Cambridgeport, Part I: MIT/Biotechs/Nuclear Reactor/and Maybe Death Rays

From Dave "Egghead" Brigham:

While heading home from a photo expedition in Somerville one day, I drove southwest along Albany Street in Cambridge and realized I'd found my latest honey hole. This is often how things happen here at the blog; there is no master plan. And as I undertook my first exploration in this area, it dawned on me that I'd be making photos of part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) campus.

This is the first post about the Cambridgeport neighborhood of the People's Republic of Cambridge. This post is long, but it offers some clips from "The Simpsons," some background on a job I held a quarter-century ago and fascinating history about this area that has made the transition from industrial to high-tech.

In addition to M.I.T. buildings, this post will feature office buildings of biotech and high-tech companies, some of which have spun out of the university; the institute's nuclear reactor (!); and other places that I suspect are manufacturing perpetual motion machines, anti-grief pills and even death rays.

This is by no means an exhaustive survey of M.I.T.'s Cambridgeport presence.

First, I'm gonna learn you a bit about Cambridgeport. This neighborhood, which runs approximately from Magazine Beach along the Charles River, to Massachusetts Avenue, to Vassar Street, to Western Avenue, shouldn't be confused with The Port. That latter neighborhood is bounded roughly by Hampshire Street to the north, the Boston & Albany Railroad to the east, Prospect Street to the west, and Massachusetts Avenue to the south. It was formerly known as Area Four. I explored some of that area three years ago (see April 3, 2020, "Walking Through a Waterless Port").

According to the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for the Charles River Basin Historic District, "Cambridgeport...was named with the expectation that the waterfront could be developed into a [sic] ocean port, and an intricate system of canals was constructed. In 1806, Congress designated Cambridge as an official United States port of delivery, but the Embargo of 1807-09 ended these mercantile plans. The Broad Canal, still a feature on the Cambridge waterfront, is the sole reminder of that era of waterfront development."

I explored the Broad Canal, and learned about Cambridge's history of waterways, in 2012 (see November 5, 2012, "Where's the Gondolier?").

Before we start swimming, I need to share this clip from "Modern Family."

OK, let's get our nerd on!

Why don't we get right to core of the matter.

I've known for years that M.I.T. had a nuclear reactor, but I didn't realize it was in plain sight, near the intersection of Albany Street and Massachusetts Avenue. I thought it was a little further east, hidden inside a building along Vassar Street. I'm not sure how I got that idea in my head.

Opened in 1958, the reactor is a "high performance 6 MW nuclear research reactor known as the MITR," according to the institute's Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (NRL). The reactor has enabled "educational training and cutting-edge research in the areas of nuclear fission engineering, material science, radiation effects in biology and medicine, neutron physics, geochemistry, and environmental studies," per the NRL's web site. "It is the second largest university research reactor in the U.S. [after the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center] and the only one located on the campus of a major research university."

Directly southwest along Albany Street are NRL buildings.

I hope there are no future Homer Simpsons working at the lab.

And I'm sure there's nothing to fear from fishing in the nearby Charles River:

OK, I'll stop posting nuclear panic videos. Be glad that I was unable to locate the "SNL" episode in which President Jimmy Carter, played by Dan Aykroyd, gets super-sized after the core of a nuclear plant has melted down.

I wrote about another nuclear reactor in the early days of the blog. This one was located in Watertown, and was part of the Watertown Arsenal complex (see May 19, 2010, "Nuclear Dump Playground?").

Moving on....

The buildings that include the NRL space and other M.I.T. departments along the south side of Albany Street present a great mix of red, orange and yellow brick. With so many shiny new buildings in Cambridgeport and elsewhere in the city, this area really has the feel of the early- to mid-20th century. These buildings along Albany Street are owned by M.I.T., but one hundred years ago, some of them housed baking companies.

Thanks to somebody's M.I.T. class project about digging deep into a small geographical site, which includes old Atlas Maps, I learned some good history about this area of Cambridgeport. Abutting the north side of the railroad tracks that run across Massachusetts Avenue, between Vassar and Albany streets, there used to be a C. Brigham Company Milk Depot (the company appears to have been based in Westborough). In later years, this was the home of Whiting Milk Companies. Currently this site, across the tracks from the well-known and gigantic Metropolitan Storage Warehouse buildings, is a parking lot.

