Downtown Lawrence Historic District

Downtown Lawrence grew from the 1845 plan by the Essex Company, which laid the city out in parallel zones running north from the Merrimack River: industry, canal, boarding houses, commerce, and finally the Common ringed by institutions. The historic district preserves the commercial and civic heart of that plan. It includes the 17½-acre Common, donated in 1848 and laid out as Victorian open space, along with the Beaux Arts Essex County Courthouse, the Georgian Revival City Hall with its clock-bell tower, and a long run of brick commercial blocks along Essex Street. Essex Street was made 80 feet wide and required buildings of brick, stone, or iron at least three stories high. The result is a consistent streetscape of Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Romanesque, Classical, and Art Deco buildings from the 1850s through the 1920s. The Common also hosted mass meetings during the 1912 strike. Much of the surrounding downtown has been altered or demolished, which makes this group the most intact in the city.