The commercial building at 281-283 (285) High Street in Holyoke, designed by George P. B. Alderman, was built c. 1884. By 1891 the building was owned by Frank L. Taber, a watchmaker and jeweler. Other businesses have occupied the building over the years, including, starting in 1965, the camera shop of Raymond D’Addario, a photographer who once headed the photography department at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
The Second Congregational Church (now United Congregational Church) of Holyoke was organized in 1849 as the First Congregational Society of Ireland Depot, taking the name of Second Congregational the following year when Holyoke became a town. Its first church, designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin, was erected in 1853 at the northeast corner of High and Dwight streets. A new church, located at 395 High Street, was erected in 1882-1885. It was designed by P. B. Johnson. By 1868 the congregation was the largest Congregational church in New England, and the fifth largest in the country. Attached to the 1885 church is the Skinner Memorial Chapel, designed by Allen and Collens and completed in 1912. A fire in 1919 destroyed the church, but left the bell tower and chapel standing. A new church, matching the architecture of the chapel, was soon built, also designed by Allen and Collens. In 1996 Second Congregational merged with Grace United Church (itself a 1973 merger of Grace Church and First United Congregational Church) to form the United Congregational Church of Holyoke.
The City of Holyoke has a railroad station designed by the famed architect H. H. Richardson. Located at 12 Bowers Street, it was built in 1883-1885 as the Boston and Maine Railroad Station, also known as the Connecticut River Railroad Station. No longer a station, its later history included use as the Star Automotive Warehouse. It is currently an endangered building.
Check out the following PDF documents:
On the history of the station: http://www.holyokeredevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/Depot-Sq.-Presentation-Boards-FINAL-small-file.pdf
On the potential reuse of the station: http://www.holyokeredevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/Part-1-from-RICHARDSON_Report_FINAL.pdf
Continue reading “Old Holyoke Railroad Station (1883)”
The Day Building is an office building located at 300-310 Main Street in Worcester. It was built by John Day (1851-1907). The front section was most likely built c. 1897 to designs by Barker and Nourse, with additional rear sections built in 1898-1899 and 1906.
The building at 245 High Street in Holyoke was built c. 1885. It was originally owned and designed by architect James A. Clough. By 1888 the building was owned by Gilbert Russell and Archie J. Osborne, who ran a hardware and cutlery shop. By 1891, William W. Porter’s Springfield, Chicopee and Holyoke Express, a trucking and teamsters service, operated out of the same shop. As described in the Hardware Dealers’ Magazine (May, 1918):
The firm of G. E. Russell & Co., which has been in business for 35 years in Holyoke. Mass, has changed its name to the Osborne Hardware Co. There is no change in the personnel of the firm. A. J. Osborne, whose name the firm adopts, has been conducting the business since 1907. Mrs. G. E. Russell’s interest purchased by Mr. Osborne.
Archie J. Osborne went with Mr. Russell as clerk to learn the hardware business. Six years later he was taken into the firm. Mr. Russell died in 1907 and since then Mr. Osborne has conducted the business.
Mr. Osborne is one of the charter members of the New England Hardware Dealers’ Association. He was its first vice president and was president in 1914; is also an active member of the Western Massachusetts Hardware Dealers’ Association and was president of that organization also. For thirty years or more Mr. Osborne has been engaged in the hardware trade. He was born in North Hadley, Mass, on Jan. 18, 1862, and attended the schools of that town.
Mr. Osborne is president of the Chamber of Commerce, an organization with which he has been actively connected years. He was vice president for a number of years, when he carried the burden of the association, being always ready to put his shoulder to the wheel in any movement for the betterment of Holyoke. He is also active as a member of the Rotary Club.
The building’s original first floor has been much altered. Just to the left of the Russell-Osborne Building is the Mayberry Building, 249-251 High Street, built c. 1881.
L. J. Rigali, a dealer in cigars and tobacco, erected the building at 341-346 High Street in Holyoke (on the right in the image above) in 1887. It was designed by George P. B. Alderman. Various businesses have occupied the building over the years. Just to the left of the Rigali building in the picture above is the building at 345-347 High Street, occupied by the YMCA from the late 1880s until 1893 and then occupied by the YWCA until 1910. In the late 1940s the two buildings were taken over by Henry A. Moquin (1919-1976), a dance instructor who restored the structures and had his dance studio on the third floors.
At 2273 Main Street and Carew Street in Springfield is a Romanesque-style structure known as the Trolley Barn. Designed by the local architectural firm of Gardner, Pyne & Gardner, it was built in 1897 and served as offices, terminal, garage, and maintenance facility for the Springfield Street Railway Company (formed in 1870). It was once one of several trolley barns along Main Street that serviced the city’s streetcars. Trolleys were eventually overtaken by buses and in 1958 the building was acquired by Peter Pan Bus Lines, which used it as both a bus garage and as a corporate office. Peter Pan later moved to a larger facility. The Trolley Barn was renovated in the early 1980s and then turned over to Coach Builders, Inc., a Peter Pan affiliate that that specialized in rebuilding and refurbishing old buses. A minivan crashed into the corner of the building on January 15, 2015.