The 1916 map shows that the nuclear reactor site, affiliated lab and adjacent buildings were once occupied by the Ward Baking Company. The M.I.T. class project linked above indicates that the Ward company buildings were demolished, along with the milk depot, but I'm dubious that all of the Ward buildings were razed. The milk facility is gone, but the buildings where the nuclear lab is located are dated to 1913 and 1937, according to the city's assessing department database, and certainly look of that era.

The 1930 maps shows that Ward added some properties to the west along Albany Street, and that the building at the end of the row was home to the National Biscuit Company, the company that eventually became Nabisco. I believe the Nabisco site was torn down and replaced by buildings now owned by M.I.T.

(I believe these buildings are the newer ones built by M.I.T.)

(Bitter Magnet would be a great name for a band.)

Other companies located along Albany Street and adjacent streets in 1916 included Standard Plate Glass Corp., The Paper Goods Company, John Cain Salad Dressing Company and Lamb & Ritchie Pipe.

Further southwest along Albany Street is a beautiful old place known affectionately by the M.I.T. community as The Warehouse.

Currently a dormitory for graduate students, this circa-1904 building has served numerous corporate, institutional and governmental functions in the last century. The first occupant of the building was the Hutchings-Votey Company, a prominent organ-building outfit, according to M.I.T.'s web site for The Warehouse. "During its three years of operation on Albany St., one of the most notable organs constructed by Hutchings was for the St. James Cathedral in Seattle, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Seattle and the seat of its archbishop," per the web site.

The next tenant was Library Bureau, a card and wood-working factory founded by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. "A building adjacent to the factory, 230 Albany Street, was constructed as the headquarters of Library Bureau in 1918," per The Warehouse web site. "In 1925 the company was bought by Remington Rand. At this time the factory at 224 Albany Street employed 450 men and women."

Next up was the United States Government. "The [U.S. Air Force] bought 224 Albany Street and on 25 September 1945 the building was designated as the headquarters of the Cambridge Field Station (later renamed the Air Force Cambridge Research Center)," per the M.I.T. web site. "Among the important work performed here was the initiation of the SAGE project, an automated system for tracking enemy bombers entering US airspace, whose final cost was estimated to be several times that of the Manhattan Project."

Eventually, M.I.T. took over use of the building. "The building continued to be a center for high tech research, as by 1961 it was occupied by the MIT Instrumentation Lab," per The Warehouse web site. "As leaders in the field, the I Lab was contracted to build the Apollo navigation system. The building, which had already been involved in SAGE and the Manhattan Project, was now once again part of one of the United States' most important technological endeavors."

Damn, that is some history.

Since 2001, 224 Albany has housed students.

Let's continue on to 270 and 280 Albany Street.

Built in 1920, these buildings are owned by BioMed Realty Trust, which owns nearly 16 million square feet of life-science property in locations including Boston/Cambridge, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and Cambridge, U.K., according to the company's web site. The current tenant of these Albany Street properties is Sanofi, a French drug maker.

These properties were orginally a Standard Plate Glass Company manufacturing facility, per MACRIS. "The building continued as a plate glass factory until 1935 when it was sold to the Box Craft Company, which later became the Atlantic Paper Box Company," MACRIS indicates. "The Atlantic Paper Box Company operated until the 1980s, specializing in heart-shaped boxes for Valentine's Day candies."

More cool history, eh?

Now let's work our way back toward Mass. Ave. along the northern side of Albany Street, before moving further into the neighborhood.

This is 189 Albany Street (although M.I.T. lists it as #195), which the city's assessor's database indicates was built in 1948. The building is home to the MIT LIGO Lab, which looks "for some of the universe's most extreme objects," per its web site. "We also make gravitational wave detectors work better, exploring a lot of new and interesting physics on the way."

Translation: Jewish Space Lasers.

I believe this building (and others below) were warehouses once owned by Stimpson Terminal Company. It is connected to 185 Albany Street, which dates to 1890, per the assessor. M.I.T. acquired these properties in 2008.

Continuing north by northeast, we come to 175 Albany Street.

This building is home to M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, which seeks ways to accelerate the pace of the development of fusion, which "is the process of combining light elements like hydrogen into heavier ones like helium," per the group's web site. The end goal: "to build power plants which would have an unlimited supply of fuel and have less environmental impact than any other source of energy."

The Plasma and Fusion buildings dates to the early 1920s. I'm pretty sure these buildings were also part of the Stimpson warehouse operation. At one time, a spur off the Grand Junction railroad line ran behind these buildings, where Purrington Street is now.

The final Albany Street buildings are known collectively as Edgerton House, home to graduate students and families.

