Smith, Bradford, Building

Built in 1887, this 3½-story wood frame building at 1927-1941 Purchase Street sits in Weld Square, a commercial district north of downtown New Bedford. Clapboard-sheathed and set on a granite and brick foundation, it has four ground-floor storefronts and a double gable facade with returns, a linking cornice, brackets and Italianate detail. Local builder and developer Bradford Smith, born in Taunton in 1841, erected it with shops below and apartments above, a common pattern on the area's main streets. Early tenants included a bakery and a furniture store, while the apartments housed mill workers employed at the nearby textile mills and streetcar carbarn. Weld Square grew after streetcar service arrived and the Wamsutta Mills expanded, becoming New Bedford's first streetcar suburb. The building is valued for that connection to neighborhood development and as an intact early example of wood frame commercial architecture. Alterations have been minor, mostly signage, storefront changes and interior finishes, and the building has kept its original mix of uses.