The Hensley Historical District is comprised of 250 contributing structures and 37 intrusions, configured on a street grid surveyed in 1848 by C.S. Laymen and continued by the City Surveyor, Thomas White, in 1850. It is the residential neighborhood immediately to the North of downtown San Jose. The structures constructed between 1865 and 1930 were predominantly single family residences, the majority remain so today. They represent various architectural styles, including classic revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, San Francisco Stick and mixed period revival composing a Victorian townscape. This variety accommodates the later bungalows of similar scale and mass to the older working man cottages.
Intrusions are few and of minor impact to the thematic streetscape.
The District encompasses the east side of N. 2nd Street to the west side of N. 6th Street, East Empire to East Julian. The boundary between N. 5th and N. 6th is at mid-block between E. Julian and Washington. North 2nd has 2 facing structures north of the northwest corner. The western boundary then extends only on the east side of North 2nd and Julian to East Empire. At N. 4th Street and East Empire, the boundary extends north to include one parcel on the northeast corner.