What to See & Do in Springfield MA

Exit from I-91 at State Street, go east one block to Main Street then north to the Visitor Information office between Harrison Avenue and Bridge Street to pick up a free Discovery Tour map of Springfield with all the important sights shown on it. If you can't get it at the info office, you'll find it in many other places, such as at museums and hotels. Look in the brochure racks.

Street parking is scarce in the center of Springfield—most parking is in pay lots—so you might want to drive east uphill on State Street to the Springfield Armory first. There's on-street meter parking at the top of the hill next to the Armory.

State Street is, in fact, your main sightseeing axis in Springfield: the Springfield Armory and Central Library are right on State Street. Museum Quadrangle is right behind the library just north of State Street. The Mass Mutual (Convention) Center is on State Street, and Court Square is just a half-block north along Main Street.

Just west of Court Square, the twin, huge Roman temples separated by a very tall classical tower are Springfield's City Hall and Symphony Hall. The Old First Church (1819) on the west side of the square is the latest meetinghouse for a congregation gathered in 1637.

The statue in Court Square is of William Pynchon, who led the group of Puritans who settled here in 1636, and incorporated the town five years later.

South and west of Court Square, the granite Hampden County Superior Courthouse, modeled somewhat on Venice's Palazzo Vecchio by Henry Hobson Richardson, is now used for less august judicial sessions, while the modern, beige Hampden County Hall of Justice to its west now houses the Superior Court.

Springfield Armory National Historic Site
Springfield and Garand rifles, weapons dating from the 1600s, early Gatling and other machine guns, and lots of Remingtons, Colts, and Lugers. It's thought to be the world's largest collection of such weaponry. More...

Springfield Museums
Two and a half blocks northeast of Court Square is the Springfield Central Library and Museum Quadrangle, a quartet of fine museums:

— The George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum has outstanding collections of Japanese armor, Chinese cloisonné, Islamic carpets, and European and American paintings.

— The Museum of Fine Arts has more than 20 galleries showing Field's The Rise of the American Republic, paintings by Bellows, Degas, Dufy, Feininger, Gauguin, Monet, O'Keefe, Picasso, Pissarro, Renoir, Rouault, and Vlaminck.

Bas relief above the entrance to the Museum of Fine Arts

— The Springfield Science Museum has a historic planetarium, African Hall, Dinosaur Hall, and many other exhibits.

—The Connecticut Valley Historical Museum is devoted to the decorative and domestic arts of the Connecticut River Valley from 1636 to the present. More...

At the center of the quadrangle is the Dr Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in honor of Springfield native Theodor Geisel ("Dr Seuss," 1904-1991).

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
About eight short blocks south of Court Square on the eastern shore of the Coonnecticut River is the Basketball Hall of Fame. You can't miss its dramatic architecture, and you shouldn't miss its active many-things-to-see-and-do interior if you have any interest at all in this game invented in Springfield and now popular throughout the world. You can see and do a lot here in less than an hour, but you could also spend an entire morning. More...

Eastern States Exposition
"The Big E," held each year during the last two weeks of September in the midst of foliage season, is New England's largest state fair. The fairgrounds are on Memorial Avenue (MA Route 147) in West Springfield, only a short ride from Court Square. More...

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