This district is made up of around 400 mostly single-family houses. Most are built with wood-think creaky floorboards and the warm scent of sun-baked timber. Italianate style rules the streets, with their fancy brackets and tall, narrow windows, but if you look closely, you’ll spot homes with Greek Revival columns and a dash of Second Empire or Queen Anne flair. For a fun challenge, try spotting which are the “fancier” homes built for the big-shot merchants, compared to the humbler lodgings of workers. It’s a bit like real estate bingo-Victorian style!
All of this grew up around New Bedford’s heyday as the whaling capital of the world. Whaleships came and went, fortunes were made, and the city expanded northward from the waterfront. Even after the whaling industry faded and textile mills took over, the North Bedford area kept growing, pulsing with life-until the 1960s, when parts of the city around here were bulldozed for “urban redevelopment.” Luckily, this area survived as a living time capsule.
The district even has a couple of wild cards-a church and a National Guard armory, standing as sentinels among the houses. And in 1979, all of this was recognized and saved, like a gem in the heart of the city, earning its place on the National Register of Historic Places. So, as you wander, remember: each house and street corner has a century or two of stories hiding just beneath the surface-some of them might even be hiding in plain sight, waiting for you to discover!
