Mill Street-North Clover Street Historic District

This residential district of about 14 blocks sits on the plateau and river slope of downtown Poughkeepsie. Two- and three-story single-family brick houses predominate, most built during a post-Civil War housing boom. Their facades are homogeneous, yet each house has its own trim, lintels, cornices and doors, and deep lots often hold elaborate gardens and grape arbors. Urban renewal clearance surrounds the area on three sides. Five buildings stand out individually: the Vassar Institute, the Vassar Home for Aged Men, Richard Upjohn's Church of the Holy Comforter, the Second Baptist Church (formerly the Vassar Temple) and a Queen Anne townhouse now used as the Italian Center. Mill Street, once a footpath, was the city's social center by the 1860s. The eastern portion became a civic and cultural hub under the Vassar family, with lectures, a literary club and a natural history museum at the Institute. The district is valued as a nearly intact 19th-century community of brick-paved streets.