My article on Octagon Houses in Connecticut for Connecticut Explored Magazine is now available online at https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-connecticuts-octagon-houses/. Octagon houses featured on this site can be found under the Octagon category.
By the 1880s, three railroads served the city of Danbury: the Danbury and Norwalk, the Housatonic, and the New York and New England. By 1892, these had all merged with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Soon after, the public began to demand that the three separate stations be consolidated into one new station. Built in 1903, the resulting Union Station, designed by A. Malkin, has a Richardsonian Romanesque structure with Colonial Revival details. Alfred Hitchcock filmed station scenes for the 1951 film Strangers on a Train on the platform. The station eventually became the northern terminus of the Danbury Branch of Metro-North’s New Haven Line. Metro-North closed the station in 1993, but it was soon restored to become the Danbury Railway Museum. In 1998, the museum restored the original 1912 railroad turntable, essentially a swing bridge, located several hundred yards east of the passenger station.
Construction of the house at 25 Vine Street in New Britain, which displays Victorian Gothic and Eastlake elements, has been dated to 1867, c. 1875, or, in A Walk Around Walnut Hill (1975), between 1885 and 1890. That same book indicates the house was built by Jacob J. and Charlotte Ritz (Jacob Ritz was a city councilman in 1882) and was purchased by George Tyler, an engineer, about 1900. The property includes an original carriage house.
Episcopal services in the village of Farmington were first held in an old schoolhouse in 1873, when St. James’ Mission was established under the leadership of Rev. Edward R. Brown, Rector of Christ Church in Unionville, and Charles L. Whitman, a Farmington innkeeper. By late 1874, the mission had moved to the second floor of a grocery store and post office on Main Street near Mill Lane. Whitman died in 1886 and left money for the erection of a church. The mission raised additional funds and acquired land for the church on Mountain Road in 1897. The Arts & Crafts-style structure was designed and built by Henry Hall Mason, whose father, Charles S. Mason, was a strong supporter of the mission. Mason used local field stone in the construction and also made the church’s wooden altar and reading desk using wood from his own property. The first service in the new building was held in January 1899 and the church was consecrated five months later. The mission was formally recognized as St. James Parish in 1902. An addition to the rear was built in 1910 to provide a larger chancel and organ loft. Two further additions were a new parish house in 1938 and a parish hall, designed by Edgar T. Glass, in 1957. That same year, a belfry was also constructed.
In 1885, alumnae of Miss Porter’s School in Farmington erected the building at 5 Mountain Road as a tribute to the school’s founder, Miss Sarah Porter. Called the Studio, the Richardsonian Romanesque and Shingle-style building originally contained rooms for drawing, painting and music (It has been used for other purposes over the years). The former students had raised $6,000 through subscription to fund the building, which was dedicated on May 29, 1885. Near the entrance is a dedication plaque with an inscription in Latin honoring Miss Sarah Porter.
The 8-story building at 1111-1127 Main Street in Bridgeport was erected in 1904 by the Security Building Company. The building features a central atrium from the second to the eighth floor, which provides natural light. The office building was remodeled in 1950, but fell out of use in the 1990s. In 2015, work began on a major project to redevelop the Security Building and two adjacent structures (the E. W. Harrall Building at 1103-1105 Main Street and the E. E. Wheeler Building at 1131-1137 Main Street) as apartments and retail apace. Known as Harral Security Wheeler, the development was completed in 2016 and features first-floor retail apace and 70 apartments.
I’ll be doing a presentation on Hartford’s old East Side neighborhood next Thursday, February 21 at the Elmwood Senior Center in West Hartford. This is the neighborhood of the old Front Street that was demolished in the late 1950s to make way for Constitution Plaza, the Phoenix Building and the interstate highway. Using historic photos, we will journey down State Street to Front Street and then to Commerce Street along the Connecticut River. Revisit a fascinating urban landscape that was lost to redevelopment over 60 years ago.
This is part of a series of three talks I’m giving at the Elmwood Senior Center. I’m also doing a course through West Hartford LifeLearn Continuing Education called “Great Buildings of Hartford” that begins later this month.
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