The McIntyre Building is back in the news this week with the release of the latest architectural sketch of a proposed $200 million development. To these untrained eyes, the latest design looks like a towering fortress of luxury condos where locals had hoped for a modest design with open public spaces. It’s smaller than the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, but evokes the same do-not-enter vibe.
What it is not, history shows us, is part of a quiet, tree-lined, neighborly block. Once little more than a cart-wide path from the river to the central square, Daniel Street has seen both historic preservation and destruction. The brick high school next door to the former McIntyre federal building was saved as Portsmouth’s City Hall, and is now office space. The Warner House beyond that (circa 1716) was almost razed and replaced with a gas station in 1923. Stoodley’s Tavern, which stood on the other side of the McIntyre block, was moved across town to Strawbery Banke Museum.
READ: the McIntyre Building site history
The view this time is directly across from the McIntyre site, formerly three single-family homes We’re looking roughly at the former home of John O. Downs on Daniel Street. This is the view Sarah Downs would have seen as she worked in her lush and colorful pocket garden.
I’ve joined two separate pictures here for a unique horizontal perspective. To the left, a man in a hat and overcoat is smoking a cigar as he shovels snow from the sidewalk in front of his house. To the right, a couple chats innocently as another man lurks nearby. The woman, who appears to be clutching a small purse or maybe a gift from her beau. We’ll never know. The central building is familiar to many of us as the site of the late Emilio Maddaloni’s Italian grocery and eatery.
How much, or how little, the future Daniel Street honors its past and effectively serves the people of Portsmouth remains to be seen. Thanks to the dedicated work of preservation at the nonprofit Portsmouth Athenaeum archives, at least we know what the street looked like in days gone by.
© 2026 J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.
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