{"nrhp_refnum":"00000915","name":"Buttonwood Park Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Kempton St., Rockdale Ave., Hawthorne St. and Brownell Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New Bedford","county":"Bristol County","state":"MA","lat":41.63268750000006,"lon":-70.95181854445423,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2000-08-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Community Planning and Development","Entertainment/Recreation","Landscape Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 113-acre historic district in western New Bedford, Massachusetts, centered on Buttonwood Park (first planned in the 1890s by Charles Eliot of Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot) and the early 20th-century residential neighborhood around it.","why_significant":"The park reflects a century of park development themes: pastoral landscape design, recreation, a zoo, public horticulture, Depression-era public works and memorials. The surrounding neighborhood is an unusually cohesive turn-of-the-century residential area with strong Colonial Revival and Craftsman examples, and it developed alongside the park. The district retains a high level of integrity to its 1892-1950 period of significance.","narrative":"Buttonwood Park Historic District covers about 113 acres in western New Bedford, Massachusetts. Its focal point is Buttonwood Park, first planned in the 1890s by Charles Eliot of Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot as a naturalistic landscape of woodland edges and open lawn. Over time the park gained a pond dam and causeway, a greenhouse and formal garden, a zoo, and Depression-era works such as the brick warming house, a rustic fieldstone wall along Kempton Street and a fieldstone bear den. The Barnard Monument of 1914, by sculptor George Julian Zolnay, honors the city's shift from whaling to manufacturing. Around the park lies a cohesive neighborhood of moderately scaled houses built concurrently with it, with Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles especially well represented, along with small garages reflecting the growing role of the automobile. The district includes 271 contributing resources and retains strong integrity to its 1892-1950 period of significance.","period_of_significance":"1892-1950","architect_builder":"Charles Eliot (Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot); Nat C. Smith; Browne and Poole; Everett T. Blossom; Labrode & Bullard; Cal B. Poulin; William F. Williams; George Julian Zolnay; Harold Kenworthy","architectural_style":"Colonial Revival, Bungalow/Craftsman, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, No Style (Four Square, Cape, Contemporary, Ranch)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Park and neighborhood remain in use; the park hosts recreation, a municipal zoo, a greenhouse, a senior center and veterans facilities, and many older zoo buildings have been demolished.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:03.728188-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/74/7944/63794474/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/00000915.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000915/e907666b8f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00000915/e907666b8f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Formal_Garden,_Buttonwood_Park,_New_Bedford_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Formal_Garden,_Buttonwood_Park,_New_Bedford_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794474","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood_Park_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5003119"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/bristol-county/buttonwood-park-historic-district-00000915/"}