{"nrhp_refnum":"83002256","name":"New Era Building","other_names":["Rite Aid"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"39-41 N. Queen St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lancaster","county":"Lancaster County","state":"PA","lat":40.03853544800006,"lon":-76.30542494899998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-07-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Communications"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story, L-shaped brick commercial and printing building at 39-41 North Queen Street and extending east to North Christian Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1890-1891 as the plant of the New Era Printing Company, with rear additions in 1900, 1903 and 1914.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is significant for its role in printing, especially the production of specialized scholarly journals, periodicals and books with national circulation from 1893 to 1922. It also cites the Queen Anne facade as a good example of commercial Queen Anne style and the rear section as a representative industrial-type structure.","narrative":"Built in 1890-1891 on North Queen Street in Lancaster, this three-story brick building was the plant of the New Era Printing Company, which had outgrown its earlier premises on South Queen Street. Designed in the commercial Queen Anne style, its facade was built of dark red pressed brick with a sunburst pediment, and it was enlarged to the east in 1900, 1903 and 1914. The business began printing The Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club in 1893 and went on to produce more than three dozen periodicals and journals with national circulation, including Popular Science Monthly, Science and the Journal of Pharmacology. It also printed books for Charles Scribner's Sons, D. Van Nostrand Company and McGraw-Hill, among them an early illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada. The building is regarded as the most important structure in Lancaster County predating 1930 associated with the printing trade. Its original storefront and cornice were removed in the 1950s, and the nomination describes these features as being replaced in the 1982-1983 rehabilitation.","period_of_significance":"1890-1914","architect_builder":"John Adam Burger (builder/contractor); no architect is named in the contemporary accounts","architectural_style":"Commercial Queen Anne","criteria":[],"status_note":"The facade was altered in the 1950s and the original storefront and cornice were removed; a rehabilitation project was undertaken in 1982-1983.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:33.666017-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/83002256.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83002256/d72f1f35f3-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83002256/d72f1f35f3-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Era.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Era.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"01000956","name":"Lancaster City Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/pennsylvania/lancaster-city-historic-district-01000956/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71996085","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Era_Building_(Lancaster,_Pennsylvania)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7007491"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/lancaster-county/new-era-building-83002256/"}