Pioneering in Leominster

From Dave Brigham:

Let's get this out of the way, for any non-New England readers: the Massachusetts town I am briefly profiling in this post is pronounced "Le-mu-nster," not "Leo-minster." And for those across the pond, feel free to stick with your "Lem-stuh" pronunciation, since the settlers borrowed the name from the English town in Herefordshire (don't ask me how to pronounce that...).

One other piece of business before I get to the good stuff: I made only a quick visit to Leominster, and plan to return to cover more of Worcester County's second-largest city.

Known as the Pioneer Plastics City, Leominster is the birthplace of the pink flamingo lawn ornament. I learned about this a few decades ago when I worked as a proofreader at an accounting firm, where one of the clients was a guy named Don Featherstone, the artist who created the whimsical decoration while working for Union Products.

I was happy to see that crosswalks in downtown Leominster feature pink flamingos at each end.

I skirt the northeastern part of Leominster on my way to and from New Hampshire to play music with friends a few times a year. Located about 20 miles due north of Worcester, Leominster was at one time filled with manufacturers of all sorts, making paper, pianos, combs, sunglasses and Tupperware products.

This post focuses on the city's downtown. I will seek out the industrial zones somewhere down the line.

My first stop was the old brick building housing Brady's, a restaurant, bar and event facility on Mechanic Street.

MACRIS has nothing on this place, but the Brady's web site indicates that the nicely restored building "has served as a furniture factory, hardware store and even Leominster’s Post Office in the early-1900s!" I can't make out the ghost signs in either of these photos.

Right around the corner on Water Street is a somewhat odd-looking diner (for reasons explained below) that's 75 years old.

Tim's Diner was manufactured in 1949 by Silk City Diners, a division of the Paterson Wagon Company of Paterson, New Jersey. According to the Roadside Architecture blog, this is the diner's original location, although it was originally known as Roy's.

"In 1953, Tim Kamataris Sr. purchased the diner from [the original owner] and rechristened the business 'Tim’s Diner'," according to this Diner Hotline Weblog post. In the early 1980s, there were two accidents in a short span of time that damaged the diner. "The original factory-built entryway was destroyed along with the stainless steel facade under the front windows being damaged beyond repair," per the article. "Tim Kamataris Sr. made the decision to replace the entryway and facade under all the windows along the front and right side of the diner with brick. Ironically, a second car accident hit the front wall again within a fairly short time after the damage was repaired from the first accident, this time to the right of the new entryway."

Long story, short: after many years of featuring a brick facade, the owner (now Tim Jr.) was able to use grants from the City of Leominster to restore the diner to "a reasonable facsimile to the way it originally looked."

Along Water Street, I shot the backside of Tilton & Cook Marketplace, which calls itself "the largest indoor new and used good marketplace in Massachusetts."

I haven't found anything online about the building. I like the old alarm rusting down the wall.

At this point, I doubled back and headed north to check out an amazing old train depot on Merriam Avenue.

Built in 1878 by the Fitchburg and Worcester Railroad, the Gothic Revival stunner features a 75-foot central tower and loads of wonderful details.

The old depot is currently home to Russell's Liquors.

Along Main Street, I saw the Christian Life Center and thought, "That used to be something else - probably a theater."

"Opened January 8, 1923, the Rialto Theater was one of at least three classic movie theaters in this Massachusetts city," according to Cinema Treasures. "Although the exterior clearly suggests this building’s former use as a movie theater, the interior seems to have been gutted and put to other uses. It now serves as the home of the Christian Life Center. The entranceway reveals what was part of the original entrance/lobby area, and ceiling details remain intact."

The architects of the theater were Funk & Wilcox, according to this post at the Boschen blog, which offers "Quick fun random stuff regarding classic movie theaters, Drive-in Theaters, film history, and related projects" that the author does. "Funk and Wilcox designed many buildings throughout Massachusetts including several theaters such as the Ware Theatre in Beverly and the Strand and Franklin Park Theaters in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston," per the blog post.

The Rialto closed in the 1950s.

I headed southwest on Main Street, and while I saw many great buildings, the light and shadows were difficult, so I only shot two of them. The first is the Foster Building, which was built in 1874.

The second is the Wood Block, which dates to 1890.

