Way Down Yonder in Pawtucket, Part II

From Dave Brigham:

I ended my first post about Pawtucket by discussing a metal sculpture of Rev. William Blackstone, who is considered Rhode Island's first permanent English settler (see October 23, 2026, "Way Down Yonder in Pawtucket, Part I"). This second installment begins with a photo I made while crossing the river named for the minister, along the Morris Nathanson Bridge.

This is the former George H. Fuller & Son factory building. Located at 151 Exchange Street, the mill was once a hub for making parts for jewelry, including clasps and hooks, according to a Valley Breeze article I found online. According to the City of Pawtucket web site, the city has 300 diversified industries, with the three largest being jewelry and silverware, metals and textiles. I mentioned a few former jewelry makers in the first Pawtucket post.

The Fuller building dates to the 1880s. In 2020, the Pawtucket Planning Commission approved a revised plan by a developer to revitalize the old mill. The plan called for converting the building to 22 apartments. While other old mill buildings in this neighborhood have been switched over to residential or commercial use, I'm uncertain whether the Fuller plan has been put into effect.

Across Exchange Court from the old Fuller factory is another former industrial site that's been beautifully restored. I only shot the rear of the building, because I love the contrast between the old and new.

Known as the Design Exchange, this four-story brick building was previously part of the Rhode Island Cardboard Company complex constructed in 1880, per the web site for LLB Architects, the firm behind the redesign. The building was so named "for its focus on attracting creative enterprises," the web site continues. The architecture firm has its office in the building.

Across Exchange Street is the former Pawtucket Armory.

Completed in 1895, the armory is "composed of two distinct sections: a 3 1/2-story, rectangular main block facing Exchange Street, and a 140-foot by 80-foot gable-roofed drill hall which stretches along Fountain Street," per Art in Ruins. For decades, this place was witness to all sorts of, you know, armory-related stuff. From 2005 to 2010, after a renovation, the armory housed the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts. It is currently home to the Pawtucket Armory Arts Center.

The armory's eastern neighbor is the one-time home of the John W. Little Co., a label and printing business founded in the early 1900s.

The building dates to 1914. Screen printing and embroidery company Mirror Image is now located here.

Around the corner, heading north on Broadway, is Division Brakes, part of a small local chain in business since 1984.

The building dates to 1917. I love the look of the building and the sign.

From here, I headed southwest on Broadway, where I was quite taken by the look of #139.

This funky building was once the carriage house for the Metcalf Mansion, which was built in 1880 next door and burned down a century later. The mansion was built for Henry B. Metcalf, a Boston-born politician and businessman "who served as the Prohibition Party's gubernatorial candidate thrice and vice presidential nominee in 1900," per Wikipedia.

Metcalf "helped to form the Boston Button Company as the firm's senior partner and in 1874 he moved to Rhode Island where he established the Pawtucket Haircloth Company," Wikipedia continues. "He later formed the Campbell Machine Company in Boston which made machinery to make shoes. He later served as a Trustee of Tufts College and also as President of the Trustees of Tufts College." He died in 1904.

In more recent years, a storefront was added to the carriage house. I'm not sure whether this is a residence or a business at this point.

While I often focus on buildings from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and signs and business dating back many decades, every once in a while my attention is captured by something a bit more modern...and quite confusing.

As I bopped along Broadway, past a stately old church to my left and while enjoying the view across a park of the Blackstone River and downtown Pawtucket, I couldn't help steering my eyes up and to the left.

What the hell am I looking at? I wondered.

Does Pawtucket have an ancient pyramid? A modern megachurch? Or perhaps the ruins of an homage to the Eiffel Tower?

No, no and no. This is what's left of the former Apex Department Store. Developed in the late 1960s on a site that was once several dense urban blocks, the store featured a ziggurat -- a lofty pyramidal structure built in successive stages -- with the name Apex emblazoned on the front. Backing up to Interstate 95, the store had a large parking lot and was in business here until sometime in the early 2000s.

In 2004, the Division of Motor Vehicles, Pawtucket branch, moved into half of the Apex space and stayed there until 2010, per Art in Ruins. Apex still owned the property, and the company's CEO announced a redevelopment plan shortly after the DMV vacated the site. A restaurant, Cresta Bar & Ristorante, moved in 2011 and closed in 2015. No other tenants were located here, as far as I've found.

