Former Chemical Compound Has Deep History

From Dave Brigham:

This is the third and final post in my short series about former industrial properties in Waltham, Mass. As with the other two (see here and here), the former Atlas Chemical Company factory is a place I'd been past countless times without thinking about shooting photos and doing some research.

Located on one-way Calvary Street, across from a large Catholic cemetery, with its backside facing the Charles River and a multi-use path that I've walked and jogged along on dozens of occasions, this property isn't as large as the former Boston Manufacturing Company and Waltham Watch Factory sites I wrote about previously. But the site has an industrial history stretching back roughly 140 years.

As with those companies, Atlas Chemical came into being in the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution rolled across America. From MACRIS: "The Atlas Chemical Co. was founded by H.B. & W.O. Chamberlain in the early 1880's. The firm manufactured sulphuret of antimony, a chemical used in the making of rubber. The founding and rapid growth of the Hood Rubber Co. in Watertown led to significant growth in the business of the Atlas Chemical Co. (I will talk about the former rubber plant in a future post about East Watertown). After this time, about 1930, the plant was vacated and remained so for most of the decade. Before World War II the R.B. Lados Co. (fertilizer manufacturers) and the Davenport Abrasives Corp. took over the factory."

In more recent years, the buildings were occupied by various industrial operations, including manufacturers of chemicals, woolens, machine tools, and screw machine products, per MACRIS. Today, the buildings house a handful of transportation companies (JSC Transportation, Veterans Taxi and Harrison Global) and other businesses.

The site is also home to Apex Centerless Grinding, as seen in the photo above.

This small complex is located across the Charles River from the River City Plaza, home of Shaw's grocery store, Ocean State Job Lot and several smaller businesses. That site has quite the industrial past, as well.

River City Plaza is the site of former Waltham Cotton and Wool Company, according to a Waltham Land Trust article I found online. "Incorporated in 1812, the factory employed over 200 workers. In 1818, a larger mill was built next to the Cotton and Wool Company, which became the Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works."

This area of Waltham is still referred to as the Bleachery. This is a business that you just know was horrible for the environment, especially the adjacent river. "The Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works remained in business until 1951 when the buildings were taken over by Raytheon," per a Waltham Museum article. Founded in nearby Cambridge in 1922, Raytheon built death rays and weather-changing supercolliders at its Waltham property. Seriously, though, the defense contractor built everything from missile-guidance systems and magnetron tubes to microwaves. I knew that the company's former campus sprawled across sites on the north side of Pleasant Street in Watertown (which becomes River Street in Waltham), but I didn't know that River City Plaza was part of its operations as well.

For more on the former Raytheon site, check out April 17, 2021, "The Honey Hole."

Prior to the doomsday, cotton and bleachery businesses, there was a paper mill on this site, constructed in 1794 by Christopher Gore, who also built a dam on the site, according to the web site for Gore Place.

Restaurant in Classic Waltham Building Plans to Reopen Soon

From Dave Brigham:

This brick building in downtown Waltham, Mass., hard by the commuter train tracks and across Moody Street from the wonderfully restored Boston Manufacturing Co. mill complex, dates to the late 1880s (stay tuned for a future post about the mill buildings). Now home to Italian restaurant Stazione di Federal (but temporarily closed due to a fire last year that occurred not long after the grand opening), this place has an interesting history, as with just about any commercial property more than 50 years old.

Prior to Stazione, this restaurant space was filled by Biagio Ristorante & Bar for 18 years. In May 2019, Biagio's owners announced they'd sold to the owners of Waltham's The Federal, a steakhouse located close to Route 128 in a relatively new development.

Prior to construction of this building, the site was a coal yard, per MACRIS, owned by Hamblin Hovey and then G.F. Frost (for more about Hovey, see November 9, 2016, "Brigham in Waltham, Part I"). According to MACRIS, in 1921, "Benjamin Wolk moved his pattern shop to the second floor of the building; later it also housed his wholesale plumbing supply business. His success enabled him to purchase the Hobbs Machine Shop on Felton St., and to move both commercial and industrial businesses to the new locations.

I'm not sure what, if anything, was here between the pattern shop/plumbing business/machine shop and Biagio's restaurant.

The restaurant's owners indicated in April that they hope to reopen in May after finishing post-fire renovations.

Waltham Water Works Has Gone to the Dogs

From Dave Brigham:

Nearly 100 years before Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, the powers-that-be in Waltham, Mass., put the letters "WWW" to good use, on their waterworks facility on Felton Street. Built in 1894, this solid brick edifice is, according to MACRIS, known historically as the Waltham Water Works Shop, and commonly as the Waltham Dog Pound (!). There was a pipeyard in the rear, overlooking what at the time were the Boston & Maine Railroad tracks. Now those tracks are used by the MBTA's commuter trains, and possibly the occasional freight train. Per Wikipedia: "The main floor, which housed offices, space for carriages, and stalls for six horses, was constructed of concrete and iron. The upper floor housed storage as well as hay and fodder for the stabled horses."

The attendant garage, as you can see in the photo below, dates to 1922.

From some time in the 1980s, into 2003, the main building was converted to use as the city's dog pound. The facility has also been used through the years as a warming center during winter, serving homeless people, those with mental illness and folks who are unable to get into other shelters due to drug addiction, according to this Wicked Local article.

Nowadays, the place appears to be moldering before the city's very eyes, which is sad, because it has good bones, a great location and a cool history. In 2008, the Waltham Historical Society submitted an application for Community Preservation Act funding to clean up the water works building for use as a new headquarters. The society didn't get that project off the ground, likely for financial reasons. The City has put the lease on the building out to bid since that time, to no avail, according to this Wicked Local article. It's possible the city uses these buildings for storage of some sort, but the main property's rough shape makes me doubt it.

Here's hoping somebody figures out how to reimagine this place.