and afterwards engaged in academic work in Connecticut. He was the brother of the learned Edwin Hall, D. D., the pastor for twenty-three years of the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, in which town Dr. Storrs Hall established a private of school of high grade, and remained for a number of years its able and successful head. He subsequently studied medicine at Yale University, New Haven, and leaving the east established himself as a physician in Rosendale, Wis. In 1860 he was elected a Trustee of Ripon College, Wisconsin, and four years later chosen Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the same institution. His life has been spent along scholastic lines, and he is now, at the age of four and eighty, industriously engaged in professional work.
While some sources (including the nomination for the Wall Street Historic District) date the construction of the Bishop Building, a two-section commercial building at 64 Wall Street in Norwalk, to 1935, an article in The Norwalk Hour, “New Woolworth Opens Friday” (September 5, 1940), provides a different timeline. According to the article, the first section of the building was constructed by William Bishop in 1928 (or was it 1923?) on the site of the old Bishop Homestead. He was born in the Homestead, which he inherited and tore down for his building, which originally had 35 offices and three stores on the first floor. It was the first office building in the city to have a passenger elevator. In 1938, Bishop was approached by the F. W. Woolworth Company to open a branch of their five-and-dime stores in Norwalk. He purchased the adjacent Ambler Block and remodeled it to become part of an enlarged Bishop Building, in which the Woolworth store opened in 1940. Woolworth would later move to another location on Wall Street. Many other businesses have been located in the Bishop Building, including WNLK radio station and Kiddytown toy store (closed in 1995). It is now home to My Three Sons.
The house at 176 Rowayton Avenue in the Rowayton section of Norwalk was built around 1890 for Charles T. Lowndes. The Lowndes family were successful in the oyster business.
At 2 Knight Street, corner of Wall Street, in Norwalk is a three-story Italianate-style commercial building built around 1840. It has a two-story addition that extends on an angle up Knight Street. The building currently has retail and office space as part of a development called Landmark Square.
At 67 Wall Street in Norwalk is a building constructed in 1922 for the Fairfield County Savings Bank. The bank, chartered in 1874, had an earlier building at 51 Wall Street whose facade was significantly altered in the 1970s. The building at 67 Wall Street was renovated in 1990. The Fairfield County Savings Bank merged with the Ridgefield Bank to form the Fairfield County Bank in 2004.
The Second Congregational Church of Norwalk, later called the South Norwalk Congregational Church, was formed in 1836 by members of the First Congregational Church who wanted to build a new church in the village of Old Well, which later became the City of South Norwalk. Its first church building was completed that same year and was enlarged in 1856. Ground was broken for a new and larger church on May 31, 1888. The structure (the current address is 4 Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Drive) was completed and the first services were held on the last Sunday in December 1889. The formal dedication took place early in January 1890. By the early 1970s the church had a dwindling membership. It sold its building and merged with United Congregational Church in West Norwalk. The former South Norwalk Congregational Church is now Little Zion Church of Christ of the Apostolic Faith. The steeple was hit by lightning in September 2014 which started a fire that caused some damage to the roof.
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