{"nrhp_refnum":"85002783","name":"Richmond, Willard, Apartment Block","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"43 Austin St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.26076467000007,"lon":-71.80623325699997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-11-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A four-story brick apartment block at 43 Austin Street, at the corner of Austin and Irving Streets, just west of Worcester's central business district in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was built between 1879 and 1886 for real estate dealer Willard Richmond; the architect is unknown.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it was one of the earliest apartment houses in the Main-Wellington-Chandler Street area, later Worcester's largest apartment district. It is a well-preserved, modest example of the transition from Italianate to Panel Brick styling. It is considered significant at the local level under criteria A and C.","narrative":"Built between 1879 and 1886 at the corner of Austin and Irving Streets, this four-story brick apartment block sits just west of downtown Worcester. It rises from a granite raised basement and has two seven-bay facades. Details include round-arched fourth-floor windows with granite keystones, a dentillated frieze, a metal boxed cornice and a two-story window bay with terra-cotta tile. The style blends Italianate elements with Panel Brick enrichments. It appeared on the 1886 atlas as the property of Willard Richmond (1823-1916), a real estate dealer who also developed Richmond Heights. The building is among the earliest identified apartment blocks in Worcester and is one of the few early examples left in the Main-Wellington-Chandler Street area after extensive late twentieth-century demolition. Its occupants were mostly middle class, and many were boarders. Its lack of ground-floor storefronts shows it was purely residential. Aluminum windows installed in the 1980s are the main alteration. It was listed for its early apartment construction and its architecture.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate/Eclectic (transitional Italianate/Panel Brick)","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Listed as vacant at the time of recording; condition fair/good. Original wooden windows and doors were replaced in the 1980s, and a rehabilitation following the Secretary of the Interior's Standards was planned.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:57.565956-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/33/7932/63793233/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/85002783.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85002783/dd0b7ab05b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85002783/dd0b7ab05b-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Willard_Richmond_Apartment_Block_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:Willard_Richmond_Apartment_Block_Worcester_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793233","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Richmond_Apartment_Block","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8003480"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/richmond-willard-apartment-block-85002783/"}