Category Archives: Banks

Worcester Five Cents Savings Bank (1891)

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Daniel

Worcester Five Cents Savings Bank (1891)

At 316 Main Street (corner of Walnut Street) in Worcester is the Worcester Five Cents Savings Bank Building, which has a distinctive curved corner. Designed by Stephen C. Earle, the building‘s plate glass and iron store front on the first floor was replaced by a limestone front in 1949. The bank was incorporated in 1854.

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Holyoke Savings Bank (1928)

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Daniel

At 99 Suffolk Street (aka 143 Chestnut Street) in Holyoke is a former bank building constructed beginning in 1928 for the Holyoke Savings Bank, which had been founded in 1855. An article in the Springfield Sunday Union and Republican (April 1928) announced that the new building was to be designed by Hutchins & French of Boston and that the construction contract had been awarded to the John F. Griffin Company of Boston. At some point the bank became the Vanguard Savings Bank, which failed in 1992, (Fleet Bank assumed Vanguard’s deposits). Three years later, the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department acquired the building from the FDIC. Interior and exterior historic renovation work on the former bank building was completed in 1996. (I would like to thank Eileen Crosby of the Holyoke History Room for helping me find information about this building).

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Hampden National Bank (1825)

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Daniel

The building at 6 Main Street in Westfield has gone through many changes over the years. It was built in 1825 as the Hampden National Bank on land provided by James Fowler, who served as the bank’s president until 1842. Originally, the building had a Federal or Greek Revival style facade with four freestanding columns supporting a large pediment. In 1853, the facade was completely altered to become an Italianate brownstone. The expanding bank moved to a new building next door in 1924. Since then, other businesses have occupied the original bank building. The building was damaged by fire in 1974. At some point, the facade on the first floor of the building was completely altered to its present appearance and the bank sign atop the building was removed. (more…)

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Salem Five Cents Savings Bank (1892)

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Daniel

The Salem Five Cents Savings Bank, known as the “Nickel Bank,” because deposits started at 5 cents, was founded in 1855. The bank’s building at 210 Essex Street in Salem, designed by an unknown architect, was built in 1892, with later modifications. The bank is now known as Salem Five. The bank building was constructed to complement the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House, which once stood next door. That c. 1800 house, later known as the Maynes Block, was planned by Charles Bulfinch with interior work by Samuel McIntire. The house was removed in the early 1970s and replaced by the bank’s modern wing, designed by Oscar Padjen. Architectural elements from the house’s interior are now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Thompson Bank (1835)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Daniel

The Thompson Bank was chartered in 1833 and the bank building was constructed in the town of Thompson, Connecticut, in 1835. It served as a bank until 1893 and was moved to Old Sturbridge Village in 1963, where the interior was restored to its original nineteenth-century appearance.

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Posted in Banks, Greek Revival, Sturbridge | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Union Trust Company Building (1907)

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Daniel

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The Union Trust Company building, at 1351 Main Street in Springfield, was built in 1907. The Beaux Arts style structure was designed by the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns, with exterior decoration by John Evans. The building has also housed Northwestern Mutual Life and the Springfield Group. (more…)

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Chicopee Bank Building (1889)

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Daniel

chicopee-bank.jpg

On the corner of Main and Elm Streets (along the on the southeast corner of Court Square) in Springfield stands the imposing Chicopee Bank building, built in 1888-1889. Designed by the local architect, F.S. Newman, in the Romanesque Revival style, the building’s corner entry below a three-story oriel window with turret is a dramatic architectural statement. In the seventeenth century, the land where the bank would be built was the home lot of John Woodcock and then of Francis Ball. According to Springfield Present and Prospective (1905), the Chicopee Bank was started “twenty-two years after the Springfield bank, by the class of small traders and mechanics whose needs were looked upon with some disdain by the aristocracy of the old bank, whose funds were all absorbed in carrying the great manufacturing enterprises of the time.” It became the Chicopee National Bank in 1865. The Old Chicopee Bank building, built in 1835, occupied the site before being replaced its red brick and brownstone successor. The frontage of the first floor shops has been altered in recent times.

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