Carl Fehmer's massive Renaissance Revival block for the Boylston Market Association replaced an earlier market house by Charles Bulfinch. The Continental Clothing Company, a large retail firm in close proximity to several rail lines and the garment district, originally occupied most of this severe, imposing Nova Scotia sandstone building. The architects for its 1987 adaptive reuse as the China Trade Building created a multistoried atrium with balconies and stairways surrounding the exposed cast-iron columns.

Behind this block, near Tremont Street, stands the former Young Men's Christian Union Building. Now shorn of its tower, the ornate structure survives as the last of three Venetian Gothic buildings that stood at the intersection of Tremont and Boylston streets.