May Street Historic District

May Street in Worcester contains a district of about two dozen free-standing Victorian houses on both sides of the street, set on a slight rise. The first house, built in 1867 at 30 May Street, is a Second Empire design that still has its original entry porch and brackets. Ebenezer Abbott, a real estate developer, added a large Second Empire house in 1873, and several Victorian Gothic houses followed in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Between 1888 and 1893 the remaining lots were filled with large Queen Anne houses, most of which appear to have been designed by architects. Their features include corner towers, turrets, two-storey porches and decorative shingling. Original owners included merchants, manufacturers, a music teacher and a school principal. Street and lot patterns date to a subdivision shown on an 1860 map. Most buildings remain largely unaltered and serve as good examples of late nineteenth-century suburban architecture. All are still in residential use.