In 2018, the Boston Red Sox Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket considered building a new stadium on this site. But that didn't happen. The City of Pawtucket acquired the site in 2021. In August 2026, several proposals to redevelop the site were published by the Providence Journal.

Let's return to that enjoyable view across the Blackstone River from where I shot my first Apex photo.

The buildings in the distance make up Slater Mill, which in 1793 became the first successful water-powered cotton spinning mill in the United States and the first property to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, in November 1966, according to the National Park Service's web site for the complex.

Moses Brown formed a company where machines could spin cotton fiber into thread, but he needed better equipment. "In December 1789, Brown hired Samuel Slater, a recent immigrant from England," per the NPS write-up. "Slater had spent the past seven years working in an English textile mill. He rose from an apprentice to an overseer of machinery and mill construction. Slater determined that Brown’s existing machines would not work. New machines that could card (brush) and spin the cotton would need to be made locally. For several years, Slater worked with local mechanics, like members of the Wilkinson Family, to make new machines. In December 1790, Slater got the machines running. For the first time, workers could produce thread on water powered machines in America.

"In 1793 the firm of Almy, Brown and Slater replaced their experimental workshop with a new mill," seen in the photo above.

I walked a bit more before looping back to Main Street, across from Still on Main, which I wrote about in the first Pawtucket post. On the corner of Main and Maple streets stands the former Pacific National Bank Building, which dates to 1890.

I liked the juxtaposition between the CHECKS CASHED awning and the H&G PROFESSIONAL BUILDING clock.

At this point I made what I eventually realized was an unwise decision: to continue walking in the early-summer heat in search of a diner that I knew I had to see. If I'd really thought about it, and taken into account the fact that I'd already been wandering through Pawtucket for probably 90 minutes and my feet were tired, I would've driven. Nevertheless, I eventually got to the eatery, and found some other cool spots on my way there, and then on my return to the center of the city.

After a bit of aimless wandering, I ended up heading south on Pine Street, over I-95 and then east on Delany Street, where I came across the abandoned St. Mary's School.

Once part of the sprawling St. Mary's Church of the Immaculate Conception complex along Pine and Grace streets, the school shuttered in 2009 due to low enrollment and high costs of maintaining the building. A developer acquired the building at some point, along with a neighboring convent that was part of the parish. While the convent has been converted to condos, the school still sits empty.

The school was built in 1891. St. Mary's was the first Catholic parish in Pawtucket, and the second in Rhode Island, launching in 1830. The church ceased operations in early 2026.

I hit George Street and headed east-southeast until I connected to East Avenue, walked a short distance and gazed upon the Modern Diner.

Old mill towns used to have loads of diners, and many of these are still standing, if not always in business. So I seek them out and am always quite happy when I see one that's still slinging hash, and looking good while doing it.

"The Modern Diner is known for both its diner classics and its variety of ever-changing breakfast specials," per the eatery's web site. "The Pawtucket restaurant was chosen to be the first diner in the nation to be accepted on the National Register for Historic Places. Customized and factory-built, it is a Sterling Streamliner, a line of 'modernistic' diners manufactured in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s."

The diner "is one of the few known surviving Sterling Streamliner diner still in operation," per Wikipedia. "Its profile resembles that of a 1934 silver locomotive that once pulled the streamlined Burlington Zephyr train."

I believe the diner traded hands last year or this year, after the Demou family had owned it for nearly three decades. The diner's original location was 13 Dexter Street in Pawtucket, not far from the 125 Lofts complex I mentioned in the first post about this Rhode Island city.

While standing across the street from the diner, admiring it in all its glory, I looked down at the sidewalk and got excited. I'm sure anyone eating hash and eggs in the diner who happened to look out my way would've thought to themselves, "What the hell is that nut taking a picture of?"

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Diner Eater, here's what:

I've stumbled across other medallions like this one, in Newton and Winthrop, Massachusetts, that I can recall. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a New Deal agency that operated in the 1930s and 1940s, employing millions of job seekers (mostly men) to carry out public works projects, such as the construction of public buildings and roads. The WPA installed and repaired sidewalks in cities across America, including Pawtucket. I love that nearly 90 years later, this badge still looks great.

At this point, I started heading north, back toward downtown and my car. A short distance from the Modern Diner, I liked the look of High Motor Bar & Grille, especially the old stadium seats out front.

