The Main and Franklin Streets Historic District is an historic district encompassing most of two city blocks in downtown
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
. Roughly bounded by Main, Franklin, Federal, Portland, and Salem Streets, the district includes a well-preserved concentration of commercial buildings constructed during Worcester's economic height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The district was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2022.
Description and history
The Main and Franklin Streets Historic District is located directly south of
Worcester City Hall and Common
The Worcester City Hall and Common, the civic heart of the city, are a historic city hall and town common at 455 Main Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. The city hall and common were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Ear ...
in the heart of downtown Worcester. It includes all of the buildings in the square block bounded by Main, Franklin, Federal, and Portland Streets, and most of the adjacent buildings in the block directly to the east, bounded by Franklin, Portland, and Salem Streets, and a linear continuation of Federal Street. The most prominent buildings line Franklin Street and face the common; these include the
Park Building,
Bancroft Hotel
The Bancroft Hotel is a historic hotel building at 50 Franklin Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. Built in 1912 and expanded in 1925, it is one of the city's finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture, and was for many years its finest and most o ...
,
Bancroft Trust Building
The Bancroft Trust Building, formerly the Dodge Block and Sawyer Buildings, is an historic commercial building at 60 Franklin Street in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is the result of combining the 1883 Sawyer Building with the 1869 Dodge Block, o ...
(all individually listed on the National Register), and the former premises of the
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
The ''Telegram & Gazette'' (and ''Sunday Telegram'') is the only daily newspaper of Worcester, Massachusetts. The paper, headquartered at 100 Front Street and known locally as ''the Telegram'' or the ''T & G'', offers coverage of all of Worceste ...
.
Although Worcester's Main Street had seen significant commercial development into the mid-19th century, the Franklin Street stretch facing the common was still largely residential in 1870. Over the next 60 years the area was completely transformed into the densely built commercial district it is today. This was due in part to a railroad spur, which served to separate the areas. In the 1890s, the railroad facilities were removed, and the largest commercial buildings, the luxury Bancroft Hotel and the Park Building, were built between 1910 and 1914.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Second Empire architecture in Massachusetts
Historic districts in Worcester, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts