Street Scenes

The Common, Greenfield, Mass

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Looking west across the Common toward Park Square in Greenfield, sometime around the 1880s. Image from Greenfield Illustrated.

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The scene in 2016:

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The Common is at the heart of downtown Greenfield, and over the past 130 years or so, not much has changed in this view. This scene includes three historic buildings, which are partially hidden by the trees on the Common. To the left is the Second Congregational Church, which was built in 1868 on the site of an earlier church and is still standing, largely unchanged. To the right is another well-preserved building from the same era, the George A. Arms Block. Built in 1876 at the corner of Main Street and Court Square, this four-story brick building is one of many surviving 19th century commercial blocks in downtown Greenfield.

The building in the center of both photos is also still standing, although it has undergone far more drastic changes than the other two. Built in 1848 as the Franklin County Courthouse, it was originally a wooden Greek Revival building designed by Isaac Damon, a Northampton architect who designed churches, courthouses, and bridges across Western Massachusetts. A few decades earlier, he had designed courthouses for Hampden and Hampshire Counties, and he had also designed Greenfield’s original Second Congregational Church just to the left of the courthouse.

In 1872, Damon’s courthouse was essentially rebuilt, with little if anything left from the original structure. Because of the need for a more fire-resistant place to store county records, the exterior of the courthouse was covered in brick, and it was redesigned in a Gothic Revival style, in keeping with the architectural tastes of the era. The building’s design was again altered in 1954, when the exterior was renovated to its current Colonial Revival appearance. Today, the building is now Greenfield’s municipal building, and it, along with its neighbors to the left and right, are part of the Main Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

American House, Greenfield, Mass

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The American House at the corner of Main and Davis Streets in Greenfield, sometime around the 1880s. Photo from Greenfield Illustrated.

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The scene in 2016:

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In modern-day redevelopments, architects often attempt to preserve the facades of old buildings, even if everything else is being demolished and rebuilt, and incorporate them into new structures. Especially in historic urban settings, this helps to maintain the visual appearance of the street while at the same time allowing a new building to occupy the site. However, in the 1960s the trend was the exact opposite. Many historic buildings had their original facades removed or covered, which the rest of the structure survived more or less intact underneath.

This was the case for several buildings along Greenfield’s historic Main Street, including this architectural monstrosity in the center of the photo. It was originally built in 1876, a few years before the first photo was taken, and was known as the American House. At the time it was Greenfield’s largest hotel, with a hundred guest rooms on the upper floors. The first floor had several stores, including a clothing store that was purchased in 1896 by John Wilson. He turned it into a department store and soon expanded into the second floor, and his business has remained here in the building ever since.

As for the hotel, it went through several other names, including the Devens Hotel and the Hotel Greenfield. Over time, though, the department store gradually expanded into the former hotel section. The building is still standing today, although it is completely unrecognizable from its original appearance. In 1965 its exterior was remodeled, with a metal facade that covered the original Italianate exterior. This original facade is probably still hiding under there, though, so perhaps someday the bland, warehouse-like exterior will be removed and the building restored to its 1870s appearance.

Although the American House has survived more or less intact under its mid-century shroud, the same cannot be said for the other historic building from the first photo, the Colonnade Block on the right. It was built in the 1790s as the home of Jerome Ripley, a prominent resident whose children included George Ripley, a Transcendentalist writer who founded the Brook Farm utopian community. In 1842, Dr. Daniel Hovey added the columns and portico to the front of the building, and for many years it was a commercial building known as the Colonnade Block. It stood here until 1975, when the 18th century structure was demolished to build a bank building, which is now a branch of Greenfield Community College.

Main Street, Greenfield, Mass

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The north side of Main Street at the corner of School Street in Greenfield, sometime around the 1880s. Image from Greenfield Illustrated.

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The view in 2016:

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Greenfield’s Main Street is lined with a number of historic 19th century commercial blocks, including several in this scene, located opposite the Common. The ones on the left are partially hidden by trees in the present-day scene, but they are the same ones that stood here in the first photo.

Starting on the far left is Pond’s Block, a four-story Italianate building that dates back to around 1874. Just to the right of it is the smaller but architecturally similar Hollister Block, which was built around the same time. Both were built on the former site of the Long Building, which had burned down in 1873. The Bird-Hovey Block, at the corner of School Street in the center of the photo, also matches the architecture of the other two buildings. However, it is actually far older, with parts of it dating back to 1812. It originally had two stories, but in 1872 a third was added. During this renovation, the current Italianate facade was also added, in keeping with commercial architectural trends of the mid-19th century.

