{"nrhp_refnum":"83000776","name":"W C A Boarding House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"19 Bliss St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Springfield","county":"Hampden County","state":"MA","lat":42.09988858200006,"lon":-72.58675027699996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-02-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story brick boarding house at 19 Bliss Street in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, built in 1884 for the Women's Christian Association. The architect is unknown.","why_significant":"It is tied to social and humanitarian groups in the city, first the Women's Christian Association, which built it to house working women, and since 1962 the Springfield Rescue Mission. It is also a good local example of the Queen Anne style and one of very few surviving late 19th century boarding houses downtown.","narrative":"Built in 1884 at 19 Bliss Street in downtown Springfield, this three-story brick building was constructed by the Women's Christian Association, a predecessor of the Y.W.C.A., to house 35 boarders. Its purpose was to give young women who came to the city for work a respectable, Christian home at reasonable rates. The design includes corbelled brick piers, a patterned brick cornice and a one-story wooden porch with Eastlake-type turned supports; two upper porch levels were removed in the 1950s. The plain massing reflects the restrained look of residential and social institutions compared with commercial buildings of the period. The association sold the house in 1910 after opening a new building on Howard Street. The Springfield Rescue Mission, a charitable organization founded in 1892, acquired it in 1962 and it remains the Mission's only surviving property tied to its early history. The house is considered one of very few remaining boarding houses of its era downtown.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Unknown architect; built by the Women's Christian Association","architectural_style":"Eastlake/Queen Anne","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Used as a boarding house; owned since 1962 by the Springfield Rescue Mission. Upper stories of the wooden porch were removed in the 1950s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:57.58309-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/88/7902/63790288/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/83000776.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000776/309591a314-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83000776/309591a314-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W_C_A_Boarding_House,_Springfield_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:W_C_A_Boarding_House,_Springfield_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63790288","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_C_A_Boarding_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7958472"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/hampden-county/w-c-a-boarding-house-83000776/"}