FORMA- AREA Assessor's Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area 69, 70,,,1,,,, 129 (NR)-135, 208, 209, 805, 900-902, 906 Town. Place (neighborhood or village) city center Name of Area Present Use Main Street" commercial, municipal, religious Construction Dates or Period late-19th-20th C. Overall Condition fair to good Major Intrusions and Alterations several open parcels due to demolition; storefront, replacement, etc. Acreage ca. 20 acres window Anne Forbes, consultant Historical Comm. ate (month/day/year) 7/10/94 *Bates Avenue Central Street: Old Common Cemetery Main Street: Bolton to Mechanic St., inclusive Mechanic Street: 7/9 Monument Square: The Soldiers' Monument Rawlins Avenue '<1f ~Q;>
AREA FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION [X] see continuation sheet Describe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the community. The section of 's Main Street that includes the two streetfronts extending west from Bolton Street to Monument Square and the foot of Prospect, Rawlins, and Mechanic Streets is a largely intact commercial/municipal district of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries. At the western end, however, its character is modified by reminders of the city's earlier past. Just north of Main, behind the majestic 1898 brick Colonial Revival High School designed by local architect Charles Barnes (Form 120), is the Old Common Cemetery of 1706 (Form 805). The grassed slope in front of the former High School and cemetery remains from the original Town Common of 1660 (MHC #906). Just to the west, at the end of the street, is 's earliest and most ambitious public monument, the 1869 granite obelisk in honor of its Civil War soldiers, the "Soldiers Monument" (Form 900). Also contributing to the ceremonial and institutional character of the western end of the street are two later memorials of the 1920's, John G. Hardy's bronze statues of Spanish-American and World War I soldiers, "The Volunteer" and "The Doughboy" (MHC #s 902 and 901), and H.M. Francis's flamboyant shingle and stone Queen Anne First Baptist Church of 1887 (Form 81). (Cont.) l { HISTORICAL NARRATIVE [X] see continuation sheet Explain historical development of the area. Discuss how this area relates to the historical development of the community. As is typical of "Main Street" in many New England towns, the history of 's Main Street corridor is a microcosm of the community's commercial, municipal, and institutional evolution. Although virtually no evidence survives of the long period in which it was also the industrial core of, representatives of all the other elements remain. Through the beginning of the nineteenth century, the section of the street from Bolton to Prospect, then part of the Boston Post Road, was a sparsely-developed stretch of rural highway between the town's two center villages. The "east village", at the base of Spring Hill (see Area Form I: "Spring Hill"), was a cluster of houses, a store, schoolhouse, cemetery and tavern between East Main and Bolton Streets. The oldest town center, and the original section of what bcame to be called the "west village", was an even smaller group of buildings centered at the foot of Mechanic Street near the old meetinghouse, town common, and adjacent cemetery. By the 1860's, the two villages had begun to grow together along this section of Main Street. A private school, the "Academy" (later Gates Academy) was built on the town common in 1827, and an early Town Hall was constructed in 1840-45 on the south side of the street. With the coming of two railroads into the center of town in 1854, and the rapid growth of the local shoe industry during the 1850's and '60's, several shoe factories were built along the south side of the street. By 1869 there were five standing in this section alone, with several others nearby. (cont.) BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES [ ] see continuation sheet Bigelow. Hudson. Hurd. Maps, birdseye views, and atlases: 1803, 1835, 1853, 1857, 1871, 1875, 1878, 1889, Sanborns. directories.. Historical Society: Moineau and Lapine photograph collections. Picturesque and South Framingham. 