The place is evidently fairly new, as Google Street View from 2022 shows this place as Craft Burgers & Beer. In 2007, it was the East Avenue Cafe; in 2011, Doherty's East Avenue Irish Pub. The pub space fills the ground floor, while apartments appear to occupy the upper two floors. As for the four seats out front, I believe they came from the demolished McCoy Stadium, where the Pawtucket Red Sox played.

Continuing north on East Avenue, I dug the clean lines of Downeast Coffee Roasters.

Founded in 1953, the company is run by second and third generation family members.

Near the end of East Avenue I was charmed by an adorable brick commercial building.

The building dates to around 1920, from what I've learned online. For many years, this quaint space was home to Ferdie's Key Shop. If you zoom in on the photo, you may be able to see "EST. 1932" above the door. I think that was the date the key shop opened. Ferdie's closed in 2015; at the end of that year, Bob Parmentier, owner of AA Locksmith in neighboring Central Falls purchased his former competition, according to this Valley Breeze article.

Parmentier and his son-in-law, Josh Cournoyer, ran both key shop locations at that point. I'm guessing the shop wasn't open for all that long, as by 2022, according to Google Street View, this property was occupied by Petit Bakery. The June 2025 Street View shows a sign up for the bakery. As you can see, there's no sign now. The last Facebook post for the bakery was made on February 15, 2024. So I'm not sure what business is here now, although there was an OPEN sign hanging when I made this photo.

Steps away, at the corner of East Avenue and Grace Street, facing I-95, is the awesomely named Mr. USA 1 Hour Cleaner.

Per the dry cleaner's web site, the business has been owned and operated by the Leonard family since 1947. "You've invested a lot of thought and care into your wardrobe," the web site says. "Shouldn't you choose a reliable dry cleaner you can depend on?"

Yes you should.

I headed north across the highway along George Street and Park Place, scanning for any other cool sites before I got to my car. I intersected with Main Street, hung a left and and a quick right on to North Union Street. I loved the painted facades along the rear of what is known these days as the McDevitt Building.

Originally known as Kinyon's Block, this building in 1888 was "constructed in the Queen Anne style, with a 4-story corner tower," according to Art in Ruins. "[T]he top floor of the tower was removed and the remaining tower walls were clad in concrete in 1923 during an Art Deco-style remodeling, which also introduced opaque colored spandrel glass at the 2nd floor level of the tower (above the comer storefront at #9), a concrete door surround at the Broad Street entrance to the upper floors (#23), and added the name 'McDevitt Building' to the top of the tower and over the Broad Street main entrance."

Check out the photos in that post, as they show how beautiful the building was at the turn of last century.

Early building tenants included the YMCA, Kinyon's Commercial School (run by the building owner's son, Hervey Kinyon) and an upholstering business run by Charles Rittmann, this latter fact according to this history of the State of Rhode Island.

By 1915 the W.H. McDevitt clothing store had moved into the storefront at #25, and as of 1921 the building was re-named McDevitt’s Block, per Art in Ruins. Today, tenants include Legendary Barber Shop and In Your Skin Studio, an "adult pole & dance studio."

I continued northeast on North Union Street, across Summer Street, until I was looking at the rear of the former Feldman Furniture building that I mentioned in the first Pawtucket post.

Finally, I love a mural, as you all know. This one on the facade of the Comprehensive Community Action Program building at the corner of North Union and High streets.

CCAP is one of the largest community action programs in Rhode Island, per its web site. The organization provides family medicine and dental care; behavior health services ad substance abuse counseling; Head Start and child care; family development services; social services, WIC nutrition program; a food bank; and home heating and energy assistance.

I haven't been able to find out who painted that mural.

That's it for Pawtucket! I hope to explore more of the Ocean State in the future.

Way Down Yonder in Pawtucket, Part I

From Dave Brigham:

I apologize in advance for this, but I often feel the need to explain my headline choices:

I'll admit that before posting that video, I couldn't recall what a paw paw is. I may have known when I was a kid and had occasion to sing the song. It's a fruit.

Anyway...let's dig into Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the fourth-largest city in the smallest state in the Union. This marks only the second time I've explored any municipality of Lil' Rhody. In September 2017, I wrote about a mini-vacation my family took in Newport (see September 28, 2017, "No Yachts, No Mansions").

I covered a lot of territory back in late June, so I'm splitting this review into two parts.

