The Jamestown Downtown Historic District covers roughly twenty blocks of late-19th and early-20th-century commercial buildings, listed on the National Register since 2015. The story is a familiar industrial-Rust Belt one: the city grew rich on furniture, voting machines, and textiles, lined the downtown with confident brick and stone facades, then lost most of its industry in the 1970s and spent decades looking for a second act.
What is left is unusually intact: solid Italianate, Romanesque Revival and Art Deco buildings, much of it still in use. Highlights to walk past include the Wellman Building (1888), the old Jamestown station on the south side, and the cluster of theatres and storefronts around Third Street. The opening of the National Comedy Center has anchored a slow revival of the western end. Start at the Reg Lenna and wander west on Third Street for the best stretch.