On these 19.6 acres (7.9 ha) are 20 buildings, mostly historic but with some modern intrusions, mainly parking lots, a gas station and newer additions to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Cobblestone paving and gas lamps have been added since the historic district was designated, in order to recreate the neighborhood's 19th-century appearance.

Local preservationists have supported a plan to redesign the highway and restore access to the waterfront that spurred the area's original development.

He and Joseph Russell, a local landowner who is generally regarded as the city's founder, saw that it had a deep harbor that could receive seagoing vessels at docks.

After independence, the city concentrated on rebuilding its major industry, and in 1791, the Rebecca set sail, becoming the first American whaler to harvest oil from the Pacific.

Joseph Rotch's grandson William, by then a wealthy man, built his mansion, now the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum, further inland.

The Seamen's Bethel, built in 1832, became the traditional spot for sailors' religious services before departing for the deep oceans,[8] such as the one described in Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel Moby-Dick, which begins in New Bedford.

Early in Moby-Dick, Melville, who had lived there a decade earlier, describes the city at the height of its prosperity: But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors.

And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms.

So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

The NBIS building became a local courthouse, and the center of commercial activity in New Bedford moved west, where it has remained, as textiles became the city's dominant industry.

In the mid-1950s director John Huston came to town with Gregory Peck to film a scene from his adaptation of Moby-Dick in front of the Seamen's Bethel.

[1] Thirty years later, Congress passed legislation creating New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, commemorating the city's past.

[15] It included the entire historic district within its boundaries, and the park service chose the old NBIS building as its visitors' center.

Plans call for it to be used for educational purposes related to the park, with a 60-seat theater, archival space, seminar room, and similar features.