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The William H. Bliss Building is an historic apartment building at 26 Old Lincoln Street in
Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...
. Built in 1888, the four story brick building is one of the few remnants of a once larger development of apartment blocks north of Lincoln Square; most of the other period apartment blocks in the area were demolished by highway development or urban renewal processes. The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...
in 1980.


Description and history

The Bliss Building is set amidst a collection of wide city streets, hemmed in on the west by the major intersection of Lincoln and Salisbury Streets, and a railroad line and Interstate 290 to the east. It faces east toward Old Lincoln Street, once the main alignment of Lincoln Street, which runs northeast from downtown Worcester toward
West Boylston West Boylston is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States and a northern suburb of Worcester. The population was 7,877 at the 2020 census. West Boylston includes the village of Oakdale, located on the opposite side of the Wachu ...
. The building is a rectangular four-story masonry structure, fashioned out of red brick with sandstone trim. Its main facade has a stone water table between the basement and ground floors, and three asymmetrically-placed windows on each side of its recessed entrance. The entrance opening is flanked by stone pilasters and topped by a stone segmented arch. The first floor windows have stone sills joined by a stringcourse of stone, and a second stringcourse connects the windows just below the stone lintels. The upper floors have six windows, divided into groups of two by brick pilasters. A corbelled brick stringcourse joins the second-floor windows, and the center pair of windows on the third floor have segmented-arch tops. A band of corbelled brickwork separates the fourth floor from a parapet containing a stone panel identifying the building. The building was constructed in 1888 to a design by
Barker & Nourse Barker & Nourse was an architectural firm from Worcester, Massachusetts, active from 1879 to 1904. History The principals of the firm were Albert A. Barker (1852-1905) and Walter B. Nourse (1853-1906), and it operated from 1879 to 1904. It was ...
, local architects. It was built for William Bliss, a local real estate developer. The Lincoln Square area where it stands was originally lined with similar buildings, but it is now one of the only ones left after urban renewal resulted in the demolition of the others.


See also

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National Register of Historic Places listings in northwestern Worcester, Massachusetts There are 111 properties and historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts, west of I-190 and the north–south section of I-290 and north of Massachusetts Route 122, which are listed here. Two listin ...
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National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) designated in Worcester County, Massachusetts. The locations of NRHP properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may be ...


References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Apartment buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Residential buildings completed in 1888 Buildings and structures in Worcester, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts