Union Square, Somerville, Part II: Factories and Housing

From Dave Brigham:

A preface to this series: most of my explorations of Union Square took place several months ago, and some things may have changed in the interim. Also, as much as I've researched Union Square and the changes that have already taken place and those that are coming, I realize that a few walks through the neighborhood and some poking around online can't match the breadth of knowledge earned by folks who live and work in Union Square. I'm just sharing what I saw and what I think.

Hello, and welcome to the second installment of my five-part series on Union Square in Somerville, Mass. The first part -- Union Square, Part I: New Purposes & Grease Monkeys -- covered auto body shops, murals, repurposed buildings, an egregious architectural gaffe and more. In this segment, I will discuss former factories and related housing, including a former industrial space that is now a very cool residence, as well as some rather large and beautiful rooming house/condominium buildings.

Somerville is still a place where people manufacture things (at places including Artisan's Asylum, which I'll mention again below, Bomas Machine Specialties and Peter Forg Manufacturing, the latter of which I'll also get to later) but the city at one time was jammed full of industrial spaces.

In the 1820s, the first "significant industrial complex," the Middlesex Bleachery and Dye Works, moved to Somerville, according to this economic development overview from Wicked Local. The Fitchburg Railroad came to the city in the 1840s and a decade later companies including American Tube Works (about which much, much more below) and Union Square Glass had sprung up. By the 1860s and 1870s, meat packing at an industrial level was thriving in Somerville. These businesses continued to grow into the 20th century. From the 1920s through the 1950s, Ford Motor Co. operated a plant in Assembly Square, which over the last few years has been totally transformed (see January 30, 2019, "Assembly Required").

As in countless industry-heavy cities across the country, since the 1950s many of the manufacturing jobs in Somerville have vaporized. In more recent years, the massive brick buildings in many such cities have either been torn down, left abandoned or, if the right combination of funding, planning, zoning and moxie are achieved, been converted to other uses, ranging from condos to space for tech start-ups, breweries, rock climbing gyms and much more. Union Square is abuzz with new uses for most of its former industrial space, I'm happy to report.

Alright, let's get to it.

American Tube Works was once a dominating force in Union Square. Founded in 1851, the company, which manufactured seamless brass and copper tubes, at its height controlled 20 buildings along Somerville Avenue, Dane Street and Lake Street.

"[B]y 1865 [American Tube Works] was the second largest employer in Somerville with 175 employees and a production output of $1.2 million worth of brass and copper tubing....By the 1880s, the American Tube Works expanded its production and its plant in Somerville to meet the growing demand for domestic pipes," per the City of Somerville's National Register Proposal for the American Tube Works Complex, dated December 1, 2014.

"Increasing urbanization in the post-Civil War years and a growing sense of the importance of sanitation systems led to an increased demand for plumbing and other domestic fixtures....The growth experienced by the company in the early 20th century allowed them to completely rebuild their production plant. All of the original buildings...were demolished. Beginning in 1890 and continuing until at least 1920, they completely rebuilt the complex and modernized their production facilities....[T]hey acquired all the land between Dane Street, Somerville Avenue, Church Street, and the railroad tracks, with the exception of the City’s cemetery. Residential buildings were demolished. Between 1900 and ca. 1920, the company constructed four large drawing mills, a rolling mill, a foundry, and pattern and blacksmith shops, all arranged around three sides of the cemetery."

There are only seven of the second-generation buildings left, some of which I will now discuss.

440 Somerville Ave. was the administrative office for the tubing manufacturer.

Now this building is home to Be in Union Yoga and Union Press, a letterpress print shop. Enlarge this photo of the side of 440 Somerville Ave. and you can see the date of "1913" carved in stone over the door in the middle of the shot.

444 Somerville Avenue was the drawing mill at Tube Works. I don't have a picture of this building.

460 Somerville Avenue was American Tube Works' rolling and drawing mill. It is now an ExtraSpace Storage facility.

438R-440R Somerville Avenue was where the blacksmith/machine/pattern shops were located.

Above is 438R Somerville, which is now home to the Little India Market. Below is a close-up of one of the partially covered mural portraits on the front of the building.

My first guess was that this guy is a boxer, as he looks tough and stripped to the waist. Turns out I was right. Per a Somerville News blog post from June 2010 about Little India taking over this space, previous tenants at this old tube works building include a paper supply store and a boxing club - the aptly named Somerville Boxing Club. I' not sure, but I believe the man in the portrait is John Ruiz, who trained at the club and was WBA heavyweight champ in 2001 and 2005. I'm not sure who painted the portraits or why they are covered up.

Below is the backside of 440R Somerville Ave., former home of American Tube Works blacksmith/machine/pattern shops.

The building is now home to Cambridge Hackspace, a makerspace catering to "software, electronics, woodwork, or knitting" enthusiasts, per the web site.

Another business in this old mill complex is Boss Organ, which repairs and sells new and vintage Hammond organs and Leslie speakers. The joint has been run by Tyler Drabick since 2005.

Below is the boneyard referenced in the City of Somerville's National Register Proposal text above.

Known as the Old Cemetery and Milk Row Cemetery, this burial ground is the oldest in Somerville, dating to 1804, and is in front of Little India and adjacent to the yoga studio.

The Tube Works complex also included 24 Dane Street, below, which was a boiler house.

This building was most recently home to a law firm.

The final building in the old manufacturing area is 40 Lake Street, which was a warehouse and garage.

Built in 1912, this place is now home to HD Chasen Company, a wholesale distributor of industrial machinery and equipment. Below is a view from the other side of the railroad tracks.

