135/135A

The photo on the left shows the section of Warren Avenue that ran from Cumberland Street to Main Street. The steeple of the Warren Congregational Church can be seen behind an apartment house that was demolished in 1956 to make way for the construction of the Warren Parish Hall in 1957. The Warren Congregation Church merged with the Westbrook Congregation Church in the 1970s after urban renewal acquired the Westbrook Congregational Church and demolished it. A new Westbrook-Warren Church was built at 810 Main St., and the Warren Church property was sold to the city of Westbrook. The old church was demolished, the parsonage was resold and moved to upper Cumberland Street and the Parish Hall was renovated and became the Westbrook Police Station, with an addition to serve as the Westbrook Rescue Quarters. This section of Warren Avenue was later named Harnois Avenue in honor of Police Chief Pierre Harnois, who was killed while assisting the Maine State Police in a shootout at Limerick Maine in May 1959. Harnois was appointed the first permanent chief of the Westbrook Department in 1958. When the police department moved into the new Public Safety Building at 570 Main St., the old station was sold and demolished in August 2006 to make way for the new Maine Medical Center building.

Research and photos courtesy of Mike Sanphy

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