Bridge Street Neck Historic District

Bridge Street Neck is a compact neighborhood in Salem, Massachusetts, on a level peninsula between the North River and Collins Cove. Bridge Street forms its spine and long served as the route to the ferry and, after 1788-89, the Beverly Bridge, later carrying streetcars. The district contains 382 contributing buildings dating from about 1780 to about 1952, nearly all of wood-frame construction. Federal-period three-story hip-roofed houses built for sea captains and merchants, such as the Jacob Lord House of 1808, stand alongside gambrel-roofed dwellings, Greek Revival temple-front houses, and later Italianate, Second Empire and Queen Anne buildings. Over the 19th century the area also housed workers employed in jute, leather and lead factories, railroad car barns and shops, and a shoe factory. Greenhouses and the large gardens of George Dean Phippen reflected its semi-rural edge. Most commercial buildings lie along Bridge Street, and the district keeps its overall character despite alterations such as replacement siding and windows.