150-154 Main Street
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
FORM B − BUILDING
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Photograph
Topographic or Assessor's Map
Recorded by: Bonnie Parsons
Organization: Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
Date (month / year): March, 2010
Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
32C-001 Easthampton NTH.2290
Town: Northampton
Place: (neighborhood or village)
Address: 150-154 Main Street
Historic Name: A. McCallum Building
Uses: Present: commercial
Original: commercial
Date of Construction: 1885
Source: Map of 1895
Style/Form: Contemporary commercial
Architect/Builder:
Exterior Material:
Foundation: not visible
Wall/Trim: masonry panels, metal
Roof: not visible
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alterations (with dates):
New façade applied to older building, pre-1980.
Condition: good
Moved: no | x | yes | | Date
Acreage: 0.383 acres
Setting: This is a north-facing building that wraps
around its neighbor on the west and has a pedestrian bridge
to a parking garage on its south.
INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET [NORTHAMPTON ] [150-154 Main Street]
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125
Continuation sheet 1
NTH.2290
___ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
This is a three-story building with a façade on the second and third stories that is sided with applied squares of masonry in two
colors for a checkerboard appearance. A metal cornice with a geometric pattern borders the flat roof in an Art Deco style. At
each story on the north façade are two large openings with 16-light fixed windows separated between the two stories by a metal
spandrel. At the first story level, is a single storefront with display windows flanking two recessed entries.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the
owners/occupants played within the community.
Constructed in 1885 this building in 1895 was owned by A. McCallum. Alexander McCallum was a dry goods merchant who
lived in 1900 on Prospect Street with his wife Kate, their son George, who worked as a cashier in his parents’ dry good store, a
servant, a bookkeeper and six female students whom they boarded. By 1910 they no longer took in boarders. In old
photographs of Main Street buildings in the collection of Historic Northampton, the McCallum Building was a three-story brick
building that was four bays wide, Italianate in style with segmentally arched third story windows under a projecting Italianate
cornice on consoles. By 1938 the second floor has been altered by insertion of full-length, plate glass windows. It was still
McCallum’s Department Store. The building appears to have been altered after the urban renewal movement went through
Northampton and a 1988 photograph shows it much as it looks today.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hampshire Massachusetts, New York, 1873.
Hales, John G. Plan of the Town or Northampton in the County of Hampshire, 1831.
Miller, D. L. Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, 1895.
Walker, George H. and Company. Atlas of Northampton City, Massachusetts, Boston, 1884.
Walling, Henry F. Map of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, New York, 1860.