Driscoll's Block

Driscoll's Block is a historic commercial building at 211-13 Worthington Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Built in 1894, it was the first building to be built in the area after a fire destroyed five blocks of Worthington Street the previous year. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.[1]

Driscoll's Block
Driscoll's Block
LocationSpringfield, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°6′14″N 72°35′33″W
Arealess than one acre
Built1894 (1894)
Architectural styleRomanesque
MPSDowntown Springfield MRA
NRHP reference No.83000746 [1]
Added to NRHPFebruary 24, 1983

Description and history

Driscoll's Block is located in downtown Springfield, on the southeast side of Worthington Street, just southwest of Stearns Square. It is a modest four-story brick building, with a flat roof and decorative corbelled brick cornice. The ground floor houses a single store front, with recessed entrances (one to the retail space and the other to the upstairs) flanking a display window. Windows on the second and third floors are set in segmented-arch openings, in two groups of three with shared sills. Fourth-floor windows are similarly arranged, but are set in round-arch openings. The exterior of the building was, at the time of its nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, notable for a series of mid-20th-century advertising stencils that were applied to its eastern facade after the 1940 demolition of the adjacent building.[2] Those advertisements have since faded significantly.

The block was built for J.R. Driscoll, and at first housed a bowling alley. This business ran until 1915, and was followed by a succession of tenants, including briefly a Sears and Roebuck branch. The tenants have principally been manufacturing or warehousing concerns.[2]


See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "NRHP nomination for Driscoll's Block". Retrieved 2013-12-09.
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