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West Main Street Commercial Area

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The traditional heart of commercial Wickford is tightly gathered around the junction of West Main with its continuation as Main Street and a fork south (Brown Street, which continues Route 1A). This commercial area consists of the Wickford Standard-Times (originally the Wickford National Bank Building; 1871), the Avis Block, a brick commercial block built in 1850, and, tucked behind this, a rare surviving example of the minimal store building from the Greek Revival, now an art gallery, unfeelingly altered but still compelling (1840s). Best of the commercial center is the Gregory Building (1891), at 1 Main Street (corner of Brown and Main streets), a commercial block of brick, brownstone, and iron whose ambitious scale was never again matched in Wickford. The original plate glass storefront wraps around a monumental corner entrance. The round-arched windows, monumental brick pilasters, and deep cut-brick entablature with a diaperwork frieze beneath a molded wood cornice are typical of more urban work of this period.

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Stephen Cooper House
Hussey Bridge
15–17 Main St.
Noel Freeborn House
Nicholas Hart House

Citation

William H. Jordy et al., "West Main Street Commercial Area", [North Kingstown, Rhode Island], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NK10.

Print Source

Buildings of Rhode Island, William H. Jordy, with Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 357-358.

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