Dale Avenue in Gloucester was laid out in the 1860s. One of the first houses to be erected on the new street was 19 Dale Avenue, built between 1869 and 1872. The Italianate residence was originally the home of Aaron W. Bray, an agent for the New England Fish Company at Dodd’s Wharf on Duncan’s Point. Bray had died by 1890 and the house was then occupied through at least 1900 by Albert S. Maddocks, an apothecary with a shop on Main Street.
Designed by architect Tristram H. Griffin, Central Grammar School is a former high school building erected in 1889 at 10 Dale Avenue, opposite City Hall in Gloucester. It was the city’s first four-year high school. An 1922 addition, built in a style compatible with the original section, more than doubled the size of the building. In 1974-1975, the building was converted into affordable housing for elderly residents. In 2010, the Central Grammar Apartments received a grant of $2.7 million from the state Department of Housing and Community Development for modernization and renovation.
The St. Bernard’s Catholic Church at 12 Monument Square in Concord was originally erected in 1840 or 1842 by the First Universalist Society in Concord. The small congregation encountered financial difficulties and ended its services in the early 1850s. The church stood empty until the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston purchased it in December 1863. Since the early 1850s, Concord’s growing Irish Catholic community had been a mission of St. Mary’s Parish in Waltham. Now the parish had its own church, St. Bernard’s, which became an independent parish in 1867. At the time, the church was still in its original location, separated from the common by the “old green store.” In 1870, the parish purchased the store in order to move the church forward towards the common. The church was also turned ninety degrees to face southwest toward the foot of Main Street and enlarged with a basement and extended to the rear to accommodate a new vestibule and sanctuary.
Renovations in 1889, designed in the Italianate style by local architect John Chapman, added a steeple and again enlarged the church. Changes were made to the front facade and new front stairs were added in 1959-1960, but another major renovation in 1996-1997 restored the church as much as possible to its late nineteenth-century appearance.
Our Lady Help of Christians Church was built in the industrial area of West Concord in 1904 and became a separate parish in 1908. The two Concord parishes merged in 2004 to form Holy Family Parish, based at St. Bernard’s Church. More recently, Holy Family Parish and St. Irene’s Church in Carlisle joined to form a new parish collaborative.
In the early 1860s, businessman John C. Buschmann established the Railroad House Hotel on Depot Square, near the train station, in Westfield. In 1899 his son, Thomas Buschmann, hired architect Augustus W. Holton to design a larger hotel to replace the existing one. Called the Bismarck Hotel, it opened in 1900. The building (16 Union Avenue) continued as a hotel until 1930, after which it housed a series of small industrial firms. In 2001 it was acquired by Pilgrim Candle, which already occupied Buschmann’s Block next door. Continue reading “Bismark Hotel (1900)”
The building at 20 Broad Street in Westfield, erected in 1837-1838, served as Town Hall from 1839 until 1920, when a city government was organized. It then continued as City Hall until 1958. The building also held the first formally organized Westfield High School classes from 1855 until 1867. The old Town/City Hall once had a cupola, which was removed in 1912. The neighboring First Congregational Church purchased the building in 1962. It now houses The Carson Center for Human Services.
The Conway Block, located at 301 High Street in Holyoke, is a commercial building erected c. 1885. It takes its name from early tenant Martin P. Conway, a dealer in pianos and organs.
The Lyman Cotton Mills in Holyoke erected a complex of buildings in the city in the second half of the nineteenth century. The company started with two original mills, built c. 1850, located between the First and Second Level Canals, that it inherited from the earlier Hadley Falls Company. Mill No. 3 was erected in 1872-1873. The company office and other additional buildings were erected on Front Street, along the First Level Canal. The one pictured above contained the Cloth Room Building (on the right) and the No. 2 Store House (on the left). Located at 72-100 Front Street, it was built c. 1865-1870. It is now called Canal Place and is used for offices.
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