Category: Springfield, MA

South End- Springfield, MA Historic Italian Community

The South End has long been home to Springfield’s Italian community since the late 19th century and continues to hosts  numerous Italian restaurants and pastry shops, most famously the La Fiorentina Pastry Shop. More recently it has become famous for housing the National Basketball Hall of Fame. From an urban perspective the South End is a solid neighborhood with a great sense of community, a fairly vibrant Main Street, and walkable access to the heart of Downtown Springfield. For this to become a top tier urban district it needs a lot of quality urban in-fill along Main Street and filling in vacant parcels along the eastern edge of the district, better schools and ideally the abandonment of I-91 so the neighborhood can connect much more seamlessly to the Connecticut River.

Click here to view my South End Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

  • Walkable access to Dwtn and plenty of restaurants (esp Italian), bars, smaller ethnic groceries, boutiques located along Main Street.
  • generally a solid business district along Main St with pretty good urban form and a variety of businesses. Becomes more autocentric towards the southern end of the neighborhood.
  • Pretty affordable place to buy a home generally btwn 200K-350K. Decent # of rentals as well.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

  • Other than the recreation trail running along the river, really not bike infrastructure.
  • The historic residential isn’t very attractive as its mostly turn of the century worker housing.
  • So so density for an urban neighborhood but a bit underwhelming for an inner City East Coast City. Same thing with public transit access.
  • Some walkable schools located here but generally not well rated.
  • Highway 91 unfortunately is a major barrier between the neighborhood and the Connecticut River.”

Downtown Springfield, MA

Main street is the heart of Dwtn running north to south throughout its entire duration. I consider where Main Street and Court House Place Square meet as the heart of Dwtn as this is the convergence of the Springfield Convention Center, several vibrant blocks of Main Street, the Civic Heart of Springfield with many historic Civic Buildings and the MGM Casino (technically in the South End). East of Dwight Street the urban form starts to break down with more parking lots, modern bldgs with poor urban form, and less vibrancy. A couple blocks just west of the Armory host the Armory Quadrangle Historic District a collection of attractive Boston looking apartment bldgs with bay turrets and other historic institutional buildings. Downtown connects most seamlessness with the South End neighborhood to the south especially via Main Street as quality urban cohesive blocks continue for several blocks south through the neighborhood. For Downtown Springfield to become a great Downtown it primarily needs much more population and density to help support more neighborhood retail amenities and much better vibrancy especially north of the railroad tracks and east of Dwight Street. Downtown has strong bones along Main Street and several surrounding blocks to build from and expand to the less developed parts of Downtown.

Click here to view my Downtown Springfield album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Lovely set of intact historic commercial buildings from the 19th to early 20th century.
* Really like the historic center of Dwtn at Court House Place with the City’s most prominent Civic and Historic Gov’t Bldgs surrounding it.
* Main Street south of the Train Station is very in-tact with many mid to late 19th century commercial bldgs btwn 4-8 stories. Worthing St is also making a comeback with many revitalized historic bldgs, new pedestrian friendly streetscaping and light crossing over the Street.
* Nicely renovated Historic Union Station  which was restored in 2019 moving the Amtrack Station back to the station after many years of disrepair.
* Excellent cultural amenities dwtn including tons of food & beverage businesses, plenty of theaters & live music venues, a cineplex and plenty of Museums and art galleries especially within or near the Springfield Museums Complex.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* North of the railroad tracks and east of Dwight Street has lost much of its urban form and lacks a sense of place and vibrancy.
* So so density for an Dwtn area.
* Not a ton of condo options but some options along Dwight Street and very affordable. Not a ton of rental options either dwtn.
* Not a lot of solid urban infill in Downtown. This is largely due to Dwtn’s lacking of housing options.
* Good smaller retail amenities like boutiques, clothing stores, and gift stores but Dwtn lacks a major supermarket and other important neighborhood retail amenities.
* Other than a recreational trail only the river, bike infrastructure is limited.
* Several small plazas and parks dwtn but the recreational trail along the river is really the only large park dwtn.