The imposing Meriden Armory on East Main Street was built in 1908. Once home to a National Guard unit, the Armory hosted dances and sporting events, including Meriden native Max E. Muravnick‘s first professional boxing match. The National Guard closed the Armory in 1998 and sold it to a private developer. The building has remained closed and is difficult to market due to its deteriorating condition and lack of parking.
John Warner of Chester built his house at 12 Maple Street in 1799 on land he had acquired from his brother-in-law, Grinold Clark.
Today, all that remains of the Goodwin Building, on Asylum Street in Hartford, are the outer walls, with their striking English Queen Anne facade utilizing ornamental terra cotta. Built in 1881 as an apartment building by the brothers, James J. Goodwin and Rev. Francis Goodwin, it was designed by Francis Kimball and was modeled on buildings Rev. Goodwin had seen being constructed at the time in England. Kimball, of the firm of Kimball & Wisedell, was the architect for the Day House in Hartford, which also has an English Queen Anne design. The Goodwin Building was expanded in 1891 to Ann Street and in 1900 to Pearl Street. It was a very prestigious address at the time, with even J.P. Morgan living there during his visits to the city of his birth. In 1985-1986, the building’s Arts and Crafts style interior was gutted to prepare for the structure’s incorporation into a new office tower, Goodwin Square, completed in 1989. That same year, the Goodwin Hotel opened in the former apartment building. The hotel closed in 2008 and last year Goodwin Square went into foreclosure.
Captain W. H. Williams, said to have been related to a signer of the Declaration of Independence, built a house in Clinton around 1710. Located at 110 East Main Street, the house was used as an antiques store at the time it was photographed for a WPA survey in the late 1930s. It now houses a bridal beauty salon, part of what is known as Clinton’s “Wedding Row.”
The Tudor Revival building at 74 Central Avenue in Waterbury opened in 1930 as the headquarters of the Waterbury Women’s Club. In the 1960s, the building became the home of the Waterbury branch of the Salvation Army.
Construction began in 1802 on St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on the Green in Monroe. The Federal-style church, completed in 1807, has been attributed by J. Frederick Kelly to the architect David Hoadley, who designed a number of churches in Connecticut. The Episcopal church building, the oldest in Monroe, was raised for additional space in the 1920s. (more…)
The War Memorial Tower on Fox Hill in Rockville, Vernon, was constructed between 1937 and 1939 as a memorial to Veterans of all wars from the town of Vernon. Before it was built, an earlier tower made of wood had stood on the site. Built by a Mr. Jeffrey of Meriden, it stood from 1878 until it was destroyed in a blizzard in 1880. Visitors were charged 15¢ to climb the tower and use the telescope at the top. The ruined building was not restored, but around 1889 the artist Charles Ethan Porter, Jeffrey’s brother-in-law, was using the surviving first floor as his studio. By 1923, the last remains of the structure had disappeared. The new Memorial Tower, built of stone, was designed by Walter B. Chambers of New York and was modeled after a 1500 year-old Romanesque tower near Poitiers, France. The WPA provided the labor and materials. The Tower is in Henry Park, named for E. Stevens Henry, a merchant and politician, who bequeathed Fox Hill and the surrounding area to the city of Rockville.
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