{"nrhp_refnum":"70000733","name":"Trinity Church","other_names":["Trinity Episcopal Church"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Copley Sq.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.35014292500006,"lon":-71.07541020660153,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1970-07-01","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1970-12-30","areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Trinity Church is a cruciform granite church with a parish house and colonnaded cloister on Copley Square in Boston's Back Bay, built between 1874 and 1877 to designs by Henry Hobson Richardson.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it considered by many to be Richardson's greatest work and a Romanesque tour de force that did much to establish both a style and an architect. It also anchors Copley Square and was built during the pastorate of Phillips Brooks. Interior murals and much of the stained glass are by John La Farge.","narrative":"Trinity Church sits on Copley Square in Boston's Back Bay. It is a cruciform church of Dedham granite with Longmeadow freestone details, joined by a colonnaded cloister to a parish house. A central tower rising 211 feet dominates the composition, and Henry Hobson Richardson designed the building around it. He won the commission in a 1872 competition among six firms, and construction ran from 1874 to 1877 during the pastorate of Phillips Brooks. The nomination describes it as a Romanesque landmark that helped establish both a style and an architect, so that the term Richardsonian became a synonym for Romanesque. The porch on the Copley Square front and the tops of the two towers behind it were completed in 1897 by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. John La Farge painted the interior murals in the winter of 1876-77 and made much of the stained glass. The church remains in active religious use and is a certified Massachusetts Historic Landmark.","period_of_significance":"19th Century (specific date 1874)","architect_builder":"Henry Hobson Richardson; porch and tower tops by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge (1897); murals by John La Farge","architectural_style":"Romanesque (Richardsonian Romanesque)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still in active ecclesiastical use; condition marked good; certified Massachusetts Historic Landmark.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.62671-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/46/7970/63797046/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/70000733.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000733/1b45be6531-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000733/1b45be6531-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"The original uploader was Daderot at English Wikipedia.","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trinity_Church,_Boston,_Massachusetts_-_front_oblique_view.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">The original uploader was Daderot at English Wikipedia.</a>, <a href=\"http://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:Trinity_Church,_Boston,_Massachusetts_-_front_oblique_view.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"73001948","name":"Back Bay Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/back-bay-historic-district-73001948/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797046","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_(Boston)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q901259"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/trinity-church-70000733/"}