This complex was originally home to the Elliot Addressing Machine Company, which moved here (or erected the buildings) in 1911, according to the Cambridge Historical Society. Founded by Sterling Elliot, the company was born from the founder's desire for a more efficient means of addressing labels for mailing The Bicycling World, a weekly magazine that was an outgrowth of Elliot's bike-building company. While he sold that company to the Stanley brothers of steam-powered automobile fame, he continued publishing the magazine.

Elliot's son, Harmon, headed the business after his father's death in 1922. A sale to an out-of-town company led to the shuttering of this facility in 1964. M.I.T. acquired the property and "leased it to a colorful string of occupants — the Paramount Coat Company, the Revelation Bra Company, and a series of small publishers — before gutting the structure and renovating the inside," according to this MIT Technology Review article. It opened as the Edgerton House in 2001.

OK, now I'm gonna move beyond Albany Street.

Located on the corner of Sidney Street, 15 Tudor Street is home to Edge Gravity, a subsidiary of Swedish tech company Ericsson that focuses on edge computing. What the @#&$% is edge computing? It's "a distributed information technology architecture in which client data is processed at the periphery of the network, as close to the originating source as possible," according to TechTarget.

The assessor says this building dates to 1910 and isn't owned by M.I.T. But the parking is listed as belong to the institution. And real estate listings online use an address of 125 Sidney Street. Go figure.

Anyway, the 1916 Atlas map available online lists a small building owned by the Neapolitan Ice Cream Company here. That company was based a short distance away on Landsdown Street. The 1930 map shows a listing for William C. Thairlwall & Company, about which I've not been able to find anything. Current owner is Rizika Realty Trust.

Directly behind the Edge Gravity building is 17 Tudor Street, below.

I'm not sure if this is part of the Ericsson division complex.

Moving southwest on Sidney Street, we come to #137-149.

Built in 1954 and owned by M.I.T., this property is home to Accelleron, which manufactures breast pumps, nebulizer compressors, blood pressure monitors and other devices.

Across the street, at #148, is another M.I.T.-owned property.

Owned by M.I.T., this building dates to 1995, per the assessor, but I'm dubious of that date. It is home to Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which was "spun out of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center," per the company's web site.

Next is 167 Sidney Street, which is owned by M.I.T. and was built in 1927.

This building is also occupied by Accelleron. I believe that this building, and the one below at 99A Erie Street (which is also owned by M.I.T.) are more Stimpson warehouses. The 1930 online map is marked "Harry F. Stimpson," and a railroad spur is shown crossing Sidney Street and ending between these two buildings, and two others fronting on Emily Street, where Accelleron is located. So it's possible that those latter buildings are older than what the assessor indicates.

(Built in 1927, this building is home to Centogene, which calls itself a data-driven rare disease company.)

Across Erie Street from 167 Sidney Street is a building whose history ties in with my own.

Currently home to Q-State Biosciences, 80 Erie Street (aka 179 Sidney Street) dates to 1930. Q-State "is a discovery technology and therapeutics company that combines advanced human cellular models, unique measurement engineering and AI / ML into a proprietary platform that enables novel discovery of optimized genetically targeted medicines for epilepsy, pain, and other diseases of the CNS."

Wow, I don't know what the f**k means, but it makes a nice segue into my connection to this place. In the late '90s into the early aughts, I worked in this building, for a company called Digital Music Network. The start-up, co-founded by a college friend of my wife's, did business as Webnoize, which was the name of the music industry conference we held in L.A., the research practice we had, as well as the daily news publication, which is where I worked. The company was small, never growing beyond two dozen employees, but we worked hard, gained a strong reputation in all three of the business units and were ahead of the curve in terms of covering the digital entertainment revolution of the early 21st century.

The Q-State quote about its business model cited above brings to mind the verbiage that the Webnoize founders crammed into press releases and marketing materials. Here's a small sample, from the 1998 conference booklet for the company's inaugural event in Los Angeles: "Webnoize is digital delivery and fatter pipes, MP3 and MTV, VH1 and VQF, licensing and registration, cross-marketing and strategic partnerships, watermarking and webcasting - all presented with a SMIL and a Fraunhofer, when appropriate."

I have no idea what "VQF" is or was. A quick Google search turns up a few options, with my favorite being "Vermont Quilt Festival," which sounds like a great time. I also tripped over SMIL, which, according to Wikipedia, is short for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language...a World Wide Web Consortium recommended Extensible Markup Language (XML) markup language to describe multimedia presentations."

