PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD RECIPIENTS
| 2016 | 2015 |
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Connecticut Treasures, formerly a part of the People’s Choice program, features the wealth and diversity of buildings from each of the eight Connecticut counties. The public is invited every year to vote for a favorite building for this state-wide award.
On Church Street facing the New Haven Green is New Haven City Hall, one of the country’s earliest and finest designs in the High Victorian style. It is a work of Henry Austin, and contains an elaborate iron staircase. The polychrome façade in various sandstone and limestone shades was restored in 1976. The historic façade was incorporated into the updated City Hall in 1993-1994.
The 2024 category is Town Halls. Voting closes July 26 at 11:59pm.
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The Helen Plumb Building served as Trumbull’s town hall from 1883 to 1957. The new Town Hall later opened at 5866 Main Street. Previously this had been the site of the Aaron Sherwood Homestead, built in 1880. The house was later the home of Dr. Clarence Atkins, a dentist, and was then used as a convalescent home called the Hillcrest Hygienic Lodge.
Originally the Horace Belden School and Central Grammar School, the Simsbury Town Hall consists of an architecturally distinguished Late Gothic Revival occupying a single campus at 933 Hopmeadow Street and 29 Massaco Street in Simsbury, Connecticut. The Belden School was built in 1907 as the first Simsbury High School, and now serves as Simsbury Town Hall. The Central Grammar School, built in 1913, is now called the Central School. The buildings were listed as a pair on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 for their architecture and their role in the town’s educational system.
The Belden School originally served as the town’s high school, and also served the students of surrounding towns. Overcrowding in the mid-20th century prompted construction of a high school wing onto the junior high school in 1955, and Belden was converted into a grammar school, a role it served until 1980. Shuttered for a number of years, it was adapted for use as town hall in 1983.
There were many controversies related to the construction of the Winchester Town Hall building. In 1877, town leaders appropriated funds to build a town hall so as to provide a safe place for the town records. Before most people in town were aware of it, these men had moved quickly to start construction of the building in an area called the Flat, part of the central business district of Winsted. People in other parts of town, who thought that the building was unnecessary and too expensive, felt that promoters of the Flat had stolen a march on the voters, but at a contentious town meeting those who wanted to press on with the building won out. An injunction to halt construction was soon dissolved by the court and the building was completed in 1878. Bitter feelings over the episode continued for many years. The building was expanded in 1887 and 1904 for use by the County Court. Plans for a 25-foot addition on the front of the building fell through in 1910, but when this was finally done in 1927, the structure gained a more convenient entrance at street level.
On Church Street facing the New Haven Green is City Hall, one of the country’s earliest and finest designs in the High Victorian style. It is a work of Henry Austin, and contains an elaborate iron staircase. The polychrome façade in various sandstone and limestone shades was restored in 1976. The historic façade was incorporated into the updated City Hall in 1993-1994.
Vernon’s town hall, The Memorial Building at 14 Park Place, was built in 1889 as a memorial to those who served in the Civil War. On the second floor, the Sons of Union Veterans, a fraternal organization, have their headquarters and museum in the original rooms used by the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The building is significant architecturally because it is an example of a masonry building in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and because of its well-designed interior details. The massive bulk of the structure with rock-faced brownstone first floor and window trim, heavy-arched entry, and slate roof and tower all follow the precedent popularized by architect H.H. Richardson (1838-1886). The preservation of the G.A.R. hall virtually untouched is unusual, perhaps unique, in Connecticut and is the longest continuously used Civil War veterans hall in the United States.
The New England Civil War Museum is the only museum in Connecticut devoted to the fighting men of the War of the Rebellion. The museum and its library work to convey the lessons of the American Civil War. They exist to perpetuate the memory of the Civil War and of those who helped to save the Union, through the preservation and display of relics of that war. The G.A.R. meeting room is handsome overall and the windows are spectacular.
