Bancroft Trust Building facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Dodge Block and Sawyer Building, Bancroft Trust Building
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 Location in Massachusetts
Location in the United States
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| Location | 60 Franklin St., Worcester, Massachusetts |
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| Built | 1869, 1884, 1920 |
| Architect | Fuller & Delano |
| Architectural style | Late Victorian |
| MPS | Worcester MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 02000155 |
| Added to NRHP | March 15, 2002 |
The Bancroft Trust Building is a very old and important building in Worcester, Massachusetts. You can find it at 60 Franklin Street. This building is actually two older buildings joined together. It includes the Sawyer Building from 1883 and the Dodge Block from 1869. The Dodge Block is special because it's one of the few buildings left from Worcester's early industrial times. Both parts were designed by a company called Fuller & Delano. They were combined into one big building in 1920. Because of its history, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Contents
Discovering the Bancroft Trust Building
The Bancroft Trust Building stands at the corner of Franklin and Portland Streets. It's right in the middle of downtown Worcester. This building has four stories and is made of strong materials like brick and stone. You can still see that it used to be two separate buildings. Each half has a slightly different outside look. The ground floor, however, looks like one big unit. It has large glass windows for shops, set in metal frames.
What is the Dodge Block?
The Dodge Block makes up the right side of the Bancroft Trust Building. If you look at its upper floors, you'll see windows with rounded tops. Stone blocks decorate the corners and the top of each window. Above the very top floor, there's a band of rectangular panels. The building also has a rounded corner with an entrance there.
This part of the building was built in 1869. It was made for Thomas Dodge, who was a famous lawyer and inventor. His office took up most of the second floor. It seems that each upper floor originally had one home. However, changes inside mean we don't know exactly how it looked back then. The building used to have a fancy sloped roof called a mansard roof. There was also a fifth floor under it. Sadly, both were destroyed in a fire in 1971.
What is the Sawyer Building?
The Sawyer Building forms the left side of the Bancroft Trust Building. It has a more detailed design with five sections of windows. On the ground floor, there's one large shop space. An entrance to the upper floors is located to its right.
Above the shop, the windows are grouped in pairs. They have tall stone tops and thinner sills at the bottom. The windows on the fourth floor have rounded brick tops. There's also a decorative brick band above them. The main entrance is framed by stone pillars. It has a small stone porch with decorative brackets above it. This building was built in 1882 for Stephen Sawyer. He was a local businessman. Like the Dodge Block, it had shops on the ground floor. Homes were located on the floors above.
How the Buildings Became One
By 1920, the area around the Worcester Common was mostly for offices and shops. The Dodge Block and Sawyer Building were originally separated by a narrow alley. They were then joined together to form one large building. The alley was filled in to create the current main entrance. The building was named after the Bancroft Trust Company. This company was the main business in the building from 1922 to 1936.