But first, a note about pronunciation. I've been saying "Paw-tucket" forever, but someone I met recently who lives on the South Coast of Massachusetts corrected me. "It's "Pah-tucket," he told me. Fair enough.

I like to park near town or city halls when I explore a place. Sometimes there's free parking, and usually such a building is located in the center of the action. So, after finding my spot in the lot on Roosevelt Avenue, I headed west for a short distance along Exchange Street. I was quite taken by the mural on the side of the Graham Building.

Built sometime between 1926 and 1929, the building was likely erected by the owner of H.L. Graham & Sons, a plumbing contractor, according to the National Register of Historic Places registration form for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District.

As for the mural, it was completed by Rene Gomez for the Mental Health Stigma Campaign. "'I suffer from ADHD and I struggle with it every day. I also have an autistic son and it’s also something touching, meaningful to my heart,'" Gomez said in this NewsNation article. "'Being Hispanic, I had to put a Hispanic message up there,'" he continued. "'I grew up in a household where it wasn’t OK to cry and talk about my feelings, and that’s a stigma I would like to break.'”

"The murals also feature sign language and it’s LGBTQ-friendly because, to Gomez, it doesn’t matter who you are — mental health is mental health," the article continues. The mural program is in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Latino Arts.

Next, I cut down Montgomery Street, after getting a peek at a ghost sign.

The Times newspaper was founded in Pawtucket in 1885 as The Evening Times. "Five years later, David O. Black bought the paper, and became the first of four generations to keep it in his family," per Wikipedia. "Black commissioned a new building for the newspaper at 23 Exchange street (sic)." The building was completed in 1896, and was the home of the paper until 2019.

"In October 2023, [current owner] Triboro Massachusetts News Media announced that The Times would be merging with sister paper The Call of Woonsocket to become The Blackstone Valley Call & Times, a Monday–Saturday newspaper," Wikipedia continues.

The old newspaper headquarters, which was designed by architects William R. Walker & Son, has been vacant since 2023, I believe.

Facing the rear of the old Times building, at the corner of Summer and North Union streets, is the former Henry Arnold Livery Stable, which in more recent years was home to Feldman Furniture. Below is a ghost sign facing southeast along Summer Street (I will feature another ghost sign from this building in a follow-up post).

(Ghost sign for Sealy Mattress on side of old Feldman Furniture building.)

"Henry F. Arnold was the proprietor of the Broad Street stables in 1891, when he first appears in city directories; an advertisement boasts '37 fine livery horses, and almost every description of carriage,' available 24 hours a day," per the Art in Ruins web site, quoting from the National Register nomination for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District. For this post, and the one to follow, I relied as heavily on Art in Ruins as I do on MACRIS when writing about Massachusetts towns and cities.

"In 1892 Arnold...moved the stables to this new building...with 176 horse stalls on the ground floor and two floors of carriage storage above. The stables were accessed from North Union Street, while the three storefronts on Summer Street were occupied by various small, mostly auto-related businesses. In 1921, H.M. Arnold & Son Co. converted this building to a vehicular garage, and maintained that business until 1940. In 1945 Feldman’s Furniture Co. moved in, with retail space on Summer Street and storage on North Union...."

Check out that web site for a photo of the great Feldman's sign that used to grace this building. When I was in the city, there appeared to be construction under way at this site, likely for condos.

Next I headed north-northwest on Summer Street, where I immediately spotted another great mural on the side of 28 Summer Street.

This work features Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Enslaved as a child, Wheatley was emancipated by the Wheatley family of Boston shortly after her book was published in 1773. I have referred to Wheatley before, in a post about Boston's Chinatown neighborhood where a plaque honors her memory.

This mural was painted by Lee Adam Beard, an artist who goes by Soems. This mural and two that I will showcase below, as well as others in the downtown, all feature farmous Black people from history, per this article on the Valley Breeze web site. Developer Leslie Moore spearheaded the project on various buildings she owns.

Just up the street, at 3 Exchange Street, is a wildly colorful depiction of a peacock.

The mural on the side of the Beswick Building was created by local artist Charles Clear, according to this Valley Breeze article. As for the Beswick, it was completed in 1891 "for Frances Beswick, widow of a saloon keeper and brewer who lived on the opposite comer of Exchange and Summer Streets in the early 1890s," according to this Art In Ruins article.

The building has suffered two fires in its lifetime and has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Developers have announced plans to renovate the place. I'm not sure of the status of that project.

