Brookline Village Commercial District

Brookline Village Commercial District is a 13.66-acre cluster of forty-seven mostly brick buildings along Washington Street, running from the Boylston Street intersection to the town hall complex. Most are three or four stories, with shops below and offices or apartments above. Cast iron columns, corbeled cornices and arched windows recur throughout. Notable buildings include the Colonnade Buildings built by John Panter in the 1870s, the 1888 Seamans Building by Shepley, Coolidge and Rutan, the 1908 Georgian Revival fire station, and the Holtzer-Cabot Electric Company works, the town's first major manufacturer. The area grew from Punch Bowl Village, a stagecoach stop, after the railroad arrived in the 1840s and the town hall moved there in 1845. Postwar entrepreneurs replaced frame buildings with brick blocks, and by 1905 the village looked much as it does now. It was listed for its role as the center of Brookline's development and for its quality and variety of brick architecture.