The City Trust (later Citytrust) Bank Building, at 234 Main Street in Danbury, was erected in 1912-1913. Originally two stories, the building was remodeled and enlarged (to match the Union Savings Bank next door) in 1929-1931 by Morgan, French & Co. of New York. An Otis elevator was installed in 1931 to reach the new upper floors. Citytrust, based in Bridgeport, failed in 1991 and the building has since been a church.
Various dates can be found for the construction of the house at 227 Ellsworth Street in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. The City of Bridgeport assessor’s field card gives a date of 1837. The book, History of Black Rock, 1644-1955 (1955), compiled by Dr. Ivan O. Justinius, indicates it was built around 1845. The nomination for the Black Rock Historic District provides a date of 1854, the same year as the Capt. Charles Allen House at 213 Ellsworth Street. The two houses were originally identical, but around 1910 the house at No. 227 was altered by the addition of the gable roof and the octagonal projection between the main block and the side wing on the left.
Whatever the precise date of construction, the house at 227 Ellsworth Street was built by Isaac W. Jones (1806-1863). The house was later owned by Joseph Smith, who married Capt. Allen’s daughter, Sarah Allen. The house passed to their daughter, Viola, wife of James E. Hurlburt, and then to her daughter, Viola Hurlburt Carpenter. She and her husband, Hubert Benton Carpenter, later moved to Fairfield between 1957 and 1964.
The house at 174-176 Seabright Avenue in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport has a sign that names it “Seabright Cottage.” The Bridgeport assesor’s field card gives it a date of 1877. The building is listed in the Black Rock Historic District as one of two “William Nichols Tenament Houses” built in 1894 (the other being at 181 Brewster Street). They were located next to Nichol’s businesses: the Nichols Hotel and the General Store.
The Old Mystic National Bank began as the Mystic Bank in 1833. It was established in a newly-built granite building in the village of Old Mystic in Stonington, which was a commercial center at the time. By 1856, business had grown to an extent that a larger building was required. It was erected of brick in the center of the village of Old Mystic. The iron bars across the windows were added after a attempted burglary in 1884. The institution became a national bank in 1865 and continued in business until undergoing a voluntary liquidation in 1887. By that time the village of Mystic to the south had become the local business hub instead of Old Mystic. After the bank closed, the 1856 building was sold to the town of Stonington in 1889. It was used as a District Hall for voting until the 1960s. During World War II, the Reliance Fire Company of Old Mystic used the attached back shed as a Civil Defense headquarters. It was later used to store fire equipment. In 1965, the building was sold to the Indian and Colonial Research Center. The ICRC is a non-profit organization that preserves the preserves the papers and collections of Eva L. Butler (1887-1969), a noted anthropologist, archeologist, historian, and naturalist.
Now located at Mystic Seaport, the Mystic Bank was originally built in 1833 in Old Mystic, at the head of the Mystic River. The first president of the bank was Elias Brown and the first cashier was George W. Noyes, who later held the same position at the Mystic River Bank. The Mystic Bank moved its operations to a new brick building in 1856. The first floor of the old bank building then became the post office and the upper floor was used as a carpenter’s shop. The building would be used for different purposes over the years until 1948-1951, when it was moved to Mystic Seaport. The current front portico is a reproduction of the original. (more…)
The central portion of the building at 263/265 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport was built for the Y.W.C.A. in 1941, with rear wings added in 1959. The building replaced an earlier house on the site, built for Albert Bishop and torn down in 1936. The new building was designed by architect C.W. Walker to reflect the style characteristics of the Bishop House. It was built by the E & F Construction Company. When the picture above was taken a few years ago, the building was serving as the city’s Dwight D. Eisenhower Senior Center, which has since moved to a new address at 307 Golden Hill Street. The building is also home to the Downtown Cabaret Theatre.
Wallingford Bank and Trust Company was incorporated in 1916. The bank acquired a parcel of land at the corner of Center and William Streets in Wallingford in 1930. An existing brick building on the site was razed and a new bank building, designed by Harper & West of Boston, was erected there the following year (see “Wallingford Bank Lets Contract For $100,000 Building: Work to Be Started About January 1 At Center and Williams Streets,” Hartford Courant, December 13, 1930). The entrance to the building was originally on the corner, at the street intersection, but this was converted to a window at a later date and a new entrance was built (possibly an extension of the original building) on the Center Street side. The bank merged with the Connecticut Bank and Trust Company in 1962 (the merger came close to not being allowed because it eliminated one of the few banks in town and made CBT the second-largest bank in the state). Today the building is a branch of Bank of America.