The Mechanics' Hall District is a historic district encompassing a city block of 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 ...

, United States that preserves its late 19th-century appearance. It is located on Main Street between Exchange and Foster Streets, and includes the Worcester Five Cents Savings Bank building and Mechanics Hall. It was added to 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 ...

in 1980.

Description and history

The Mechanics' Hall District is located on the north side of Worcester's downtown, west of the

DCU Center The DCU Center (originally Centrum in Worcester, formerly Worcester's Centrum Centre and commonly Worcester Centrum) is an indoor arena and convention center complex in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts. The facility hosts a variety of events, ...

and north of City Hall. It consists of eight buildings on both sides of Main Street, between Exchange and Foster Streets to the east, and Sudbury and Maple Streets to the west. The eponymous Mechanics Hall is located roughly in the center of the east side of this area; it is an Italianate structure built in 1857 to a design by Worcester architect

Elbridge Boyden Elbridge Boyden (1810–1898) was a prominent 19th-century American architect from Worcester, Massachusetts who designed numerous civil and public buildings throughout New England and other parts of the United States. Perhaps his best known works ...

, and is one of the city's cultural centers. To its north is the large Central Exchange Building, constructed in 1895-96 with later Renaissance Revival styling. South of Mechanics Hall is a vacant lot, beyond which is the Burnside Building, built in 1886-87 to a design by

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

architects Bradlee, Winslow & Wetherell. The block opposite Mechanics Hall is taken up by five buildings, all of which are historically significant. The northern end is anchored by the Flagg Building (1854), one of the city's best-preserved Italianate office buildings, with the 1897-1906 Day Building adjacent. South of these is the 1891 Worcester Five Cents Savings Bank building, designed by Worcester architect Stephen Earle, and the 1925 Classical Revival Central Building. The district's southern end is the former State Street Mutual building, built in 1894-97; it is considered to be the city's first formal skyscraper, with a steel frame and Romanesque exterior. A much larger stretch of Worcester's Main Street was one lined with a series of connected commercial buildings similar to this block. Urban renewal has taken its toll on the larger area, and this block is now one of the few that retains a significant concentration of high quality late 19th-century architecture.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Italianate architecture in Massachusetts Renaissance Revival 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

Description and history

See also

References