The Hathaway Tenement is located just northwest of central North Adams, on the north side of River Street just west of its junction with Loftus Street. It is a long two-story wood-frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior. It consists of six rowhouses, each three bays wide, with entrances set in pairs under gable-roofed porches. Windows are one-over-one sash, with most set singly in rectangular openings. In one of the central units, one bay of windows has been sided over. The styling is basically a vernacular Greek Revival, with flat cornerboards and short returns on the building's gable ends.^[2]

The building dates to the first period of industrialization in North Adams: River Street was laid out in 1836, and over the next decade, ten mills were built along the opposite banks of the Hoosac River. The building is named for Nathaniel Hathaway, one of the mill proprietors, and is one of two identical buildings that are among the worker housing units they built. (The other building originally stood next door, was extensively altered in the 20th century, and has subsequently been demolished.) When Hathaway retired from the mill partnership, he and his wife occupied one of the units in this building. It was later owned by another mill proprietor, T.F. Loftus, who probably added the porches and made other alterations.^[2]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Berkshire County, Massachusetts