OK.

As for Fraunhofer, I guess it's short for Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, "the world’s leading applied research organization," according to its web site.

Despite some blather from the corner office, Webnoize was a good little company. But things came to a rather quick end after September 11, 2001, as a company that was always scratching for money lost the opportunity to make some via a New York conference. It all came to an end in mid-November 2001.

I'm sure that the business listed at this site in a 1930 online map used plenty of bullshit marketing, too. Henry Thayer & Company made snake oil, er, I mean, medicinal preparations such as extract of Yerba Santa. That herb is still in use today, to treat "respiratory conditions including coughs, colds, tuberculosis, asthma, and chronic bronchitis," per RxList. "It is also used for fever and dry mouth. Some people use it to relieve muscle spasms, to loosen phlegm, and as a tonic. Yerba santa is sometimes applied directly to the skin in a warm dressing (poultice) to treat bruises, sprains, wounds, insect bites, and to relieve joint pain (rheumatism)."

Well, the joke's on me. Now known as Thayers, the company is alive and well, no doubt thanks to soothing Restorative Body Balm, Radiance Boosting Serum and Milky Hydrating Face Toner with Snow Mushroom and Hyaluronic Acid. Dr. Henry Thayer founded the company in Cambridge in 1847. Blah blah blah, the company is now headquartered in Easton, Connecticut.

I found the trio of buildings seen below quite charming.

On the left is 197 Sidney,, which is a three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse. The other two buildings combined comprise 60 Hamilton Street. Built in 1925, this property is home to Cadent Therapeutics, which is part of drug maker Novartis.

Below is WW25, an M.I.T. building located between Chestnut and Waverly streets and Putnam Avenue.

M.I.T. leases this building, which was built in 1960. I'm guessing that this is where students and professors conduct alien dissections.

Across Putnam Avenue I spied two buildings with that mythical HP Garage feel to them.

Owned by M.I.T., this place dates to 1974 and looks like an auto body shop. The garage below was constructed in 1920, per the assessors office.

Seems likely that this is where nerds build death rays and plant-based jet packs.

Not far away, in an M.I.T. parking lot, sat a lonely green bus.

This lime-tinted rig was once used by Locomote Media to produce live recordings and streaming of concerts, events and performances with studio-quality audio mixes and video mixes, according to the LinkedIn page of Ed Krasnow, who was the company's director of video operations. The company appears to have gone off-line in 2020.

And now for something completely different.

This is 640 Memorial Drive, a building just north of the Boston University Bridge that I've long wondered about. It has that "This used to be something" look to it, doesn't it? I guess you can say that about any old building, but with this place, there's no doubt. "The Cambridge Assembly was a Ford Motor Company factory...which opened in 1913," according to Wikipedia. "The factory had the first vertically-integrated assembly line in the world."

Holy Anti-Semitic Henry Ford!

In operation from 1913 to 1926, the plant was where Model Ts were manufactured, according to the web site of Tsoi Kobus Design, which worked on the building's redevelopment. Check out that web site in order to see some great new and old photos of this building. Other models were built here, moving through the five-story assembly process, according to History Cambridge. In 1926, the assembly line moved to neighboring Somerville. That plant was eventually torn down and replaced by Assembly Row.

Owned by M.I.T. (perhaps in partnership with Alexandria Real Estate), 640 Memorial Drive was also home to a Polaroid facility at some point, according to Wikipedia. Boston Biomedical (part of Japan's Sumitomo Pharma) is located here, I believe, alongside fellow bio-tech Sanofi-Genzyme.

Henry Ford invented the moving assembly line, which led to the early success of his automobiles. It's cool to think that a major innovation in that process occurred right here by the banks of the River Charles.

If you were to hop on an old-fashioned handcar and ride the Grand Junction railroad northeast from the east side of 640 Memorial Drive, you'd come across the last two buildings on this tour of Cambridgeport.

This is the rear of M.I.T.'s Air Force ROTC building, seen from the opposite side of the train tracks. As you might be able to guess from the name "HEINZ" chiseled into the facade, this used to be a warehouse for that company's products, such as ketchup and mustard. The building dates to 1915.

I haven't found out when Heinz stopped using the building, and when M.I.T. took it over.

We're going to finish this installment with perhaps the biggest -- literally and figuratively -- icon of Cambridgeport.

