{"nrhp_refnum":"89001499","name":"Piety Corner Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly Bacon and Lexington Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Waltham","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.38808700000004,"lon":-71.23830744053727,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-03-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 65.6-acre residential and institutional historic district around Lexington and Bacon streets and Totten Pond Road in Waltham, Massachusetts, containing 48 resources (33 contributing) dating from about 1819 to 1915.","why_significant":"The district holds the largest grouping of well-preserved historic buildings in Waltham, with many of the city's best examples of several architectural styles. The area was settled in the seventeenth century, was the center of the Swedenborgian movement in Waltham in the later nineteenth century, and was a desirable address for prominent citizens in the early twentieth century.","narrative":"Piety Corner is a cluster of houses and a few institutional buildings around Lexington and Bacon streets in Waltham, Massachusetts. The district covers about 65.6 acres and includes 48 resources, 33 of them contributing. Its buildings date from about 1819 to the 1910s and show Federal, Italianate, Mansard, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles. Settlement began in the late seventeenth century, and the name refers to the church deacons who lived nearby in the eighteenth century. After about 1820 a Swedenborgian congregation took root here, building a chapel and a school whose 1864 mansard-roofed buildings appear to be the first of that style in Waltham. Later, large Colonial Revival houses were built for well-to-do families. Boundaries were drawn to exclude newer buildings, leaving what the nomination describes as the largest grouping of well-preserved historic buildings in the city. The area remains residential, though Totten Pond Road, built in 1960, carries heavy traffic.","period_of_significance":"1820-1915","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal, Italianate, Mansard, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, English Country Gothic","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"General condition is stated as good; present use is residential and institutional. Totten Pond Road, laid out in 1960, brings continual heavy traffic.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:03.896989-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/47/7919/63791947/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/89001499.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89001499/094351cd95-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89001499/094351cd95-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Covenant_Congregational_Church,_Waltham_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">John Phelan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Covenant_Congregational_Church,_Waltham_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63791947","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piety_Corner_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7193110"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/piety-corner-historic-district-89001499/"}