F.S. Newman – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Court Square Building (1892)

by Dan/January 7, 2009September 3, 2010/Commercial, Renaissance Revival, Springfield

Springfield‘s Court Square Building, built in 1892 along Elm Street, facing Court Square, was designed by Springfield architect F.S. Newman, whose earlier Chicopee Bank Building is located just around the corner on Main Street. The building is constructed of buff colored brick with detailing in granite, brownstone and terra cotta. The commercial and office building was expended in 1900 with the addition of a sixth floor and the construction of a hotel, which was eventually converted to offices in 1920. Many of the offices in the building were utilized by lawyers, given the proximity of the County Courthouse and City Hall. The Court Square Theater was also a part of the original building, but this was torn down in 1957 and replaced with a parking lot. There are currently plans to restore the building as part of the Court Square Redevelopment Project.

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.