Richardson Block
- Architects
- William G. Preston George W. Pope
- Year
- 1873
- City
- Boston, MA
The Richardson Block is a row of commercial buildings at 113-151 Pearl and 109-119 High Streets, begun in 1873 in the aftermath of the Great Boston Fire of 1872. The corner building was designed by William G. Preston for Jeffrey Richardson and built with granite and brick salvaged from the structures the fire had just destroyed on the same lot. Preston and George W. Pope produced one of the only surviving clusters of neo-Greek commercial buildings in what was then Boston's leather-goods district.
the building
Salvaged materials. The corner building at Pearl and High Streets was built from granite and brick recovered from the structures the Great Fire of 1872 had just destroyed on the same site, a literal rebuilding out of the ashes.
Neo-Greek survivors. The block is one of the only groups of neo-Greek commercial buildings still standing in Boston's Financial District, a style now rare enough after decades of redevelopment to make this row a genuine outlier.
the style
The buildings that rose here after the fire are neo-Greek commercial structures, a style now scarce in the Financial District — the Richardson Block is among the only such rows to survive intact.
significance
The Richardson Block was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and was approved as an individual Boston Landmark (BLC #84) in December 2023.
nearby
- United Shoe Machinery Corporation Building
- Holy Cross Church, Boston
- Compton Building
- South Station Tower
- International Trust Company Building
- McCormack Federal Bldg/Post Office/Courthse