{"nrhp_refnum":"80000625","name":"Castle Street Row","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"4-18 Castle St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.25674815100007,"lon":-71.81211600799998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-03-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A row of eight brick Second Empire row houses at 4-18 Castle Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, built around 1873.","why_significant":"It is Worcester's largest block of row houses and the only one of eight rows built by Larkin Gates in the area that remains intact. The row grew out of Eli Thayer's subdivision of the former Oread Institute campus. Row houses have been rare in Worcester, and Castle Street holds the city's largest concentration.","narrative":"Eight brick row houses at 4-18 Castle Street in Worcester form the city's largest block of row houses. Built around 1873 in the Second Empire style, each unit rises two and one-half stories above a high basement and has a side-hall plan, a three-sided bay window, a bracketed entry porch and a mansard roof with dormers. The lower four units are arranged symmetrically around two sets of paired entries, while the upper four have individual entries set at staggered heights that follow the slope of the hill. The land was once part of the Oread Institute, a women's college founded by Eli Thayer in 1849. In the early 1870s Thayer subdivided part of the campus into small, narrow lots, nearly all bought by the local builder Larkin Gates. Gates built forty-two houses in eight rows, and only this one survives intact. Though designed as modest single-family homes, many were later divided into apartments or used for boarders. Row houses remain rare in Worcester.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Larkin Gates (builder)","architectural_style":"Second Empire","criteria":[],"status_note":"Described as in good condition and in residential use; the original features are largely retained apart from modern asphalt-shingle roofs and some modern pointing.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:54.623402-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/37/7932/63793237/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/80000625.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000625/c24643dd44-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80000625/c24643dd44-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castle_Row_Worcester_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Pvmoutside</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:Castle_Row_Worcester_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793237","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Street_Row","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5050306"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/castle-street-row-80000625/"}