1895. [ X] Recommended as a National Register District. If checked, you must attach. a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127~135,208-209,805,900-902,906 ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, cont. The remainder of the area consists largely of one- to four-story brick or stone business blocks built from the 1880's through the early 20th century. The earliest major building, however, the Second Empire Brigham & Eager Building of the 1870's (173 Main Street--Form 108), is of wood construction. Although it is unfortunately the most altered, it remains the only reminder of the many stylish free-standing wood-frame structures that were built here in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Today it is Main Street's masonry buildings that most define its character. Most of the plate-glass storefronts of the commercial blocks have been replaced or altered, but the facades of their upper stories are largely intact. Two of the earliest, the 1880 Temple Building (149 Main--Form 49, NR) and the 1882 Middleton Building at 276 Main (Form 99), are among the most well-preserved. Both are Queen Anne commercial blocks which utilize that style's love of surface decoration. Both facades are animated by the lavish use of patterned brick with stone trim, and the wall gable of the Middleton Building facade is filled with foliate terracotta ornamentation. Patterned and "panel" brick facades and stone window lintels and sills also define the narrow, handsome Feeley/Pastille Building at 121 Main (Form 127), and Charles Barnes's massive Warren Block at 155 Main (Form 129--NR), which has an upper facade of Roman buff brick. Three of the most stylish buildings for their eras on Main Street were built by local banks. The first People's Natioual Bank Building (Form 130) at 187 Main Street shows the overstated Queen Anne of the 1890's in its exagerrated orange and brown rough-surfaced stone veneer, two-toned striped piers, the buffbasketweave brick reminiscent of the Temple and Warren Blocks, and the undulating surface created by the pair of shallow-curved, two-story bow windows. The contrast with its neighbor to the east, the second Peoples National Bank, (Form 105) built early in this century, is stunning. The later building is a staid one-story Renaissance Revival sandstone-block building with three tall arched, mullioned windows and an Ionic roof balustrade. Across the street at 200 Main, the First National Bank (Form 132), built in 1925-26, re-interprets the three-bay Renaissance Revival facade in a taller, more attenuated design of smooth granite, with shallow Corinthian pilasters and a solid roof parapet. The most dramatic ofthe early-twentieth-century buildings on Main Street is clearly its central focal point-vthe yellow-brick City Hall of 1904-06 (Form 64). Designed by Allen, ColIens, and Berry, it is the only Beaux Arts building in the city. A massive 3 112-storystructure that towers over its later one-story neighbors, its official municipal status is proclaimed by lavish marble detailing, a formal central pavilion, and a tall, paneled clock tower embellished with marble, copper, and bronze. The other municipal building here, the two-story Central Fire and Police Station of 1909 (Form 80), marks the east end of the area at Bolton Street, its simple Colonial Revival brick wall surface sweeping around the comer by means of a wide, curving corner bay. Most of these buildings were the product of two prolific local builders. Joseph E. Warren, whose large carpentry shop was located just south of Main on Florence Street, is known to have constructed the Baptist Church, the first People's Bank, the High School, the Warren Block and several others. Buildings put up by Thomas P. Hurley include City Hall, the Central Fire Station, the Pastimes Theater and the First National Bank, where he died on the job in 1926. (Cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127-135,208,209,805,900-902,906 ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, cont. The remaining historic commercial buildings in the area display a variety of early-twentieth-century styles, most executed with a degree of simplicity and economy. The two-story brick ca. 1900 Corey Building (Form 106) is a long multi-store Colonial Revival block with classical sandstone and castiron trim. The little Rice Building (Form 133) of ca. 1919 is a nearly astylistic two-story brick structure with minimal concrete trim. The taller, two-bay 7/9 Mechanic Street (1916--Form 135) displays a Federal Revival note in its pair of large blind wall arches, and the five-store, one-story building at 195 205 Main (Form 131), with its rough-brick parapet end-walls, cupola, and steeplypitched slate roofs shows a popular 1930's commercial approach to the Federal/Colonial Revival. The rest of the early modem era is represented only in highly altered form. Still, at least three late structures--the one-story six-store Sher Building at 126-136 Main Street (MHC #127), which is partially faced with 1940's carrarra glass and imitation marble panels, and the formerly Craftsman, three-story shingled Pastimes Theater Building of ca. 1916 (MHC #208) and the little Moderne White City Diner (MHC #209)--still contibute significantly to the character of the area. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont. Between the factories sprang up houses, stores, stables, and other establishments associated with what soon became a bustling town center. Just south of Main, on the side streets near the tracks of the "south branch" railroad, were more factories and artisans' shops, boarding houses, and the municipal gas works. By the time of the Civil War, business, hotel, and commercial blocks began to fill the open section of the north side of Main Street, some of them built by the owners of the shoe factories. In 1860 the old Academy, which had been converted to the town's first high school, was superseded by a new Second Empire high school building on the common. After the war, "Monument Square" was created at the end of the street-wits landscaped triangle and tall Soldiers Monument (1869) forming the western terminus to the commercial and industrial district. A large new Victorian Gothic Town Hall, built in 1869 on the site of the present City Hall, concentrated many municipal functions and commercial establishments, along with meeting rooms and the post office, under one roof. A new religious institution entered the area when the fledgling Baptist Society, which had been meeting in the Sons of Temperance Hall since 1867, moved the old Town Hall across the street and enlarged it for its use. Over the course of the 1870's and 1880's, the area's major function gradually shifted from industrial to commercial, as both streetfronts from Bolton Street to Monument Square became nearly a solid line of two- to four-story business blocks, most of them of masonry construction. Only two shoe factories survived into the 1890's; the last of them, the Rice & Hutchins Main Street factory (formerly Boyd & Corey) opposite the west comer of Bolton Street, was replaced in the 1920's by a grocery store. (cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127-135,208,209,805,900-902,906 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont. Over the years, destruction by fire and demolition has continually altered the character of the area. Many business blocks, a shoe factory, a theater, and the 1869 Town Hall burned down. In several cases, they were replaced by buildings that have become historically significant in their own right-- the 1905 Beaux Arts City Hall, for instance, or the handsome two-story brick Corey Building of ca. 1900. Many late-victorian and early-twentieth-century brick and stone buildings, including the early-twentieth-century commercial/apartment Addison Block and the National-Register listed Temple and Warren Blocks, replaced earlier wood-frame structures. Some of the changes here exemplified early urban-renewal efforts. The most prominent example is John O'Connell's Middleton Block of 1882. In the course of its construction he demolished a vacant shoe factory, bought up several tenement and boarding houses, and cleared out a cluster of adjoining saloons. The city added more municipal upgrading when it replaced a small hose house with the state-of-the-art Central Fire and Police Station in 1909, and expanded the High School for a junior high wing in 1925-26. The commemorative and ceremonial function of the west end of the area was expanded, as well, with the 1924 and 1925 construction of two bronze memorial statues, the 'Volunteer" and the "Doughboy". Changes in the modem period, partly from the needs of the automobile and partly due to urban renewal policies, have resulted in the replacement of fewer buildings, and more gaps in the streetscape for parking areas. Today, several small stores, fast-food restaurants, and other modern establishments occupy the sites of buildings that are still mourned today--the late-nineteenth-century Opera House, Theatre, and the G.A.R and I.O.O.F. Buildings, for instance, and even the Ginnetti Building, an early-twentieth-century Art Deco twelve-store block that swept around the comer from Main to Mechanic Streets. Recent restorations of City Hall, the High School, Central Fire Station, and the Warren and Temple Blocks, however, have begun a true rehabilitation of the area which promises to continue.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Main Street Area 127-135, 208-209, 805, 900-902, 906 AREA DATA SHEET (Includes resources which have individual forms [*], or are mentioned in text of Area Form) MHC# Parcel # Street Address Historic Name Date Style/type *81 69-238 Bates Avenue First Baptist Church 1887 Queen Anne *902 69-225 Bates Avenue "The Volunteer" 1924 *805 69-390 A,B Central St. Old Common Cemetery 1706 *80 70-145 Main Street Central Fire and Police Station 1909 Col. Revival *127 70-29 121 Main Street Feeley/Pastille Building ca. 1880's Queen Anne *128 70-137 126-136 Main St. Sher Building ca. 1920's Modeme *64 70-136 140 Main Street City Hall 1904-06 Beaux Arts *49 (NR) 70-32 149 Main Street Temple Building 1879-80 Queen Anne *129 (NR) 70-33 155 Main Street Warren Block 1891 Queen Anne *108 70-78 173 Main Street Brigham & Eager Bldg. late 1870's Second Empire *106 70-149 178-194 Main St. Corey Building ca. 1900 Col. Revival *105 70-80 179-181 Main St. People's National Bank (II) early 20th C. Renaissance Revival *130 69-462 185-187 Main St. People's National Bank (I) 1892 Queen Anne *131 69-465 195-205 Main St. ca. 1935 Federal Rev. *132 69-459 200/202 Main St. First National Bank 1925-26 Renassanee Rev. *133 69-480 223-225 Main St. Rice Building ca. 1919 astylistic *120 69-390. 255 Main Street High School 1898/1925 Col. Revival 906 69-390 Main Street Town Common 1660 *901 69-390 Main Street "The Doughboy" 1925
