Leather District

Boston's Leather District occupies the southern edge of the city's Central Business District, set apart by railroad yards, the Surface Artery and turnpike ramps. Its fifty-four parcels hold mostly commercial buildings of five or six stories, built chiefly in the 1880s and 1890s with a few later additions through 1919. Red brick and brownstone dominate, with Romanesque Revival and Richardsonian designs giving way to Classical styles around the turn of the century. Many cast iron storefronts survive. The land was once part of the South Cove, filled in during the 1830s, and first developed as low-cost housing before being redeveloped for the shoe and leather trade after the 1872 fire destroyed the earlier trade center. Strict post-fire building codes kept construction conservative, favoring mill construction. The district was listed for its unusually intact and harmonious collection of late nineteenth century commercial architecture and its link to the region's industrial growth.