Mechanics Block Historic District

Mechanics Block is a row of 34 two-story brick houses facing Orchard Street and Garden Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Built around 1847 by the Essex Company as part of the new industrial city, the houses are three bays wide, with granite lintels, paired entrances with sidelights and transoms, end chimneys and gabled dormers. Few changes in about 125 years have disturbed their unity, mainly late 19th-century bracketed hoods over the doorways and a handful of enlarged dormers, brick bays and added stories. The block originally held 50 rowhouses. In 1853 the company sold it to the Lawrence Machine Company, with a deed reserving the homes for skilled craftsmen. Later owners included the Everett and Washington Mills. Over time the residents shifted from English, Scottish and native-born workers to Irish-Americans and then Italian-Americans. The district is valued as a surviving example of New England factory housing and a record of the city's working families.