Ahead of you rises the Rackleff Building at 129–131 Middle Street, in Portland's Old Port commercial district. Built in 1867 to a design by architect George M. Harding, this three-story commercial block is part of a remarkable trio — alongside the adjacent Woodman Building and the Thompson Block, both also Harding designs — that together form one of the city’s finest concentrations of mid-19th-century commercial architecture. The Rackleff is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its form tells that story at a glance.
You notice its roughly parallelogram shape, and a rounded section where the building meets the sharply angled corner with Church Street. At street level a cast-iron facade greets you — essentially the same as the Woodman Building’s, though about a foot shorter — with piers of clustered, narrow round columns that rise to support arches and an entablature. Above, windows sit in segmented-arch openings, finished with bracketed lintels and eared hoods that give the upper floors a measured elegance.
Notice that rounded corner and the cast-iron piers, then follow the row to the Woodman Building on your left and the Thompson Block across narrow Church Street.