Campello Painters — South Brockton

This corner of North Bridgewater was known as Plain Village when the railroad first stopped here; it was renamed Campello in 1850. According to the National Register nomination for the Franklin Block, the section developed in an elongated pattern, with industry along the rail line one block east of Main Street and stores along Main itself. A fire in 1853 destroyed much of it. Many large shoe companies set up or expanded here in the 1870s and 1880s, including Preston B. Keith, and a general decline began about 1920. In 1905 the R.B. Grover factory boiler explosion at Main and Calmar Streets killed 58 workers in what was then a largely Swedish neighborhood.

When the 1888 Franklin Block at Main Street and Perkins Avenue was nominated to the National Register in the late 1980s, it was described as one of only two substantial late-1800s commercial buildings left in the section, surrounded mostly by one- and two-story 20th-century commercial buildings and parking lots.

Census Tract 5116.01 contains the Franklin Block, the Calmar Street corner, the South Street district and Campello station. Of its roughly 1,265 housing units, about 37% were built in 1939 or earlier, while about 43% date from 1980 or later, so old and newer buildings sit side by side. About 45% of units are in two- to four-unit buildings and 35% are single-family detached. Owners occupy about 36% of homes. Margins on these estimates are wide.

The South Street Historic District

One block of South Street, between Main Street and Warren Avenue, was listed on the National Register in 1983: twenty dwellings from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s plus South Congregational Church, in styles from Italianate and Queen Anne to Shingle and Colonial Revival. The nomination ties them together by porches, bays, clapboard or shingle walls and similar rooflines. One 1879 Carpenter Gothic cottage had already had its detailing removed and aluminum siding installed by then; keeping painted wood trim in place preserves the features the nomination uses to describe the street.

Design review is not confirmed

In 1982 the mayor called South Street the city's only local historic district, but we could not confirm that a local commission reviews exterior changes there today. If you own one of these twenty houses, ask the city's planning office before choosing colors or replacing trim. National Register status alone does not restrict a private owner.

Old and new in the same tract

With roughly 466 pre-1940 units and about 544 built since 1980 in one tract, the right prep depends on the address. A pre-1940 house calls for lead-safe scraping wherever paint is disturbed, while a building finished after 1978 falls outside EPA's lead renovation rule. See exterior painting in Brockton.

Two- to four-unit buildings

About 568 units sit in two- to four-family buildings, and roughly 64% of households rent. Where porches and stairways are shared, the work schedule has to leave each unit with a usable way in and out. Condo painting in Brockton explains how shared exteriors are handled.