Bridgeport Downtown South Historic District

The district is significant because it encompasses one of two large groupings of relatively well-preserved structures which effectively illustrate the development of Bridgeport's central business district as the commercial, financial, cultural, and social heart of one of Connecticut's early 20th-century urban-industrial and regional-government centers. For example, downtown Bridgeport's antebellum emergence as the core of an important center of commerce and government continues to be well reflected by structures such as the Porter and Booth (1845) and Smith and Stratton (1841) store buildings at 111-15, 117, and 119-21 Wall Street, as well as the Sterling Block (1841/ 1850) at 993-1019 Main Street and the monumental Fairfield County Courthouse (1854) at 202 State Street. The downtown's heyday (1890-1930), is particularly well marked by numerous large, high-style commercial or municipal structures in the district that date from this era, such as the Court Exchange Building (ca. 1895) at 20717 State Street, the D.M. Read Company (1925) at 1050 Broad Street, the Bridgeport Public Library (1925-26) at 925 Broad Street, as well as a host of banks and a number of a utility company and office buildings of this same era.

The district is also significant because it encompasses a large number of substantially intact buildings which chart the development of a wide variety of popular urban architectural styles between the antebellum era and the early 20th century. While it embraces some relatively modest structures, such as the locally rare Greek Revival-style Smith and Stratton Store Building at 119-21 Wall Street, it is particularly notable for its inclusion of numerous more highly refined examples of modes such as Greek Revival, Romanesque, Queen Anne, Islamic Revival, Beaux Arts, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, and Art Deco. Further, the majority of these more stylistically refined structures stand as important examples of the work of nationally or locally prominent late 19th- and early 20th-century architects, such as Cass Gilbert (149-65 State Street), Warren Briggs, 30 State Street), Dennison and Hirons (955-67 Main Street), Monks and Johnson, George Freeman, and Ernest G, Southey (102 and 110 Bank Street; 811-15, 829-35, and 930 Main Street).