Next, I made my way southeast on Main Street, where I was pleasantly surprised by two more Soems works of art.

This mural features William Grant Still, a composer born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. He composed nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works, per Wikipedia. This work is located on the side of the Still on Main, a group of shops with the motto, "Eat. Shop. Vibe."

The building is known historically as the W.T. Grant Building. Grant's was a department store chain founded in Lynn, Mass., in 1906. The chain was in business until 1976. In more recent years, the building was home to the Mill River Arcade, Preachers on a Mission and The Grant, a live entertainment venue.

Just up the street is The Green on Main, an events and retail space that Leslie Moore opened in 2022.

"The Green on Main, located in the Artéé Fabrics & Home building at 230 Main St....is intended to resemble a downtown park, complete with tables for eating or playing board games such as chess, and comfortable hanging chairs," per this Valley Breeze article. There are vendors and food offerings in the space, which is intended as a place for businesses that can't maintain regular hours, while adding life to Main Street, the article continues.

I'm not sure how many tenants are located in what is known historically as the Toole Building, which rose in 1892. Two floors were added in 1922

The mural at the left side of the entrance, another one by Soems, pays tribute to Victor Green, a postal employee who, with assistance from his wife Alma, started the Green Book in Harlem in 1936. "[C]alled alternately The Negro Motorist Green Book, The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, and The Travelers’ Green Book over its 30-year existence," the guide was one of "the most successful and long-lived" methods of helping African-American travelers during the Jim Crow era know where they could safely eat, shop and lodge, according to the National Park Service.

The NPS web site quotes Dino Thompson, a native of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about the importance of the Green Book: "...[it] didn’t tell you if a place had a good steak, or good seafood, or had a soft bed...it told you where you would be safe; it told you where you’d be welcome and not made to go around the kitchen and order something to go...The rest [of the guide books out there] are just fluff...To my mind, it’s still the only necessary travel guide that’s ever been printed."

Frankly, I'm surprised the Trump administration has allowed this information to remain on the NPS web site.

From there, I wound my way south on East Avenue, and then west on Church Street. There, I made a less than great image of the Slater Cotton Mill apartments (let's blame it on the sun angle dissuading me from getting a better shot).

Built between 1880 and 1889 for the Slater Cotton Company, this massive mill building by 1892 contained 1,475 looms and employed 600 workers, according to this Art in Ruins write-up. The company "apparently fared poorly in the first decade of the 20th century," that blog post continues. "By October 1908, it had fallen so deeply in debt that it was reorganized as a new corporation, the Slater Manufacturing Company. At this time, its functions were broadened to include manufacturing of silk cloth."

The company continued to struggle and by 1918 it had sold its various operations and become a real estate holding company, renting space to other manufacturers. In succeeding years, the building was used by ER Hutchinson Co., which made jewelry displays. I'm not sure whether other companies also occupied the old mill before 2007, when a developer acquired the property and converted it to apartments.

Across Church Street, at 450 Main Street, is another old mill building, which I assume was once part of the Slater complex.

This building, which dates to *ahem* 1900, is currently home to the city's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among other outfits.

From there I continued north on Pine Street, across Main, where I made a photo of Atlantic Furniture, which is located in yet another old mill building.

Known historically as the James S. Brown Machine Shop, this brick building runs for 400 feet along Pine Street between Main and Bayley streets. The mill dates to the 1840s and was built for Brown, who was a metal worker who toiled for a company called Pitcher and Gay, per Art in Ruins.

"Even before the construction of the 1848 factory, James Brown had a substantial and well-deserved reputation as a machinist and inventor," the Art in Ruins article continues. "In 1831 he invented a machine for cutting bevel gearing; in 1838 he patented a machine for boring the tubes of speeder flyers from solid iron; and in 1842, he patented a lathe for creating irregular metal forms. In the new shop on Church Hill, Brown built a variety of textile machinery, including mules and speeders, and cordage machinery; by the mid-nineteenth century, the factory employed three hundred hands."

A jewelry manufacturer occupied this building in more recent years before the furniture company took over a long time ago.

Across Pine Street running perpendicular is another mill building that's almost as large as Brown's machine shop. Built in the late 19th/early 20th century, 248 Pine Street is a 35,000 square-foot old factory that, on the day of my exploration over the summer, was on the market.

Originally home to H.A. Briggs & Co., this facility was used, among other things, to process cotton waste.

