Built 1887 (1887) NRHP Reference # 82001899 Opened 1887 Architectural style Victorian architecture | Built by Munyon,D. C. Designated CP December 23, 1991 Phone +1 413-442-2622 Added to NRHP 30 September 1982 | |
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Location 142-156 North St. Pittsfield, Massachusetts Part of Park Square Historic District (#75001911) Address 146-156 North St, Pittsfield, MA 01201, USA Similar Lake Onota, Bousquet Ski Area, Wellfleet Drive‑In Theater, Colonial Theater, Pittsfield Cemetery | ||
The Wollison-Shipton Building is a historic commercial and retail block at 142-156 North Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Designed by noted architect H. Neil Wilson, it was built in 1888 when the area north of Park Square developed as a commercial and retail part of downtown Pittsfield. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and was included in an expansion of the Park Square Historic District in 1991.
Description and history
The Wollison-Shipton Building stands in downtown Pittsfield, on the east side of North Street, roughly midway between Fenn and Eagle Streets. It is a four-story steel and masonry structure, built out of Philadelphia pressed red brick with rusticated brownstone trim. It has a central full-height section, seven bays wide, capped by a hip roof, which has flanking three-story mansarded wings. The ground floor has four storefronts, two on either side of the main building entrance, each now redone with modern plate glass display windows flanking recessed entrances. A belt course of sandstone separates the first and second floors, and brick pilasters separate the middle seven bays from the outer ones. Windows are rectangular sash, except for the central fourth-floor windows, where eight are set in round-arch openings. Windows in the outermost two bays on each side have stone sills, and are topped by a course of brickwork that extends across the width of the outer sections. In the central sections, the outer windows are grouped in threes, each individually topped by stone sills.
At the time of its construction in 1888, this building was relative rarity for the type of brick used and for its cast iron detailing, which has since been removed. The second floor was the first home for the local YMCA. The architect was H. Neill Wilson, a prominent local architect, and the builder was D.C. Munyan, who was responsible for the construction of a number of other nearby buildings, including the adjacent Academy of Music (burned 1912), the Berkshire County Courthouse, and the Berkshire Athenaeum, both prominent structures on Park Square.