Shrewsbury Street Painters — Shrewsbury Street · Worcester

Shrewsbury Street is the wide boulevard running from Washington Square and Union Station out toward Belmont Street (Route 9). Its National Register nomination for the Boulevard Diner describes it as a commercial corridor cutting through a residential area, and that is the useful way to think about it: businesses on the street itself, with houses on the side streets behind them.

Those houses are old. The federal Worcester Three-Deckers nomination records that by 1890 one of the East Side's main three-decker clusters had formed on the southwest slope of Chandler Hill, around East Central and Gage Streets just north of Shrewsbury Street. Building later moved north across Belmont Street, and between 1911 and 1920 it filled the triangle of lots between Belmont and Shrewsbury Streets at the neighborhood's eastern end. Census figures for the tract that holds the western stretch of the street back this up: more than half of its housing units date to 1939 or earlier, and the median year built is 1938.

Detached single-family houses are a small minority here, about 15% of units. In that tract roughly 29% of units sit in three- and four-unit buildings and about a quarter are in large buildings of 50 or more units, while only around one in five occupied units is owner-occupied. So a typical exterior project here means a multifamily building, often with tenants in place, shared porches and more than one entry.

The neighborhood also carries a specific ethnic history. The inventory form for a 1916 three-decker on Imperial Road ties it to the northeast expansion of Worcester's Italian community along the Shrewsbury Street axis, with tenants who worked as laborers, molders and bricklayers. That masonry trade may show up in the building itself, as described below.

Siding that has been changed, often more than once

The nomination says virtually every three-decker surviving from the 1890-era Chandler Hill cluster has had major alterations. Citywide, the same document found most three-deckers re-clad in aluminum or vinyl, often with trim stripped or covered and porches enclosed or removed. Before quoting, it is worth figuring out which surfaces are actually paintable wood and which are cladding that needs a different coating or none at all.

Stucco is part of the local story

The Louis Delsignore Three-Decker at 12 Imperial Road is documented as the only Worcester three-decker with its full exterior finished in stucco, which its mason owner may have applied himself. Stucco calls for crack repair and a breathable masonry coating rather than the system used on clapboard, so on any building with stucco walls or foundations it gets its own line in the estimate.

Pre-1940 buildings mean lead-safe work by default

With more than half the tract's units built in 1939 or earlier, original layers are likely to contain lead. Scraping porch ceilings, sanding window sash or stripping stair rails beyond the small-area exemptions falls under federal RRP work practices, and a landlord with a child under six in a unit has separate obligations under the Massachusetts Lead Law. Our lead-safe painting page explains containment and cleanup.

Tight lots and a busy street

Where a building sits close to the sidewalk or to its neighbor, ladders, staging and tarps have less room. Commercial traffic on the corridor means planning around deliveries and parking, and dust control matters more when the neighbor's window is a few feet away.