Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block

Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block are a pair of adjacent historic buildings located along Cornhill in Boston, Massachusetts. It is adjacent to City Hall and City Hall Plaza, Government Center, Boston.

Sears Crescent
Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block
Sears' Crescent (6-story red brick, on left) and Sears' Block (4-story gray granite, on right)
Location38–68 and 70–72 Cornhill,
Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°21′34″N 71°3′34″W
Built1816
Architectural styleItalianate, Federal
NRHP reference No.86001486[1]
Added to NRHPAugust 9, 1986

Sears' Crescent was constructed in 1816 as a series of Federal period commercial rowhouses. Around 1860 these were given a unified curving facade with Italianate styling. The Sears' Block, built in 1848, is a rare surviving instance of granite post-and-lintel construction. Both buildings were developed by David Sears, a leading mid-19th-century developer of Boston who was responsible for the filling of Back Bay. They are the only buildings that remain on the original route of Cornhill, one of Boston's oldest streets, most of whose route has been lost or obscured by urban renewal.[2]

The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.[1]

The Sears' Block is now the location of the "Steaming Tea Kettle", an 1873 trade sign commissioned by the Oriental Tea Company that was located on a Court Street building demolished in 1967 during the construction of Government Center.[3] The kettle was refurbished and reinstalled in 2016 after being damaged, apparently by a truck.[4]

Sears' Crescent was acquired in 2016[5] by Chevron Partners.[6]

  • Overview of Cornhill and Brattle Streets, ca.1905
  • Overview of Cornhill, ca.1905
  • Sears' Crescent, Cornhill, Boston, 1962
  • Corner of Cornhill and Court Street, Boston, 1962
  • Cornhill, Boston, 1967
  • Sears' Block, 1967
  • Sears' Crescent (at left), looking toward Tremont and Cambridge St., 2007
  • View of Sears' Crescent in distance, looking across City Hall Plaza, 2010
  • Steaming Tea Kettle on the Sears' Block in 1971
  • The Steaming Tea Kettle in 2016, with Boston City Hall in the background

See also
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "NRHP nomination for Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
  3. Wurman, Richard Saul (2004). Access Boston (7th ed.). Access Press. p. 43. ISBN 0-06-054762-6.
  4. Rosen, Andy (5 October 2016). "Landmark steaming kettle sign to return to Government Center". Boston Globe. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  5. Stribling, Dees (24 May 2016). "Historic Sears Crescent Building Trades For Nearly $24M". BisNow. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  6. "Sears' Crescent". Retrieved 10 September 2017.


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