North High Street Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Three blocks of High Street in downtown Holyoke, between Dwight and Essex Streets, make up this extension of the North High Street district. A nearly continuous row of commercial buildings, joined by party walls and built flush to the sidewalk, faces the granite City Hall, which is set back behind grass and trees. Most of the buildings went up between 1880 and 1930, when Holyoke reached its peak prosperity as a retail and banking center. The facades show changing fashions: brownstone and brick Romanesque Revival blocks from the 1880s, cream cast-stone Beaux Arts fronts such as the Steiger Building of 1899 and 1901, and yellow brick Renaissance Revival towers like the eight-story J.S. Smith Building. A Gothic church complex and the 1913 City Hall Annex are also included. Together the buildings document the city's commercial growth and its architectural development, and the area was found significant at the local level.