Georgetown, South Carolina

In 1841 fire destroyed the main Front Street businesses between Queen and Screven Streets. The old wooden market which had sustained severe damage in the hurricane of 1822, was torn down as a fire break. In 1842 the entire block, including the market, was rebuilt - this time in brick. The Greek Revival clock tower was added about 1845. Until recently, the town government met here. Today the Old Market Building houses the Rice Museum, dedicated to the lowcountry of the Carolinas, a region that supplied 50 percent of American rice in the 1800s. The story of rice culture comes to life through maps, dioramas, artifacts and exhibits. Woven into the story of rice is a description of how an agricultural area lives when dependent on only a single crop.

Aiken, South Carolina

Designed by architect Willis Irvin and built in 1938, the Municipal Building was extensively remodeled in 1987. This site has been occupied by several public buildings, including a brick police station and jail and an opera house where Will Rogers gave a benefit performance.

Charlestown, Massachusetts

Charlestown and “Market Square were laid out in 1629. The heart of the town, on this site, disappeared on June 17, 1775, as British cannon fired on the rebels at Breed’s Hill. It was felled again sixty years later by a fire that wiped out the square and the waterfront. City Square was transformed in 1868 with the construction of the massive Waverly Hotel, now gone and the a new City Hall (now the District Court).

Charlestown voted to join Boston and became part of Boston’s world. Several decades later, the famed elevated rail line, known as the El, was built and cut diagonally across the Square and right down Main Street in 1901. Noise, shadows, and the obstruction of the El supports detracted from City Square’s appeal.

With the opening of the Tobin Bridge in 1950, the area really fell on hard times. Bridge traffic emptied into City Square. Then, new overhead ramps were built on the Chelsea Street side of the Square and guaranteed that traffic no longer emptied into the Square but by-passed Charlestown altogether. Businesses failed and buildings emptied and were demolished or boarded up as the Square took on the appearance of a wasteland. Those days are gone now and City Square, revitalized by the “Big Dig,” soldiers on as an attractive one-acre park with lawns, plantings and sculptures.

The Charlestown Municipal Building dates to 1868; today it serves as a district court for the city of Boston.

Lowell, Massachusetts

The brawny Richardsonian Romanesque style was widely embraced for public building after the death of its creator, Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson, in 1886. The craze lasted little more than a decade and in 1893 it resulted in three important Lowell buildings - the post office on Appleton Street, Memorial Hall behind City Hall and City Hall itself. Executed in light gray granite, the building features a tower and corner turrets.

Meadville, Pennsylvania

A courthouse and jail were built here in 1820; still the site of the Crawford County Courthouse. A Second Empire Style Courthouse was built late in the 1800s only to be expanded and encased in a Georgian Revival Style building in the 1950s.

Camden, New Jersey

This light gray granite skyscraper is the tallest building in Camden and, at some 371 feet, the tallest building in the Philadelphia metro area outside the city itself. The modified Grecian design is the work of Camden architects Byron Edwards and Alfred Green, Camden architects. From the main building of five stories rises a slender 17-story tower, narrowing at the top into open work resembling the neck of a bottle. On the tower is a huge new clock in place of those that have ornamented Camden's city halls since 1876.