I continued on to Union Street, where I saw a nice for a place that's unfortunately out of business.

I don't know when the Farmers Exchange opened or closed for business. Around the corner on Central Street is a much newer sign for an exchange of a different sort.

Bitcoin Ben's is an outlet of a company that I believe is based in Sarasota, Florida. "One of the goals of Bitcoin Ben’s Crypto Club is showing and utilizing the decentralized shareable economy experience," per the web site. "We want to increase awareness of cryptocurrency, blockchain and related technology."

I don't normally take signs of places like that, but I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of the old Farmers Exchange sign, indicative of a fading economy, with the bitcoin joint, which may be the future of commerce.

Here's hoping I can get back to Leominster soon!

Jalopies in the Landlocked Forest

From Dave Brigham:

I really need to keep better track of where I get leads for this blog. At some point in the last several months, I read about a place called the Landlocked Forest in Burlington, Mass. I can tell you that I saw somebody's photos on Flickr featuring junked cars in the wooded expanse, and that's what convinced me to visit.

The conservation area is located on the border with neighboring Lexington. I parked in the small lot along Turning Mill Road, not far from an old paint mine I explored several years before (see September 2, 2014, "Make Mine Paint").

Along the power line trail leading to the forest, I met a distressed ursas arctos.

Once I got in the forest, I spent approximately 98% of my time and 87% of my energy swatting away bugs of all sorts - mosquitos, flies, gnats, you name it. I had a general idea of where the rusted-out jalopies were, so I followed my instincts as I headed north through the trees. After a while, I came across some extremely rusty something-or-others.

While the Friends of the Burlington Landlocked Forest indicates on its web site that there is within the woods a stone foundation from a home dating to the 1700s, I didn't see it. And I have no idea what the rusted metal in the photos above might have been. Part of an old shed, perhaps?

I kept chugging along, heading east until I was close to Route 3. I'd seen a mama deer, thanks to a heads-up from a passing mountain biker, but not much else of interest. I turned back to the west, swatting away bugs all the while, trying to make sense of Google Maps as I wandered. I got close to a residential development at one point, so had to head a little more south. I hit a few dead ends and was starting to get a little frustrated when -- AHA!!

I don't know what kind of car that is, nor can I identify either of the other two show below.

So why are there cars strewn across the wooded landscape in the middle of a lovely hiking and biking oasis?

Until the 1950s, at least some of the forested land was privately owned. There was, I assume, at least one road here, a throughway where at some point a few cars broke down or were stolen and abandoned. In the '50s, the state extended Route 3 south through Burlington and "owners of the property within the Landlocked Forest were compensated by the State because they were now unable to access their land," according to the Friends of the Burlington Landlocked Forest web site.

In the ensuing decades, the property owners petitioned the state legislature to permit access to the land from Route 3, but each time they were denied. In the late 1980s, the Town of Burlington took the property by eminent domain and created the conservation area.

I hope to return to the Landlocked Forest this fall or winter, when I can enjoy an insect-free walk.

To see more junked cars in the woods, check out the links below:

March 30, 2024, "Finding the Fascinating Ford's Folly"

August 30, 2016, "The Tavern of Death"

April 2, 2010, "Time Capsule Car"

The Shire of Worcester, Part the Fifth

From Dave Brigham:

Welcome back to Woo Town!!

Today's post concerns a relatively small triangle of South Worcester, between the Main South and Hadwen Park neighborhoods. I started at Breen's Cafe, an Irish bar located at 16 Cambridge Street that gets strong online reviews, is located in a cool building and has not one but two great signs.

Established in 1934, Breen's is known for its steak and cheese sandwich.

From there, I made my way southwest along Webster Street, skirting a two-car accident attended by police and EMTs at the intersection with Mill Street (not too serious-looking). I passed a handsome old firehouse and a few non-descript industrial buildings before finding some photo-worthy stuff.

Buildings flanking Webster Street were originally part of the Spencer Wire Company, and were built in the late-18th century and early 19th.

"The Spencer Wire Company, which began in [nearby] Spencer...in the early 19th century, built a new wire manufacturing complex on Webster Street...at the turn of the century," according to MACRIS. "This property's proximity to the Boston & Albany Railroad was a definite draw for a company seeking to expand the market for their product. The initial wire mill buildings were erected on the NE corner of Webster and Jacques Sts. in 1899; new buildings were added to (or, in a few cases, purchased for) this expanding complex over the next two decades.