What is cotton waste? Well, the Old Structures Engineering blog, in discussing this very building, has an answer: it "apparently means scraps (left over from making various cotton products) that are being reused, with cleaning being a common use. In other words, rags, maybe fancy rags."

More recently, this place was home to Summit Manufacturing Corp.

On the corner of Pine and Bayley streets is Don Armando Meat Market.

Zoom in to see the little square cow near the door. The company has been in business for quite a few years, I believe.

At the corner of Bayley and Commerce streets I spied a sign for the Rhodium Room, operated by RI Spirits, a distillery that makes products using the Rhodium name.

Also located in this cluster of buildings is Isle Brewers Guild and The Guild, each of which offers contract beer brewing.

I continued north on Commerce Street, and snapped a photo of an old mill, a smokestack and a new development along Goff Avenue.

The complex is known as 125 Lofts, a community of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The development is located in the former Union Wadding Company complex (also seen in the image below).

"The Union Wadding complex used to be the site of nineteen one- to four-story brick buildings with a prominent round-section chimney sited next to a late 19th-century boiler house," per my new friend, Art in Ruins. Check out that link, as it features tons of great photos. Makes me wish I'd walked around this area a bit more before moving on.

Anyway, back to Union Wadding: "The cotton wadding and waste business was prone to fire; several fires between the earliest development of the site in 1847 and 1870 destroyed most of the original factory buildings. A major fire in October 2010 — unrelated to the manufacture of cotton wadding but under suspicious circumstances — claimed ten buildings at the west end of the complex. The surviving Union Wadding buildings represent building campaigns carried out between 1870 and ca. 1930."

The company went into receivership in 2004 and subsequently went out of business.

I headed east on Goff Avenue, then north on Broad Street, having no idea about the urbex fantasy world I was about to encounter.

Accessible via Broad Street, between Clay and Barton streets (the latter of which is blocked off), the Pawtucket-Central Falls railroad station was completed in 1916 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The station, which straddles Pawtucket and neighboring Central Falls, was in use for barely 40 years. As regular readers of this blog know, I don't really do urbex. But obviously plenty of other people have explored this place.

"In 1959, the station building itself was in disrepair and was closed," according to Wikipedia. "Thereafter passengers accessed the platforms via stairways from Barton Street. The station was served by New Haven Railroad trains, then later by MBTA Commuter Rail, until Rhode Island stopped funding service past Attleboro on February 20, 1981. The station building was considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, but this was deferred due to concerns about its structural integrity. During the Northeast Corridor Electrification Project in the 1990s, the station tracks were relocated to increase clearances for the Acela Express to tilt when going around the curve."

I've ridden Amtrak trains through here many times over the years, but never realized that I was riding underneath this old station. But when I traveled to New York City in early October, I paid attention, pointing it out to my son as we rolled on by.

In January 2023, a new station opened a short distance west from the old one, just past the 125 Lofts development I highlighted above.

Next I walked east on Clay Street until I hit Roosevelt Avenue. I was now fully in Central Falls. I think. Google Maps tells me I was; the web site for Mel-Co-Ed, Inc. says the company is located in Pawtucket. I believe that, like the train station, this building is split by the border.

In this very pleasant industrial building, Mel-Co-Ed produces pendants, pins, bracelets, necklaces, cufflinks, tie clips, hang tags, medallions, and more, per its web site. The operation was founded in 1948 in Warwick, Rhode Island, and moved to this location in 1964. A third generation of one of the founders now runs the company.

I ventured just one building north -- definitely in Central Falls now -- to make a photo of K&W Webbing Co.

"K & W Webbing is a family-owned U.S. manufacturer...with over 100 years of combined hands-on experience in textile manufacturing and engineering design," per the company's web site. The company's "facilty includes a complete dyeing and finishing plant and equipment for the application of special treatments. Our experience in the production of webbing and tapes assures you of the highest quality at the lowest price consistent with that quality."

I crossed back into Pawtucket, where in short order I stumbled across a statue that's stirred some controversy.

Known as Toleration or Tolerance, this metal sculpture was created by artist Peruko Ccopacatty and installed in August 2021. Located at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Exchange Street, overlooking the Blackstone River, the work depicts Rev. William Blackstone. He was an early settler of Boston who moved to what is now Rhode Island in 1635. He is considered the little state's first permanent English settler.

