Banks – Page 3 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Salem Five Cents Savings Bank (1892)

by Dan/August 11, 2012/Banks, Colonial Revival, Salem

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.

Thompson Bank (1835)

by Dan/September 24, 2011/Banks, Greek Revival, Sturbridge

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.

Union Trust Company Building (1907)

by Dan/April 7, 2009November 29, 2011/Banks, Neoclassical, Springfield

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. Continue reading “Union Trust Company Building (1907)”

Chicopee Bank Building (1889)

by Dan/January 4, 2009September 24, 2011/Banks, Romanesque Revival, Springfield

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.