Set at a prominent corner, St. James claims landmark status through its flamboyant polychromy of brick-trimmed stonework and its complex massing. New York architect Henry H. Condon provided the designs for a permanent building for this church, founded in 1864. A Latin cross plan broadened by wide aisles, the church is somewhat suggestive of H. H. Richardson's Romanesque Revival Trinity Church in Boston (
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), in its square tower and pyramidal massing. The adjacent North Cambridge Fire Station (1896, 2029 Massachusetts Avenue), a restrained but lively Renaissance Revival exercise in red brick by Aaron H. Gould, reinforces this urban node.