History
The building traced its history to a congregation originally formed by early settlers to New London in the 1600s. The prior meeting house was built in 1786 but was damaged by fire in February, 1848. The congregation then commissioned Eidlitz to design a new structure. Construction began in May 1852, and the building was dedicated in June 1853. In 1876, a bell was installed in the church tower. The town of New London used the bell as a fire alarm and as a way to call people to meetings. In 1975, an annex building was added to the rear of the church. By the early 2000s, the church was serving free breakfast on weekday mornings. They also held remembrance services for homeless people from the area who had died. In 2011, Engaging Heaven Church began using the space for their services. In 2015, the building was sold for $250,000 to Engaging Heaven Church. The original congregation had a shrinking number of members and no longer had sufficient funds to maintain the building. The two congregations continued to share use of the building. A few years later, part of the building's roof was replaced.Steeple collapse
The church's steeple collapsed on itself and on the roof of the church at 1:30 pm on January 25, 2024, destroying much of the building. The only person in the building was the church office manager who was able to evacuate without sustaining injuries. New London's Mayor Passero told the press that the building was likely a complete loss, as the structural soundness of the remainder could not be determined. According to initial reports, church and city leadership had not seen any previous structural issues with the church. The building's most recent fire inspection had been in 2019, during which three minor violations were found and fixed. However, in 2011, a thorough condition report on the building did identify areas of water infiltration through failing sections of the slate roof, and stress fractures in the exterior granite mortar. That report identified cracks in the masonry and issues with roof flashing. In total, about $700,000 in repairs and upgrades were needed, some of which applied to the exterior fabric of the building but were not subsequently addressed or monitored. Prior to that date, steel tie rods had been inserted to re-enforce sections of the tower walls. Architects, engineers, and preservationists have been studying images of the church in order to speculate about the cause of the collapse and to identify risks to other similar structures. The possible explanations for the collapse include masonry deterioration, rusting of the metal tie rods, and foundation failure. The structure likely suffered from a long period of deferred maintenance. At the time of the collapse, the tower tipped backwards over the roof of the church, suggesting that the weakness was at the back of the tower. Signs of displacement in the NW buttress and deformation in the roof framing have been identified through close retrospective analysis of photos captured prior to the collapse. At the front of the tower, there were deficiencies in water drainage from the balconies that ran on either side of the spire, next to the left and right side towers, allowing water to infiltrate. Environmental conditions that may have aggravated structural weaknesses include: high levels of ground saturation from a recent rainfall with a record-breaking four inches falling on January 9, 2024, compounding subsidence and other water infiltration and drainage problems; repeated damage from freeze-thaw cycles; and vibrations from pile driving for building the wind energy infrastructure at the nearby State Pier. In response to the collapse,References