{"nrhp_refnum":"86001486","name":"Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"38--68 and 70--72 Cornhill","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.35948350800004,"lon":-71.05902043599997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-08-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two connected commercial buildings at 38-72 Cornhill on the southwestern edge of City Hall Plaza in Boston: Sears' Crescent (1816), a curved brick row, and Sears' Block (1848), a small granite building at the corner.","why_significant":"They are the only two 19th-century structures to survive along Cornhill Street, once a center of Boston's book trade, and were kept during the 1962 Government Center Urban Renewal Plan. Sears' Crescent combines an early Federal commercial design with mid-century Italianate detailing and a rare surviving trabeated granite storefront at the rear. Sears' Block is a rare, largely intact example of the mid-19th-century 'Boston Granite' post-and-lintel commercial building.","narrative":"Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block stand together at 38-72 Cornhill on the southwestern corner of Boston's City Hall Plaza, marking the original line of Cornhill Street. The Crescent, built in 1816 for merchant David Sears, is a curving row of red brick and granite with a unified 24-bay facade. Italianate window hoods were added around 1850-60. Its rear retains early granite post-and-lintel storefronts. The Block, built in 1848 at the corner, is a small granite commercial building in the Boston Granite tradition and one of only four such buildings left in the central business district. Cornhill was a major American book-selling street, and the Crescent housed booksellers, bookbinders and an abolitionist journal. These two buildings are the only 19th-century structures on Cornhill that survived the Government Center clearance of the early 1960s. Architects and builders are unknown. Upper floors and facades remain largely intact despite replaced windows and rebuilt ground-floor fronts.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal, Boston Granite, and Italianate","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Occupied; present uses include a restaurant, retail shops, service shops, office space and a coffee shop. Some alterations, such as new first-floor storefronts and replacement windows.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:02.138457-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/68/7966/63796668/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/86001486.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001486/a5d5a96c36-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86001486/a5d5a96c36-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"NewtonCourt","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sears_Crescent_and_Sears_Block_20190624_154951.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">NewtonCourt</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sears_Crescent_and_Sears_Block_20190624_154951.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796668","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears%27_Crescent_and_Sears%27_Block","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7441773"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/sears-crescent-and-sears-block-86001486/"}