{"nrhp_refnum":"96000737","name":"Grove Street School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"23 Grove St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Spencer","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.24686767800006,"lon":-71.99238671099994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-07-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Education","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Grove Street School is a brick public school building at 23 Grove Street in Spencer, Worcester County, Massachusetts, first built in 1876 as a one-and-a-half-story, two-room school and enlarged in 1883.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the school is significant for more than a century of service to neighborhood families and for its role in developing the Grove Street section of Spencer in the 1870s. Its two-room original size and four-room 1883 expansion show stages in Spencer's move toward a graded school system. It is also a well-preserved example of late 19th-century school architecture.","narrative":"Grove Street School is a brick schoolhouse on the west side of Grove Street in Spencer, Massachusetts, set among late 19th-century wood-frame houses. Built in 1876 by Frank Moses as a one-and-a-half-story building with two rooms, it gained a second story with two more rooms in 1883, designed by Fuller & Delano. The building has a granite foundation, rockface granite trim, decorative brickwork, jerkinhead gables with bracketed bargeboards, and a projecting central pavilion with a large round-arched window. Granite plaques carry the dates 1876 and 1883. The original design mixed Greek Revival and Victorian Gothic details, while the addition gave it a more Queen Anne character. The school was listed for its role in the Grove Street neighborhood's development during Spencer's industrial growth, for showing how the town's schools moved toward grades and separate classrooms, and for its well-preserved late Victorian design. It served as a public school for over a century and remains in educational use.","period_of_significance":"1876 - 1946","architect_builder":"1876 - Frank Moses, builder; 1883 - Fuller & Delano, Architects","architectural_style":"Late Victorian/Eclectic","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Historic and current function are both listed as education/school. The property is owned by the Town of Spencer. The porches have been reversibly enclosed with wood siding, and the original slate roof was replaced with asphalt after hurricane damage in 1938.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.990753-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/32/7975/63797532/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/96000737.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000737/1504fa1547-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000737/1504fa1547-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"John Phelan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grove_Street_School,_Spencer_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:Grove_Street_School,_Spencer_MA.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"03000685","name":"Spencer Town Center Historic District (Boundary Increase)","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/massachusetts/spencer-town-center-historic-district-boundary-increase-03000685/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797532","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_Street_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5611461"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/grove-street-school-96000737/"}