Congress and Casco Streets meet in downtown Portland at the J.B. Brown Memorial Block, also known as the John B. Brown Building. Designed in 1883 by John Calvin Stevens, this is one of the city’s few examples of Queen Anne Victorian commercial architecture. Look up and you’ll see a 4-1/2 story masonry massing built primarily of brick, its main facade stretching 120 feet along Congress Street and occupying about two thirds of the block between Casco and Oak Streets.
Four storefronts step gently along the slope of the lot, their window bays articulated by brick pilasters and arranged in groups of varying sizes. Near the center a main entrance is recessed behind a stone arch; above that entrance, if you lean in, you can spot John Bundy Brown’s signature set into the cement block — a small, personal reminder that the building honors the founder in 1855 of the Portland Sugar Company. The block was recognized nationally when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Notice that brick facade stretching along Congress, to the corner at Casco, and down toward Oak Street.