Concord Square Historic District

Concord Square is the downtown core of South Framingham, Massachusetts, a cluster of twenty commercial, civic and institutional buildings arranged around a small U-shaped common and the wide junction of Union Avenue and Concord Street. Most are two- to four-story masonry buildings from 1890 to 1930, designed in Classical Revival styles. Its growth followed the arrival of the Boston and Worcester railroad in 1834, which shifted activity from Framingham Center to South Framingham. Notable buildings include the 1855 Park Street Baptist Church, the Barber Straw Shop, the Concord Block by Peabody and Stearns, the 1898 Hotel Kendall, the 1927 Memorial Building with its Ionic portico, two banks by Thomas M. James, and the 1930 post office. Together they show how the village became the town's business and government center, and how a small urban commercial district was built over about forty years. Storefronts have been altered, but upper stories largely survive.