His surname adorns not only the river this statue abuts, but also the Blackstone Valley, the town of Blackstone in Massachusetts and the Blackstone Canal, among other places.

"The statue, as is the case with many public art projects is not without controversy and Blackstone’s past was called into question as inappropriate to be recognized due to historical issues with Native Americans at the time of the founding and development of Pawtucket," per this RI News Today post.

This, despite the fact that "[l]ittle is known about Blackstone’s direct interactions with Native Americans," according to this article from the Valley Breeze.

I don't know much about Blackstone, but I'll say this, the statue certainly stands out.

Make sure to check back in two weeks for the second part of my Pawtucket report, featuring old mill buildings, a beautiful armory, a lonely carriage house, a historic riverside mill, an amazing diner and much more!

Scrambling Through Boston's Egleston Square

From Dave Brigham:

I've danced around Boston's Egleston Square quite a bit over the years I've been publishing this blog. I've roamed Jackson Square, the Fort Hill Tower area, Franklin Park and parts of the nearby Jamaica Plain neighborhood (see the bottom of this post for links to those articles). Recently, I finally checked out the Egleston area, using as motivation my hope that there was an old sign still hanging outside the final Skippy White's Records store to close.

My jaunt through the square was part of a one-day whirlwind tour including Jamaica Plain (to make photos, once again, of Boston's old breweries), the outskirts of Nubian Square and the gritty streets of Newmarket Square (where I've also been before).

I recently decided that I want to make photos of as many Boston-area record stores as I can. I included Skippy White's on the list, even though the store in Egleston Square had closed in January 2020. I noticed on Google Street View that as of October 2022, there were signs promoting "CD's - Videos - DVDs" above the windows at 1971 Columbus Avenue. Alas, when I arrived in early spring of this year, those signs were gone. The good news is that another small business now fills the space -- I forget what sort of outfit it is, and a Google search did not provide an answer.

I never had the pleasure of going to any Skippy White's store. Founded in 1960 in Boston's South End as Mass Records, the chain grew to include shops in other Boston neighborhoods, as well as Cambridge, Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as well as New Orleans (!), according to this Bay State Banner article.

"For more than six decades, White sold gospel, R&B and soul music to Boston’s African American community and other lovers of Black music," the article indicates. I encourage you to read that Bay State Banner article.

The Skippy White signs were gone, but there were other things that caught my eye in Egleston Square, which straddles Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

Right across Columbus Avenue from the old record store is the circular residential tower known as the Doris Bunte Apartments. Completed in 1970 for the Boston Housing Authority, the cylindrical building was originally known as Walnut Park. The architecture firm of Richmond & Goldberg designed the project. The firm, which was in business from 1946 to 1973, also designed the Egleston Square branch of the Boston Public Library; a number of temples in Brookline; and many other municipal and religious structures.

The building reminds me of Chicago's Marina City, a mixed-use residential and commercial complex along the Chicago River. I mentioned those towers in a post about the Windy City several years ago (see May 18, 2018, "Rollin' On the River").

The Bunte building is slated for renovation.

The tower was renamed for Doris Bunte, who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1973 to 1984, and administrator of the Boston Housing Authority from 1984 to 1992. She was the first African-American woman to hold either position, according to Wikipedia.

I've taken a liking to storefronts of late, be they old or new.

On the corner of Weld and Columbus avenues stands Violeta Appliance, a store that I believe is relatively new. I really love the bold colors in the lettering and background.

Around the corner on Washington Street is Egleston Liquors. I like that the sign tells potential customers in both English and Spanish what type of store it is.

On the corner of School and Washington streets, I found a beautiful doorway.

Erected in 1905, the Queen Anne / Richardsonian Romanesque commercial/apartment block was built for D.F. and W.S. Littlefield, brothers who owned a fruit market. Currently the ground-floor retail space is occupied by a market and a barber shop.

At the corner of Washington Street and Chilcott Place stands Pika Pollo, a Dominican fried chicken joint. On the side there is a fantastic mural.

Painted by Philadelphia-based artist Betsy Casañas, the work is a vibrant addition to the neighborhood.

The furthest west I went on this jaunt was the former Franklin Brewery building, which towers over Washington Street. If you enlarge the image below, you can see the beer brewer's name chiseled into the stone rectangle in the middle of the entryway.

