Phillipsburg Arts Building

Phillipsburg Arts Building is located at 68 South Main Street.

Although its architectural style is from a later period than most professional buildings along this section of South Main, this is an example of a vital period style in this country called Neoclassical, with similar elements to the bank across the street. It was also constructed in the nineteen twenties. The symmetrical front with a parapet, belt course, and cornice with dentils are characteristic elements; more critical are the compass-arch windows. Modest keystones in the flat-arch lintels on the second floor and the engaged balustrades in the parapet illustrate admirable restraint by the architect. The tour producer had an opportunity to visit the basement and was impressed by the structural timbers, 12 inches by 12 inches sitting on similar size timbers. Impressive.

This building was once the Post Office and a school. Before the front part of the building was added, it was a grain warehouse in the eighteen-nineties, the ghost of the shed-roofed warehouse was visible at the rear of the left side, and there was a loading platform at the back. The Neoclassical façade is a much later construction. 

As a teaching moment, this is the perfect example that it's difficult to determine a building's history from its present façade or style, a lesson we'll have to remember as we examine several additional buildings along South Main Street.