The new structures were three-to-four story buildings in the Renaissance Revival style, many with ornamental touches such as bracketed cornices, paneled friezes, arcaded facades and molded lintels.

315 Main Mall, at the east end, has an ornate cast iron facade.

[2] The row, as with many of the other buildings in downtown Poughkeepsie, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

With the nearby Luckey, Platt & Company Department Store, a commercial mainstay of the city, losing customers to suburban shopping malls, city planners thought they could sustain downtown by offering shoppers a similar experience.

The city reopened the street and ended Main Mall in 2001, helping to revive commercial and residential development in the area.