Maine Block
1 – 3 North Main Street, Florence, MA
By the early 1870s, the intersection of Main/North Main Street and Maple/North Maple Street in Florence had become the center of commercial activity. Businesses primarily operated from small frame buildings or attachments to residences, although there were a few brick structures as well.
The Maine Block was built in 1889 by Clara Maine, replacing a little wooden building that had previously housed Bird’s Store. Clara was married to George Maine, who died that year from blood poisoning contracted when he was a prisoner of war in Andersonville, Georgia, during the Civil War. He is buried in the nearby Park Street Cemetery (burial site of several Florence abolitionists and formerly enslaved individuals).
With a central doorway, the building houses two shops on the ground floor. J.W. Bird was one of the first tenants in the new Maine Block. Mrs. Mary C. Shannon (née Mary Powers) moved her millinery and ladies’ furnishings shop into the building when it opened as well. P.J. McConville, a tailor, occupied one of the shops from 1918 until some time in the 1940s, with a succession of grocers including the Great A & P Tea Company in the other storefront. In the 1940s, Murphy’s Merchandise Mart occupied the entire ground floor, followed by J. A. Tepper, a dry-goods store, from 1952 to 1969. In 1969, West Clothing Center moved from 11 North Maple to the Maine Block and, in 1975, commissioned Jim Sadler to paint the iconic “Go West” mural at the top of the façade. Around 1985, West Clothing went out of business.
The Maine Block was sold in 2003 to Valley Community Development Corporation and converted into 17 small studio apartments with bathrooms and kitchenettes, rented at affordable rates (Go West SROs). In 2006, the building and CDC received a preservation award from the Northampton Historical Commission.