{"nrhp_refnum":"75000261","name":"Hancock School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"33 Forest St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lexington","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.44720259200005,"lon":-71.23176034699998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-08-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Hancock School is a three-story red brick school building at 33 Forest Street, at the corner of Forest and Clark Streets in Lexington, Massachusetts, built in 1890-1891 and owned by the Town of Lexington.","why_significant":"The nomination states it has served Lexington's primary and secondary grades longer than any other surviving educational building in town. It is described as one of Lexington's best examples of Romanesque Revival public architecture and a well-preserved school by the Boston firm Hartwell and Richardson.","narrative":"Hancock School is a three-story red brick schoolhouse at 33 Forest Street in Lexington, Massachusetts, at the base of Belfry Hill. Built in 1890-1891 to designs by the Boston-area architects Henry Walder Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson, it rests on a granite foundation and has sandstone trim, a steep gray slate roof with dormers, and a porte-cochere at the rear that once sheltered pupils arriving by carriage. The main facade is dominated by two staircase towers, one round and one square, with ornamental brick patterns and Palladian-style window groupings. Inside, classrooms face south, and a third-floor hall could seat the whole school. The building was listed because it has served Lexington's primary and secondary pupils longer than any other surviving school building in town, and because it is regarded as one of the town's finest Romanesque Revival public buildings and an unusually well-preserved work of its architects.","period_of_significance":"1890-1891","architect_builder":"Hartwell and Richardson (Henry Walder Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson)","architectural_style":"Romanesque Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as occupied and in educational use; the data sheet records its function as a school both then and now.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.832672-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/81/7958/63795881/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/75000261.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000261/39178ae129-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000261/39178ae129-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hancock_School,_May_2012,_Lexington_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:Hancock_School,_May_2012,_Lexington_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63795881","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5647061"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/hancock-school-75000261/"}