Today, the Bird-Hovey Block stands as the city’s oldest surviving commercial building, and its neighbors to the left are also still standing, with largely the same appearance as they had in the 1880s photo. Together, they form part of the Main Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The only major difference between the two photos is the building on the right side. It was built in 1870, and stood here for about a century until it was mostly demolished to build the Franklin County Trust Building in 1972. Parts of the old building were incorporated into the new structure, but there is nothing recognizable on the exterior. Today, the building houses Greenfield’s branch of TD Bank.

Mechanics Hall, Worcester, Mass

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Mechanics Hall on Main Street in Worcester, around 1865-1885. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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The building in 2016:

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Mechanics Hall is a concert hall and a prominent landmark in Worcester. It was built in 1857 by the city’s Mechanics Association, with prominent local architect Elbridge Boyden designing the Italianate structure. With a seating capacity of nearly 2,000, it was by far the largest public hall in the city during the second half of the 19th century, and it attracted many prominent speakers and performers.

In 1868, Mechanics Hall was a stop on Charles Dickens’s tour of the United States. He had previously visited Worcester in 1842, when he was still a young writer, but when he returned to America for his 1867-1868 tour he was an international celebrity. His tour featured sell-out crowds in venues across the northeast, and when he visited Boston there were even people who out overnight on the sidewalk to buy tickets. Here in Worcester, he probably had a similar reception, and in his March 23 performance at Mechanics Hall his audience heard him read A Christmas Carol and part of The Pickwick Papers.

Over the years, the concert hall has seen many other notable performers. It fell into decline in the mid-20th century, though, and was threatened with the possibility of demolition. All of the surrounding buildings from the first photo have since disappeared, but Mechanics Hall has survived. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and later in the decade it was restored to its former appearance. Today, the third-floor hall remains in use for a variety of events, including, appropriately enough, a 2012 reading of A Christmas Carol by Gerald Dickens, the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens.

Main and Foster Streets, Worcester, Mass

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The southeast corner of Main and Foster Streets, around 1895. Image from Picturesque Worcester (1895).

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The scene in 2016:

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The building on the left side of the photo, at the corner of Main and Foster Streets, was built in the early 1840s as the first meeting house for the Universalist church. The congregation had been established in 1841, and after nearly 30 years in this building they moved into a new, larger one on Pleasant Street in 1871. After they left, the building became Continental Hall, and stood here until 1906, when it was demolished to build the present Worcester County Institution for Savings building.

Just to the right of the old church site is the oldest surviving structure in the 2016 scene, although it is hard to tell from its current appearance. Built around 1855 as home to the People’s Mutual Fire Insurance Company, it has undergone some significant changes over the years. Its original tenant went out of business after sustaining heavy losses from fires in Boston and Chicago in the early 1870s, and in 1873 the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company purchased and renovating it, adding a mansard roof in keeping with Second Empire style architecture of the time. It was again altered around 1935 with a new facade, and today there is little visible evidence left of the original structure.

Next to the People’s Block is another historic building, which has survived far more intact from its late 19th century appearance. Known as Grout’s Block, the five-story Second Empire structure was built in 1871 by local businessman Jonathan Grout. Nearly 150 years later, it is still standing. Despite some changes to the exterior of the first two floors, it otherwise remains well-preserved and is easily recognizable from the first photo.

Salem Square, Worcester, Mass

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The churches of Salem Square in Worcester, around 1895. Image from Picturesque Worcester (1895).

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The scene in 2016:

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Taken from nearly the same spot as the photos of the previous post, this scene shows Salem Square, a roughly triangular-shaped plaza on the east side of the Worcester Common. On the other side of this square were two churches, with the Salem Square Congregational Church on the left and the First Baptist Church on the right. As mentioned in the previous post, this Congregational church was established in 1848, and the building was probably completed soon after. The Baptist church was slightly older, dating back to the 1830s when it replaced an earlier meeting house which had burned on the same site.

In 1902, the Baptists sold their building to the Catholic church, and it became the Notre Dame Church. In the late 1920s, the old building was demolished to build the present Notre Dame Church on the same site. The other buildings in the first photo have also since been demolished, and by the early 1970s the entire area here was redeveloped as the Worcester Center urban renewal project. Part of this project included eliminating most of Salem Square itself, replacing the plaza with the office building that is seen here now. It hides the view of the 1929 Notre Dame Church, which survived the Worcester Center construction but, as of 2016, is scheduled to be demolished soon as part of the CitySquare redevelopment project.