"Mergers in 1918 and 1919 created the Wickwire-Spencer Steel Co., with headquarters in Buffalo, N.Y. The Webster Street plant, known as the Goddard Works, was closed in 1944 and sold to the Handy Pad Surgical Supply Company, which occupied much of the former wire-manufacturing complex in the 1940s-70s."

I wrote about Wickwire-Spencer in my post detailing my second visit to Clinton, Mass. (see August 5, 2023, "Clinton Redux: Mills and Industrial Sites").

As you can tell from the photos, there are numerous small businesses and organizations here, including New Star Bodywork, offering Chinese bodywork; Gold Star, Inc.,a builder; Austin Furniture; and Rae Town Missionary Church of Jesus Christ Mount Zion.

Around the corner on Jacques Street, I really liked the mural on the garage door of New England Engine & Parts Warehouse.

Heading south on Webster Street, next to the train tracks, is Worcester Chemical Distribution Corp., which is located in another former Spencer Wire building.

I continued on for a few minutes until I hit Hope Cemetery, where my eyes jumped out of my head when I saw the circa-1889 barn at the northwest corner of the burial ground.

"The barn, which replaced the earlier structure of 1876, retains its architectural integrity," according to MACRIS. "It is a fine Stick Style structure, characterized by its verticality, angularity, steeply pitched roof and cupola, and overhanging eaves which are pierced with dormers. The Queen Anne Style is seen in the shaped shingles on the second floor which wrap around the corners of the structure."

I made only one other photo here, of the H.H. King-Harding mausoleum, which dates to 1898.

I doubled back and headed east on Fremont Street, which is lined with old industrial buildings.

"David Gessner Machine Company...was started by David Gessner in 1882 on Union Street in Worcester and moved to this site in 1907 to expand the business of manufacturing cloth fInishing machinery," according to MACRIS. As of that report in 2001, the company was still in business. It is no longer a going concern. In 2019, real estate developer Norfolk Realty acquired the site for $1.2 million, according to this Worcester Business Journal article.

The property appeared to be vacant when I happened by.

Across the street is the former Worcester Bleach and Dye Works, which was most recently occupied by Valkyrie Company, a manufacturer of leather goods.

From MACRIS: "The Worcester Bleach & Dye Works was established in the mid 19th c. for the bleaching and dyeing of thread and yard. In 1888, Worcester Bleach & Dye Works moved from Grove Street to a (no longer extant) 2-story, wood-frame building at 61 Fremont Street. The plant was enlarged in 1909 with the construction of this brick building at 60 Fremont Street. The company occupied these two buildings until the mid-1930s. This building was subsequently occupied by the Economic Machinery Co. (labeling machine manufacturers) from 1944 to 1962, and by the Capitol Footwear Co. from 1968 to 1985."

Continuing east-northeast on Fremont, I crossed the street to check out a gate offering a view to the railroad tracks beyond.

The gate is marked "CF," which may have been for Consolidated Freightways, trucking company that "[a]t its height...possessed over 350 terminals, employing more than 15,000 truck drivers, dock workers, dispatchers and management," per Wikipedia.

The building next to this gate, currently home to Plastek Polybag, was originally a foundry operated by Fremont Casting Co., per MACRIS. This building was adjacent to the Worcester Consolidated Street Railway Power House, which has been demolished.

(Lovely scene at Plastek Polybag.)

To wrap up, I made my way to Cambridge Street, to the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center. There, a very faint, partial ghost sign caught my eye.

I can make out the word "PLACE" but not what comes before it. This building at 72 Cambridge Street rose in 1907 for the Reed & Prince Manufacturing Company, which was a tack manufacturing business. A subsequent business, Reed & Prince Screw Company, was located here more recently.

Below are links to the previous four installments in my ongoing Worcester series.

April 13, 2024, "The Shire of Worcester, Part the Fourth"

February 10, 2024, "The Shire of Worcester, Part the Third"

February 3, 2024, "The Shire of Worcester, Part the Second"

January 27, 2024, "The Shire of Worcester, Part the First"