Then & Now: Standish Hotel, Main Street, Worcester

Charles Prentice, who ran a successful wholesale food business on Summer Street, commissioned a large hotel at the edge of downtown Worcester at the turn of the century.

The Standish Hotel opened about 1900, managed by Robert L. Prentice, son of the owner. The Prentice family lived in a Georgian Revival mansion in the shadow of the hotel.

The mansion's music room had a grand Steinway, a popular gathering spot for out-of-town musicians who traveled to the city for the annual Worcester Music Festival. The Standish would fill during the multiday event.

The hotel, shown in the week's Then photo, from 1965, filled much of the Main Street block between Jackson and LaGrange streets. A yellow brick exterior and wrought iron balconies gave it a distinctive look. Besides hotel rooms, the building had rental apartments.

Sigmund Freud stayed at the Standish while in Worcester for a series of lectures at Clark University, blocks away on Main Street.

Like other independent hotels that were once common in Worcester and other midsized cities, the Standish lost its allure long ago.

In 1967, after the hotel section was hit by two fires, that part of the building was torn down. This week's Then photo, with the angled main door of the hotel, shows the portion of the building that was leveled. It was replaced at the time with a parking lot, for tenants of the apartments.

The old mansion, at the opposite end of the hotel, is also gone from the landscape. By the time it was razed, the mansion had become a rooming house. (In some earlier references, the mansion carries the name Norcross, noted builders at the time.)

These days, what's left of the old hotel is known as Standish Apartments, a 28-unit building at 767 Main St. Its yellow-brick facade remains.

After the hotel closed, the property was eventually taken over by the Worcester Housing Authority, which remodeled the building and renamed it Jackson Apartments for the Elderly. The building had 60 units.

In 1989, as the Housing Authority mapped a $3 million renovation, asbestos was discovered in the walls and ceilings of the building. The 53 tenants at the time were quickly relocated to other apartment buildings.

The once-stately building was boarded up. It sat vacant for several years, with vagrants and vandals creating headaches for police and the Housing Authority.

In 1997, after the asbestos was removed, the building was bought by developer Frank Zitomersky and others. The building was renovated into one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Its heritage was recognized with a name change, from Jackson Apartments to Standish Apartments.

Last week Then & Now: Mason Street School, Worcester

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Then & Now: Standish Hotel, Main Street, Worcester