Landmark Center
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Boston, MA
The Landmark Center, also known as the 401 Park Building, went up in 1928 as a limestone-and-brick Art Deco warehouse and mail-order distribution center for Sears, Roebuck and Company. Designed by George C. Nimmons — the last in a series of Sears distribution buildings he designed for the company — it served nearly sixty years letting local bargain-hunters buy merchandise at below-catalog prices before Sears closed the operation.
the building
The 200-foot tower. A 200-foot tower rises over the limestone-and-brick building, making it one of the tallest structures in its vicinity; from the top, viewers can see the Charles River, Cambridge, and the Great Blue Hill in Milton.
Emerald Necklace crossing. The building sits at Park Drive and Brookline Avenue, the meeting point of the Riverway and the Back Bay Fens — two links in the Emerald Necklace park system that Frederick Law Olmsted designed in the 19th century.
the style
The Art Deco design clads a working Sears distribution center in limestone and brick, dressing up an industrial mail-order warehouse in the era's fashionable commercial idiom.
More on Art Decothe architect
George C. Nimmons designed a series of Sears, Roebuck distribution centers for the company, and this 1928 building was the last of that series.
significance
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Sears Roebuck and Company Mail Order Store and was designated a Boston Landmark in 1989, after nearly sixty years serving as a Sears warehouse and distribution center.
nearby
- Second Church in Boston
- Fenway Park
- Boston University Marsh Chapel
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- Peter Fuller Building
- Temple Ohabei Shalom