Main Mall Row is an adjoining group of nine commercial buildings along the northeast corner of the intersection of Main and Garden streets in downtown

Poughkeepsie Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie ...

, New York,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. They were mostly built after a

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

in 1870 destroyed the previous buildings on the site. The new structures were three-to-four story buildings in the

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

style Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

, many with ornamental touches such as bracketed cornices, paneled

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s, arcaded facades and molded lintels. 315 Main Mall, at the east end, has an ornate

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...

facade. They are considered among the most architecturally significant commercial buildings in the city, and are still in use as stores today. The building at 3-9 Garden Street retains its original storefronts. The row, as with many of the other buildings in downtown Poughkeepsie, 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 1982. Their current name comes from

Main Mall The Main Mall was an outdoor pedestrian shopping plaza in downtown Poughkeepsie, New York, which was in existence from 1973 until 2001. An urban renewal project designed with the intention of stopping the decline of the central business district o ...

, the city's attempt to establish a

pedestrian mall Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

in the area, the two blocks of Main between Market and Academy streets, during the 1970s. With the nearby Luckey, Platt & Company Department Store, a commercial mainstay of the city, losing customers to suburban shopping malls, city planners thought they could sustain downtown by offering shoppers a similar experience. In 1973 the two blocks were closed to vehicle traffic. However, the decline of the downtown continued as most shoppers continued to choose the malls, especially after Luckey Platt closed in 1980. The city reopened the street and ended Main Mall in 2001, helping to revive commercial and residential development in the area.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Buildings and structures in Poughkeepsie, New York 1870s architecture in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Poughkeepsie, New York Renaissance Revival architecture in New York (state) Commercial buildings completed in the 19th century

See also

References