Merry Christmas! For Christmas we’re featuring a church in Bethlehem… Bethlehem, Connecticut! Pictured above is Christ Episcopal Church. The earliest records of the Episcopal Society of Bethlem go back to 1807. Work on building the church was begun in 1829 and it was consecrated on September 23, 1835. The church was enlarged, by Waterbury architect R. W. Hill, in 1870-1871.
Update (07/03/2014): The photo above is a more recent image of the house submitted by Victor Di Paglia.The Victorian Italianate house with a Mansard roof at 43 Pearl Street in Mystic (Groton) was built in 1869 for Milton H. Ricker, a patternmaker. Ricker was Mason. He married Lucena Baylies Murphy in 1863. (more…)
St. Peter Church is a Roman Catholic church at 695 Colorado Avenue in Bridgeport. The church, designed by Anthony J. DePace, was built in 1940. In 1991, St. Anthony Church, also located on Colorado Avenue, merged with St. Peter’s.
Designed by James Gamble Rogers, the Hall of Graduate Studies at Yale University in New Haven was built in 1930-1932. The central tower contains graduate student residences, while the surrounding buildings are home to the administrative offices of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, several academic departments, the McDougal Graduate Student Center, classrooms and a dining hall.
Founded in 1906 by Alfred C. Fuller (whose 1917 house still stands on Prospect Avenue in Hartford), the Fuller Brush Company, famous for its door-to-door salesmen, was located in Hartford until the 1960s. The company built a factory at 3580 Main Street in Hartford in 1922-1923. On March 31, 1923, as it was nearing completion, a 56,000-gallon water tank dropped through 4 concrete floors of the factory’s tower, a disaster in which ten people were killed. The tower was eventually rebuilt. Today, the former factory contains employment and social service agencies. This building is mentioned on p. 180 of my book, A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut.
Founded in 1857 by D.M. Read, Read’s Department Store in Bridgeport became a retail landmark, evolving into a chain of stores that provided upscale merchandise for over a century. In 1869, the D.M. Read Company moved into a grand Second Empire-style building at the corner of Main Street and Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport. The store moved again in 1925-1926 into a Neoclassical building at the corner of John and Broad Streets. It was designed by Monks and Johnson of Boston. The downtown Bridgeport store was closed in 1981. In the 1990s, the building, now called Read’s Artspace or Sterling Market Lofts, was converted into apartments for artists as live-work spaces.
At 2403 North Avenue in Bridgeport is a Queen Anne/Shingle style house built in 1892. It was the residence of George W. Jackman, General Manager of the Springfield Manufacturing Company. He was also a Bridgeport Alderman. According to Volume 1 of the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity (1917, edited by George C. Waldo, Jr.):
The Springfield Manufacturing Company, incorporated 1909, succeeded the Springfield Emery Wheel Manufacturing Company, which was established in 1880. Grinding machinery and abrasive wheels are made by this company[.]
You must be logged in to post a comment.