Through its many lives, owners, and uses, 950 Chapel Street has, perhaps fittingly, returned to its original function as a house of worship. Overlooking the Green with its high-storied, "stripped classical" façade, 950 Chapel Street now is home to New Haven's congregation of the First Church of Christ, Scientist. Likewise, the building was originally constructed on the site of the Center Church Chapel, an annex of the Center Church on the Green.[1] In between, the building's form and use changed many times, reflecting the changing currents and needs of the neighborhood.

New Haven Shoe Company, William F. Hasselbach, Daniel Lewis Harrison, Adler's Card 'N' Party Shop, National Savings Bank, First Church of Christ, Scientist, Trinity Church on the Green

By the 1980s, the building had begun to assume its current form. In February 1983, National Savings Bank merged into People's Bank, which put its name on the building but otherwise changed little, other than adding a sign perpendicularly attached between the first and second story. By 1997, the bank had moved elsewhere, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist, located in the neighborhood since at least the 1930s, moved in the next year. The interior was again renovated, this time by local architect Francis Albis of Albis Turlington: the church added a chapel, reading room, and study spaces while the façade lost its large lettering up top, replaced by smaller, gold letters above the door. An emergency exit was added on the first floor on the left side, the final façade alteration to the building. Today, the top floor is rented out as office space for the Trinity Church on the Green.[10]

As the neighborhood transitioned from a civic and religious precinct to a bustling shopping district to a financial center, 950 Chapel tracked these changes in its form and use. Through so many changes, the building has yet again become a church, but not without the legacy of its intervening occupants having shaped the physical space and surrounding neighborhood.

The building's first occupants reflect the needs of a growing, cosmopolitan, and increasingly upscale neighborhood. The New Haven Shoe Company, a fairly well-established boot and shoe dealer, became the building's first tenant. In 1911, the company moved from two blocks down Chapel into the new building, starting a long trend of nearby businesses moving into 950 Chapel as an upgrade. In its early years, the building was divided into two storefronts and an entrance to a stair up to the second floor. The second storefront was used by H. M. Hodges and Brother, a retailer of paint, wallpaper, picture frames, and greeting cards, while the upstairs was used in some capacity as an office for Morris Steinert and Sons piano-sellers, the building's owners. A wealthy Bavarian immigrant who co-founded the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Steinert had his main headquarters elsewhere on Chapel, but after he died in 1912, his company likely used the upstairs of 950 Chapel as auxiliary office space. While the reverse-lookup section of the city directories never list Steinert's company as an occupant at 950 Chapel, Steinert's company owned the building from its construction until the mid-1960s.[3]

In 1926, the Shoe Company and H. M. Hodges were replaced by a new business which would use the space for the next four decades. Even before it moved into 950 Chapel, the House of Hasselbach sweet shop was well known in New Haven for its fresh chocolates and ice creams and its elaborate decor.



"Shops that enjoy the distinction of universal popularity vary in different communities," __ wrote in the Saturday Chronicle, the high-society newspaper. "...You ask any woman or man if New Haven has any shop like the ones that are being referred to, and the answer you will invariably get is 'Why, Hasselbach's is like that.'"[4]



Owned by William F. Hasselbach, the shop catered to both "dignified matrons" and "schoolgirls in bevies," becoming a staple of the community.[5] Indeed, one guidebook described the House of Hasselbach as "one of the finest, as well as one of the most prosperous," eateries in the city.[6] Hasselbach's moved in during the boom times of the late '20s, but by the time the Great Depression hit, the shop was forced to sublease the second storefront to the Style Millinery Shoppe (later the Style Frock Shop). The Steinert offices remained on the second floor.[7]

The building again saw major changes in the next few decades. In 1941, Hasselbach's lost a case at the Connecticut Supreme Court, which ruled that sublet payments are taxable income. Two years later, the shop was purchased by Daniel Lewis Harrison, an entrepreneur and co-founder of the Culinary Institute of America. Over the next twenty years, Harrison opened chain locations of Hasselbach's across Connecticut and Massachusetts. The building's newfound prosperity, however, ended in the mid-1960s. In 1964, the House of Hasselbach closed, leaving behind Adler's Card 'N' Party Shop in the other storefront until it, too, closed in 1970. The deed to the property was sold and resold many times in this period. The building fell completely vacant for a few years, emblematic of the neighborhood as a whole. In fact, in 1971, not only was 950 Chapel Street empty, but so too were twenty-eight of the twenty-nine units in the Lincoln Building next door. The next year, National Savings Bank moved into the building, and only gradually thereafter were the nearby vacancies filled.[8]