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127-135, 208, 209, 805, 900-902, 906 AREA DATA SHEET, cont. MHC# Parcel # Street Address Historic Name Date Styleltype *134 69-217 262-268 Main St. Addison Block 1896-1900 Q. Anne/Col. Revival *99 69-218 276 Main Street Middleton Building 1882 Queen Anne 208 69-382 277 Main Street Pastimes Theater/ ca. 1916 Craftsman/ Boys' Club Eclectic *135 69-371 7/9 Mechanic St. 1916 Federal Rev. *900 69-222 Monument Square Soldiers Monument 1869 209 69-382 Rawlins Ave. White City Diner ca. 1940's Moderne
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community " Property :,,'~\ 127-135, 805, 900-902, 906 Ce.,,-Ivci Gtd_. C()'(~ (~2':oS-').. ",,-~\-Y.e."2.J C~~t 'U"\.' "'~,...,~ <v;' ").'.'''' MCLl/\ ~)ty.~j '> UseA\ fv<:.jvv> J-,?-~ Ct1I~CO)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127-135, 805, 900-902, 906 )t3 f-'(clltl Stte-e.J Cfr\CB),15-1q y H.cu."'\ st-re.e._ ~.. (-# los)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property 127-135, 805, 900-902, 906 lv~cur, :::)tv-t'. e.'-.~.. _'> f..t O(Y'I (cy yua t I ~... <:.1 raa I- t)(us~c.!.,.:..-t(-(...\...
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property A 49, 64, 80, 81. 99, 105, 106, 108, 127-135, 805, 900-902, 906,1O.-t r\ ~jy-.ee.)- if 6Y\ufY\eJ\ \.-.Sc l uc~ ---kbd._k) v-s Ar<-.\"\uJ- _.. lu~ \-\-f... (_1~ J){{)-e r C~Z.o1\
Community Property Address Main Street district Form No(s). A 64, 80, 81, 86, 98, 99, 112, 113, 105, 106, 120, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 155, 173, 183, 184, 185, 192, 193, 194, 208,209,473,504, 805, 900, 901, 902, 906, 911, 912 National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form Check all that apply: [ ] Individually eligible [ ] Eligible only in a historic district [x] Contributing to a potential historic district [x] Potential historic district Criteria: [x] A [] B [x] C [] D Criteria Considerations: [] A [] B [] C [] D [] E [] F [] G Statement of Significance by F_o_rb_e_s_I_S_c_h_u_le_r The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. _ A potential National Register District, meeting Criteria A and C of the National Register, exists along Main Street from Exchange Street to Bates Avenue, including short sections of the northern side streets. This district embodies and articulates the evolution of the community's commercial, municipal, and institutional history. The Town Common (1660) and the Old Common Cemetery (1706) are reminiscent of the beginning of this municipality. Most of the other properties in this district were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and are reflective of the expanding population and the need for increased housing and space in schools, churches and municipal buildings. The business and bank blocks are also reminiscent of the economic growth of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The buildings represent popular building styles from the Federal Period through the Revivals of the turn of the twentieth century. Contributing to such a district are the following properties: Thayer Tavern, Loring House, Union Common, Central Fire Station, City Hall, the second People's National Bank, High School, the Baptist Church, the Old Common Cemetery, the McDonald and Campbell Houses, and the old Post Office (all eligible individually, as well;) and, eligible as part of a district: the Washington St. School, three monuments--the Soldiers' Monument, the Doughboy and the Volunteer, the John Brown Bell, three other churches and related buildings--the Union Congregational, Immaculate Conception and Sts. Anargyroi-vthe Immaculate Conception rectory, school, and convent, and several commercial buildings, including 121, 126-136, 195-205 Main, both People's National Banks, the First National Bank, and the Savings Bank, the Corey Building, the Addison and Middleton Blocks, the Rice Building, 7/9 Mechanic Street, and the White City Diner. A few residences on the associated side streets would also be eligible as part of this district, including 28, 36, 70 and 73 Bolton Street, 41 and 47 Mechanic, and 105-116 Washington Street.