Architecture
Bangor has a mostly 19th-century cityscape, and sections of the city are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The city has also had a municipal Historic Preservation Commission since the early 1980s.
The Thomas Hill Standpipe, a huge elegant shingle style structure, is visible from most parts of the city. Also prominent are the spires of the Hammond St. Congregational and Unitarian churches, built from similar designs by the Boston architectural firm Towle and Foster, and that of St. John's Catholic Church constructed around the same time. The Bangor House Hotel, now converted to apartments, is the only survivor among a series of "Palace Hotels" designed by Boston architect Isaiah Rogers which were the first of their kind in the United States. Bangor also boasts the country's second oldest garden cemetery, the Mt. Hope Cemetery, designed by Charles G. Bryant.
Richard Upjohn, British-born architect and early promoter of the Gothic Revival, received some of his first commissions in Bangor, including the Isaac Farrar House (1833), Samuel Farrar House (1836), Thomas A. Hill House (presently owned by the Bangor Museum & History Center), and St. John's Church (Episcopal, 1836–39). The later was designed just prior to his most famous commission, Trinity Church in New York City. Upjohn was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects and its first president (1857–76).
Other local landmarks include the Bangor Public Library by Peabody and Stearns; All Soul's Congregational Church by Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson; the Wheelwright Block by Benjamin S. Deane; and The Eastern Maine Insane Hospital by John Calvin Stevens. Bangor also contains many impressive Greek Revival. Victorian, and Colonial Revival houses, some of which are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The most photographed is the William Arnold House of 1856, Bangor's largest Italianate style mansion and home to author Stephen King. Its wrought-iron fence with bat and spider web motif is King's own addition.
A portion of the city center, which largely resulted from rebuilding following the Great Fire of 1911, is preserved as the Great Fire of 1911 Historic District.
The bow-plate of the battleship USS Maine, whose destruction in Havana, Cuba presaged the start of the Spanish-American War, survives on a granite memorial by Charles Eugene Tefft in Davenport Park.
In the category "roadside architecture", Bangor has a huge, famous fiberglass-over-metal statue of mythical lumberman Paul Bunyan by Normand Martin (1959) and one of only two Howard Johnson's restaurants left in the country.
Read more about this topic: Bangor, Maine
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