{"nrhp_refnum":"92000247","name":"Lynn Common Historic District","other_names":["See Also:Lynn Public Library","Lynn Armory","St. Stephen's Episc"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly, N. and S. Common St. from Market Sq. to City Hall","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lynn","county":"Essex County","state":"MA","lat":42.46385300000006,"lon":-70.95611479904062,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1992-04-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A roughly 68-acre historic district in central Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, made up of the long Lynn Common park and the residential, commercial and institutional buildings along North and South Common Streets, plus the nearby Western Burial Ground.","why_significant":"The district preserves a public common used since the 17th century for civic, religious and military purposes, and it was laid out as a park from the 1820s onward. Its surrounding buildings, mostly of the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries, show a broad range of architectural styles from Federal to Colonial Revival. Several works are by notable architects such as Ware and Van Brunt and Penn Varney.","narrative":"Lynn Common Historic District covers about 68 acres at the center of Lynn, Massachusetts, and centers on a park more than half a mile long, bordered by North and South Common Streets. The district includes 60 contributing resources, among them houses, apartment buildings, five churches, a library, an armory, a high school and an outlying burial ground. The Common served as a civic and religious center from the 1680s, when the first meetinghouse was built, and was cleared of buildings and landscaped as a park between the 1820s and the 1870s. It is encircled by a cast-iron fence and holds a Civil War Soldiers' Monument of 1873, a fountain and a bandstand. The surrounding architecture runs from Federal brick houses of the 1820s to Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival buildings. Notable works include St. Stephen's Episcopal Church by Ware and Van Brunt, the Lynn Armory, and several designs by Penn Varney.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Ware and Van Brunt; Penn Varney; Henry W. Rogers; Wheeler and Northend; George A. Moore; Sanborn and Weed; John Stevens; Edwin Earp and Son; B. H. Davidson; sculptor John A. Jackson","architectural_style":"Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Romanesque Revival, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Classical Revival, Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Most buildings are largely intact; the common is still a landscaped park with a fence, monuments, bandstand and fountain, and the 1893 fountain is unused. Buildings remain in residential, institutional and commercial use.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.576562-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/6/7948/63794806/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/92000247.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92000247/82a9d8e9c6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92000247/82a9d8e9c6-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Unknown authorUnknown author","credit_html":"Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lynn_Common,_Lynn,_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794806","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Common_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6708978"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/essex-county/lynn-common-historic-district-92000247/"}