History or blight?
135-year-old chapel at Hartford’s Beth Israel Cemetery at center of controversy
A 135-year-old funeral chapel at Hartford’s Beth Israel Cemetery is at the center of a controversy. Congregation Beth Israel says the run-down building should be torn down, while city preservationists want it restored.
HARTFORD — The historic funeral chapel at Hartford’s Beth Israel Cemetery drew crowds so large to its dedication ceremonies in 1886 that some had to be turned away.
More than a century later, the West Hartford congregation that owns the now rundown chapel says it must be torn down, putting it at odds with preservationists and local leaders who see potential for renovation and once again making the chapel a cornerstone of the Frog Hollow neighborhood.
Congregation Beth Israel argues the 3-story, brick-andbrownstone structure, at the corner of Ward and Affleck streets, hasn’t been used for funeral services for 75 years. The building is the target of vandalism and break-ins, which have stripped the structure of its copper piping. A Superior Court judge recently agreed with Beth Israel, saying that it was not “economically feasible” to save the old building.
There is evidence of drug activity with syringes strewn about, so much so that congregation members are fearful of visiting
the graves of loved ones. Vandalism, the congregation said, has spilled over into the cemetery.
“Removal of the building will eliminate a potentially dangerous situation from the community,” a statement from the congregation said. “We believe that replacing a deteriorating and hazardous building with a memorial garden will be a benefit for both our mourners and those in the neighborhood.”
Known as the Deborah Chapel, the Romanesque Revival-style structure was built after a fundraising campaign by the Ladies Deborah Society of Hartford, an organization of Jewish women dedicated to performing good works in the community. In addition to funeral space, there was an apartment for the cemetery caretaker.
Mary A. Falvey, executive director of the Hartford Preservation Alliance, said demolition of the building won’t solve cemetery vandalism, a problem at many graveyards and not just in Hartford.
“There had been a caretaker there a while ago, but by removing the caretaker, you abandon a building, it attracts more blight and more crime, and we know that,” Falvey said.
The chapel was on the alliance’s 10 most endangered historic properties list in the city in 2015.
Neighborhood leaders say it is unfortunate that the congregation has let the building fall into decay.
“But there is still life that can be breathed back into that structure, and it can be an asset to the neighborhood with some proper TLC as opposed to the blight that it has been on the neighborhood for quite some time,” Aaron Gill, chairman of the Frog Hollow Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, said.
Last year, the Friends of the Zion Hill Cemeteries, a group formed to spruce up
the public cemeteries next to the privately-owned Beth Israel Cemetery, wrote to the congregation pointing out that a renovation could be accomplished for about $325,000 based on similar projects in the neighborhood.
That was well below an estimate of $450,000 to $650,000 that the congregation had secured, the group noted.
A renovated chapel could be used for a cemetery-related purpose, the group said, or community/office space on the ground floor. There could be a duplex caretaker apartment on the upper floor. Both spaces could be rented out.
Financing could be a combination of a $250,000 loan and fundraising, the group said. The group’s leaders said they did not get a
response from the congregation.
Gill, who has renovated three blighted apartment buildings in Frog Hollow, said a project is “definitely do-able” at the chapel. He said the structure could easily become a stop on a tour of Hartford cemeteries, similar to what is done in New Orleans.
“To me, it’s one of the fixture, special pieces of architecture in the neighborhood, and it’s important to preserve that as long as possible,” said Marcus Ordonez, a Frog Hollow NRZ board member, who also is pursuing apartment renovation projects in the neighborhood.
The congregation has been skirmishing with preservationists and the city, over the
fate of the chapel for nearly a decade. The latest confrontation came in 2019 when the city’s historic preservation commission refused to back demolition.
The congregation took the city to court. Earlier this month, the court sided with the congregation, ordering the demolition. The court did not agree with the commission’s contention that the congregation should do a better job “mothballing” the structure.
“It claims that this was an economically feasible alternative,” Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher wrote in his decision. “But nothing in the record supports the conclusion that not using the property at all is an economically feasible alternative.”
The city says it plans to appeal.
The chapel was built at a cost of $5,000, about $140,000 in today’s dollars, and is in the Frog Hollow National Historic District. The funding for the construction included donations from prominent members of the community, including then-Hartford Mayor Morgan G. Bulkeley, who later became governor of Connecticut and a U.S. senator and has a bridge over the Connecticut River named after him.
According to a photo taken in 2015 by the preservation alliance, there also is a connection between the chapel and the once-dominant downtown Hartford department store G. Fox & Co.
The photo shows a dedication
plaque in memory of Moses and Theresa Fox, Moses Fox being the second generation to run the family-owned Main Street store. The marker commemorates a donation in 1939 for renovations. Moses Fox — both a renowned merchant and philanthropist — and his wife are buried in the cemetery.
Susan Jaafar, a co-founder of the Friends of Zion Hill Cemeteries and a Frog Hollow resident, said she was a member of the Beth Israel Congregation as a child and her grandmother is buried in the cemetery.
Jaafar said demolishing the building “would be erasing history almost.”