Since 1865, the site has been occupied by the Center Church chapel, a two-story brick building set far back from the street. Within, lay a large lecture room for prayer meetings and a dedicated space for Sunday school. By 1910, however, storefronts had been built immediately abutting it as the Chapel Street streetscape filled in and commercialized. Thus in 1910-11, the chapel was demolished and replaced by a store building, largely the same structure that stands today. Long and narrow, the building hosted two storefronts on the first floor, with a dumbbell-shaped second floor to let in air above. As part of a larger wave of development, the building soon sat between the Lincoln Building, then headquarters of the Knights of Columbus, which bordered it to the west and the stores of the 934-942 Chapel Street building adjoined to it on the east.[2]

From its construction until sometime before the mid-1950s, the building's façade featured two storefronts on the bottom and high windows above, all boxed in by a three-sided ornamental frame and topped by a cornice. The cornice and sides were highly decorated with many geometric, boxy designs. By the mid-1950s, however, the façade was refaced and most of the designs were removed to create a flat, "stripped classical" look. The upper story windows were divided into two bays by a central, round pillar in the middle and two like pilasters on either side, strikingly different in style from the rest of the flat, rectilinear façade. Finally, in 1971, when the bank moved in and remodeled the interior, the façade assumed its current form. Under architect Andrew F. Euston, the main door was accentuated with thick jambs and lintel; the upper story was divided into three bays without pillars; the green, ridged, metal sections between the stories were added; and the bank's name was added in embossed letters above the second story. Throughout all three designs, through, the three-sided, protruding frame of the original construction was maintained, and the overall shape and size of the building behind the façade did not change.[9]

[1] Arnold Guyot Dana, New Haven, Old and New: Its Homes, Institutions, Activities, etc., Disclosing Changes that Present Problems, unpublished scrapbook, part 2, 37, 47, New Haven Museum; Sanborn Map and Publishing Company, Insurance Maps of New Haven, Connecticut, map series, (New York: Sanborn, 1886, 1901, 1911, 1924, 1930, 1960, and 1973), http://www.library.yale.edu/MapColl/print_sanborn.html; and Price and Lee Company, [Greater] New Haven [City] Directory, book series (New Haven: Price and Lee, 1908-1998).



[2] Dana, New Haven, Old and New, 37, 47; Sanborn Co., Insurance Maps; and Preston Maynard, "[Historic Resources Inventory: 934-942 Chapel Street]," Historic Resources Inventory sheet (New Haven: New Haven Preservation Trust, 1981).



[3] William T. Davis, The New England States: Their Constitutional, Judicial, Educational, Commercial, Professional, and Industrial History (Boston: Hurd, 1897), vol. II, 894; Everett G. Hill, A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (New York: Clarke, 1867), 509, Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=eUcHAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA509&lpg=PA509; "H. M. Hodges and Brother," advertisements, Quarterly Bulletin of the Public Library, New Haven, Conn. 1, no 1 (March 1913), 2, 12, 16, Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=DS1FAQAAMAAJ; Price and Lee, New Haven Directories; "1851-1912: Morris Steinert: Co-founder of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra," microfilm, reel 25, New Haven Museum; "Yale Music School Closes with Concert," Saturday Chronicle, May 27, 1911; Sanborn Co., Insurance Maps; and Russell F. Schimmer (church architectural historian), personal interview with author, First Church of Christ, Scientist, Sept. 24, 2015.



[4] L. R. H., "The House of Hasselbach: A Unique New Haven Shop that Contributes to the Character of the City," Saturday Chronicle, Apr. 3, 1915.



[5] Ibid.



[6] New Haven and Its Points of Interest, Illustrated from Original Photographs (New York: Mercantile Illustrating, 1895), 166.



[7] Ibid.; L. R. H., "House of Hasselbach"; New Haven and Its Points of Interest; Price and Lee, New Haven Directories; and Sanborn Co., Insurance Maps.



[8] House of Hasselbach, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 127 Conn. 507 (Conn. 1941), Casetext, 2015, http://casetext.com/case/house-of-hasselbach-inc-v-mclaughlin; "About Daniel Lewis Harrison," New Haven Register, Sept. 10, 1991, Geni, Jan. 8, 2015, http://www.geni.com/people/Daniel-Harrison/6000000009579218844; Price and Lee, New Haven Directories; and Schimmer, interview.



[9] Schimmer, interview; Dana, New Haven, Old and New, 36, 45, 60; Sanborn Co., Insurance Maps; Russell F. Schimmer and Wim Schimmer, First Church of Christ, Scientist, 950 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT: Proposed Exterior Gates, November 2014, unpublished book (2014); Andrew F. Euston, "Stonework—Chapel Street," architectural plan, Feb. 22, 1971, First Church of Christ, Scientist; and Folder "950 Chapel Street," City of New Haven Building Department.



[10] "Bank Mergers and Acquisitions, 1980 to 1989," Connecticut Department of Banking, May 11, 2010, http://www.ct.gov/dob/cwp/view.asp?a=2228&q=296980; Price and Lee, New Haven Directories; Folder "950 Chapel Street," City of New Haven Building Department; Schimmer, interview; and Albis Turlington, "First Floor Plan," architectural plan, Nov. 17, 1997, First Church of Christ, Scientist.