After American Tube Works went out of business during the Great Depression, various businesses moved in over the ensuing decades, with some of the buildings used by the Whiting Milk Company, for a time, according to the web site of advocacy group Union Square Neighbors (USN). Other tenants over the years have included a metal fence manufacturer, paper retailer, a plumbing supply company, a printer, multiple auto repair shops, self-storage and other commercial offices, per USN. In October 2015, clean tech incubator Greentown Labs announced an $11 million expansion into one of the old Tube Works buildings. I believe the American Tube Works complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ames Safety Envelope was another, more recent major employer in this area. The company, which used at least one former Tube Works building during its lifetime, was founded in 1919. Ames made envelopes, file folders and boxes at its Union Square location until 2010, when the company was acquired by Tab Products, which integrated the Ames work into a Wisconsin facility.

After renovations, this complex is now known as Ames Business Park, which has become "the entrepreneurial epicenter of Somerville," per this August 2014 Boston Globe article. Businesses located here now include Aeronaut Brewing, Artisan's Asylum, Harvard Book Store, L3 Open Water Power and Somerville Chocolate.

Looking down an alley at Ames Business Park toward Aeronaut Brewing. On the left is Brooklyn Boulders.

Another building in Ames Business Park.

Just on the other side of the train tracks sits Peter Forg Manufacturing.

Founded in 1881, the company makes custom metal stampings. Below is the back of the building.

Just around the bend from the rear of Forg Manufacturing, on Village Street, sits this funky brick building.

I could tell it had undergone some major renovations and had morphed from a warehouse or small factory building into a private home. But on my first trip past here, I somehow missed the coolest feature of the exterior. It wasn't until I was doing some research about this place and looking at Google Street View that I realized I needed to get my ass back there pronto!

Turns out this place is a former bronze foundry. Architect Adele Naude Santos turned a place that once was filled with fire, boiling hot metal and tools of all sorts into an amazing abode/work space in this slice of Union Square known as Duck Village. To see beautiful photos of just what an astounding transformation was made, inside and out, check out this page on the Santos Prescott and Associates web site.

Following Village Street across Dane Street, I found myself looking at the back of an odd-shaped and uniquely colored building on Dane Avenue.

Currently occupied, at least in part, by wholesale flooring products distributor L. Bornstein & Co., Inc., this building has two sections, one built in 1900, the other in 1935. The current tenant was founded in 1959. I don't know what used to be here.

There are surely other former industrial sites in Union Square that I missed, but there's one place that, when I took a picture of it, I didn't realize it had a history as a work space. Frankly, I had no idea what the heck this place is or was.

Located at 24 Webster Avenue, this place flummoxed me when I searched online for information. I thought maybe it was a post office. Folks who commented when I posted on Instagram guessed a bank or a Moose Lodge.

So via email I sought out Jessica Eshleman, executive director of Union Square Main Streets, an advocacy group that highlights the artistic and ethnic strengths of the neighborhood in order to drive commercial and economic development, per the group's web site.

She passed along information from the owner of the building in question, Marc Rudnick. The building "was the girls’ parochial school of Saint Joe’s church across the street, until it was converted into a factory around 1960. The school closed when the new parochial school was built, which is now the Prospect Hill Academy Charter School. The boys school was around the corner on Washington Street."

Never in a million years would I have guessed that's what this building was. Via email, I asked Rudnick what the long-term plans are for the building, given the changes coming to the Square. "At least for the time being we are committed to our artisan tenants, our long-term plans are somewhat unknown." His tenants include woodworkers, a boat builder, a bookbinder, an upholsterer, other artisans and tradespeople.

"So what sort of factory was this after the girls' school moved?" I asked via email. "The earliest businesses there seems to have been a sand candle factory, and an African import business," Rudnick wrote. "There was also a business selling self-hypnosis lessons! Sometime later the building was bought by a woodworking company, and my innovation contracting business was his tenant, until we bought the building from him in the 90s."

All of the work I do here at the Backside of America is informed by my past life as a journalist. I am constantly curious about the built environment around me, and thanks to Google I often no longer need to wonder, or even talk to actual people to find my answers. Still, it's great to get information from primary sources. I wish I had more time to speak with people to get deeper information when I'm working on this blog.

OK, that's it for industrial spaces. Now on to some large apartment buildings in the Square that I'm guessing decades ago housed factory workers.

The apartment building below, located on Somerville Avenue, appears to me to be former factory housing.

I haven't been able to confirm that these units, part of a much larger building that is directly opposite the former American Tube Works facility, were once populated by workers at the complex. I just have a hunch. The properties date to at least 1900.

Heading southeast on Somerville Ave. toward the square I found this beautiful building.

Built in 1892, the Bennett Block was constructed in the Queen Anne style. I haven't found anything confirming my belief that this place was once home to factory workers; current tenants include a preschool and, incongruously, a smoke shop.

Just up the street sits another amazing Queen Anne-style apartment building, this one much bigger.

This is just a small portion of a V-shaped building that fronts both Somerville Avenue and Bow Street. Built in 1898, the Drouet Block was designed by Aaron Gould and featured retail space and an apartment-style hotel, per Wikipedia. That description gives me some hope that my supposition that some of these stately old buildings once housed factory workers for American Tube Works and Ames Envelope.

Around the bend on Bow Street sits the Richmond.

Now home to Mount Auburn Healthcare, 33 Bow Street was also built in 1898, per Wikipedia, and, like the Drouet, featured commercial and apartment/hotel space.

Damn, is that place gorgeous, or what?

Lastly, around the corner from these Queen Anne-style buildings, on Bow Street, I spied something pleasantly different.

Located at 39-49 Bow Street, this rounded brick stunner was built in 1910 and features 18 one-bedroom apartments. Again, I haven't found much about the building's history, but, well, you know what I think.

OK, stay tuned for part three, in which I will feature social clubs, bars, restaurants, coffee shops and more.