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HARTFORD — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong went to court Wednesday to block the demolition of a 137-year-old funeral chapel in Hartford, a historic structure that gained a national profile last year after it was named one of the most endangered properties in the country.
“Today’s action seeks to prevent the demolition of the historic Deborah Chapel while reasonable alternatives are fully considered,” Tong said in a statement. “Prudent and feasible alternatives do exist, including an interested developer to acquire and move the chapel elsewhere in Hartford.
Tong said if the temporary injunction were granted, it would “give all sides the time to thoroughly vet these alternatives before permanent damage is done to this historic building.”
For a decade, preservationists have fought to save the chapel in Beth Israel Cemetery, at the corner of Ward and Affleck streets in the Frog Hollow neighborhood. The city also joined the fight but the courts ultimately sided with Congregation Beth Israel, the West Hartford synagogue that owns and maintains the cemetery. The courts ordered a demolition permit be issued March 21.
The attorney general’s office was asked to intervene in December by the state historic preservation council, part of the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
Tong is using a different legal avenue to protect the building, drawing on the state’s environmental protection act. The act also covers threats to Connecticut’s historic assets.
The congregation has long argued the chapel hasn’t been used for a mortuary and funeral services for 75 years. The building has deteriorated and has been the target of vandalism, which has spread to the neighboring cemetery. The congregation said the cemetery has become a dumping ground for trash.
The congregation has offered to sell the Romanesque Revival-style structure for $1 if the buyer would move the 3-story, brick-and-brownstone building from the cemetery. A potential developer has emerged willing to relocate and refurbish the building, and the city had offered a lot it owns on nearby Putnam Street.
Last week, the congregation said it is actively exploring the developer’s offer, but wasn’t sure it would come to fruition. The synagogue also said it was in no particular rush to tear down the chapel, given the emergence of a potential developer.
Scott Lewis, co-chairman of the congregation’s cemetery committee, said Wednesday the congregation was taken by surprise by Tong’s filing.
“Even if this request for temporary restraining order hadn’t been filed, it wasn’t our plan to take the building down on March 21,” Lewis said. “We thought it was important that if the building could be saved and moved off site, so much the better. That has always been fine with us.”
A year ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the chapel on its annual list of 11 most endangered properties in the country out of a field of 120 candidates.
The Deborah Chapel was built in 1886 after a fundraising campaign by the Ladies Deborah Society, an organization of Jewish women dedicated to performing good works in the community.
The National Trust noted the chapel was “a rare and early American example of an intact Jewish funerary structure which embodies the strong leadership of women within the 19th century Jewish and communal organizations.”
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
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