I wrote about (and shared images of) this place in the blog post linked above about Boston's old breweries. In part, I wrote: "Built in 1894, this Queen Anne fortress was a brewery until...1918," shortly before Prohibition kicked in. "In 1900, 'the Franklin Brewery became a branch of the Massachusetts Brewery Co., a consortium which included the American Brewery at 249 Heath Street, the Alley Brewery at 123 Heath Street, H. and J. Pfaff Co. at 1276 Columbus, and the Robinson Brewery at 55-71 Amory,' per MACRIS."

"'The brewery was named for nearby Franklin Park....Around 1918, the Franklin Brewery building was vacant and a year later was owned by the Union Wool Co. and used for storage. By the 1920's, 3179 Washington had become the home of the D.W.. Dunn Storage Company,'" MACRIS continued.

Today, this beauty is home to Extra Space Storage.

At this point, I headed north-northeast to Columbus Avenue. Standing at the corner of Washington and Atherton streets, I had to rub my eyes as I looked across Columbus. "Is that part of the old elevated railway?" I said out loud, to nobody but myself.

No, the 14,000-square foot Egleston Center isn't a relic from Boston's transit days gone by. But is an homage. Located on the site of the former Egleston Station stop on the Washington Street elevated rail line, the commercial development was built in the mid-1990s by Urban Edge, a community developer founded in 1974.

Pretty cool!

Check out this image of the old elevated station, from Digital Commonwealth.

Heading north on Columbus Avenue, I passed #1945, a large triangular property that was once a used car lot.

(The former sales office for Columbus Auto Sales and, more recently, Roxbury Motors.)

Looking at Google Street View, I saw that the last business to occupy this lot was Roxbury Motors. For years prior, it was home to Columbus Auto Sales. Sometime between August 2019 and October 2022, Roxbury Motors vacated the lot. The site has been owned by Larosa Development Corporation of Norwood, Mass., since early 2019. I haven't been able to determine what, if any, plans there are for the property.

At the corner of West Walnut Park and Columbus Avenue sits my favorite site of that day.

I love the layers of history here. In reverse order: El Cruce Market, which replaced Salcedo Market within the last three years; Columbus Market, which, judging from the plastic sign, dated back at least a few decades; and the name carved into the building, C.J. Spenceley Block, and the date "1888."

Of late, I've focused my lens on storefronts such as this one. I love the bold colors, the variety of food and other products catering to local ethnic groups, the sense of community they engender. As painter Debbie Shirley writes to describe an exhibit of hers showcasing immigrant-owned convenience stores, "Each piece celebrates the cultures, communities, and everyday encounters that give these storefronts their stories."

So, who was C.J. Spenceley?

"Christopher Jackson Spenceley was born in Wicasset, Maine on August 16, 1840," according to this Jamaica Plain Historical Society article. "He...came to Boston at the age of 17 [where] he learned to be a carpenter and by 1863 had started his own business. He became engaged in the building and selling of structures in the South End and Roxbury."

Spenceley served three consecutive terms on the Boston Common Council, a precursor to the Boston City Council. He also served a Trustee for the Boston City Hospital (now known as Boston Medical Center) for several years. He married Rebecca Staples (from Truro, Nova Scotia) on August 16, 1863 and they had three children: Joseph Winfred, Fred and Mineola, the article continues.

The family lived at 367 Walnut Ave, just a few blocks from the C.J. Spenceley Block. He died on August 12, 1903 and is buried at Fox Hill Cemetery in Billerica.

My final Egleston Square image is of a simple yet effective and eye-catching sign, in front of IAO Auto Repair, at Columbus Avenue and Bancroft Street.

The sign seems to date from when E & J Auto Tech was on the site, in early 2016, according to Google Street View.

Check back soon for my write-up about a stretch along Dudley Street on the outskirts of Boston's Nubian Square.

Below are links to posts referenced above:

March 4, 2025, "Nubian Square: New Name, Old Buildings"

October 19, 2024, "Beyond the Standpipe: I Find Black Jesus and Other Cool Stuff in Fort Hill"

September 21, 2024, "Franklin Park is Ruin-ed"

May 18, 2024, "Stadium Tour in Franklin Park"

February 26, 2022, "Jamaica Plain, Part II: The Return"

December 18, 2019, "Having a Bear of a Time at the Zoo"

January 26, 2018, "Jamaica Plain Has Plenty of Flair"

December 9, 2017, "Artist Thinks: I HAF to Fix That Smokestack"