Located at the corner of Vassar Street and Massachusetts Avenue, the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse buildings, with their enormous painted signage, have long fascinated me. Despite the name of the business splayed across buildings much longer than football fields, I thought of these dark-brick buildings as being somehow holders of nefarious secrets and valuable treasures, when in reality they just held boxes of people's junk (and maybe the odd Renaissance masterwork or two).

"The Metropolitan Storage Warehouse...was the first building built on the filled land between the Grand Junction Railroad and the Charles River embankment," according to MACRIS. "Built in 1895 to the designs of Peabody & Stearns, the Boston architectural firm, the warehouse helped to establish the castellated Renaissance Revival style used in later buildings in this newly developing area of Cambridge."

The construction of the warehouse complex was the first component in a major new initiative. "The development of the riverfront east of the railroad from the West Boston (Longfellow) Bridge to the Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridge was undertaken by private investors beginning in 1880, in response to the filling of the Back Bay in Boston and the development of West Chester Park (now Massachusetts Avenue) from the South End to the river bank in the 1870s," according to MACRIS. "In 1880 the owners of the marshes and mudflats in this area formed the Charles River Embankment Company. They began construction of the seawall along the length of their holdings in 1883, and then hydraulically dredged the river bottom to provide fill."

Now owned by M.I.T., this "medieval castle on a city street corner," as the university calls it, is undergoing renovation. "MIT’s adaptive reuse of the Metropolitan Warehouse building will redevelop it as a center of interdisciplinary design research and education, providing a new home for the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P)," according to this M.I.T. web site. "The building will also house the new MIT Morningside Academy for Design, which aims to foster collaboration and innovation on campus, encouraging design work to grow across disciplines. In addition, the building's flagship Project Manus makerspace will serve as a substantial addition to the MIT Makersystem and will expand the design and fabrication facilities available to the campus."

Phew! That wraps up a post that turned out to be much more involved than I initially planned. Make sure to check for parts two and three about Cambridgeport, in which I will cover street mosaics, the funky homes of local artists, a historic church under renovation, the site of a former gay club, a well-known neon sign, a former Polaroid building, a massive steam plant, a former tooth-maker's building and much more.

For more M.I.T.-related stuff, see June 8, 2019, "UPDATE: Strolling Among the L7's in Kendall Square."

Put Some Pep in Your Step!

From Dave Brigham:

I made this photo in North Adams, Mass., along Eagle Street, the one time I visited the Berkshire County city. I had plans to explore more of this old mill town before going to a concert at MassMOCA, the amazing visual- and performing-arts space created out of the former Arnold Print Works and Sprague Electric Co. factory, but my plan was foiled. I was meeting a friend and his son in the late afternoon, and hoped to walk around and make photos before they arrived. But they showed up earlier than I'd expected, so we just did a quick walk before dinner and the concert.

That trip was in November 2017. Every once in a while I would search through my Dropbox looking for photos from that day, convinced I'd taken several. The only one I've stumbled across is this ghost sign, but until recently, I had forgotten about it. So that's why I'm writing this post all these years later.

"Enna Jettick," which is a brilliant name, was a line of women's shoes manufactured by Dunn & McCarthy, Inc., in Auburn, New York, beginning in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The shoes were designed to be comfortable and stylish, and seemed to have been marketed toward active women. Writing at her blog, The Vintage Traveler, Lizzie Bramlett indicates that on her vintage pair of Enna Jetticks, "The uppers are two colors of perforated leather, and the sole is an interesting rubber-like substance. They are quite snappy!"

That blog post also features photos and information about the Aerocars that Dunn & McCarthy used as traveling showrooms for the Enna Jettick line of shoes.

Dunn & McCarthy "filed for bankruptcy in 1989, closed in 1990, and the factory burned down in a spectacular fire in 1993," according to this post at the Vintage Fashion Guild web site.

As for the concert, it was a mind-blowing show by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Canadian instrumental post-rock band that has issued numerous albums in an on-and-off career that launched in the late 1990s. The band got its name from a 1976 Japanese documentary film about the local motorcycle culture.

Below is a live clip of my favorite song of theirs, "Blaise Bailey Finnegan III." I learned while writing this that Blaze Bayley is the name of the dude who sang for Iron Maiden from 1994-1999 when original vocalist Bruce Dickinson left to pursue a solo career.

The poem that is read as part of this song is evidently nearly identical to the lyrics of Iron Maiden's "Virus."

Change is Coming to Charlestown's Northwest Corner

From Dave Brigham:

Walking in the shadow of the Encore Boston Harbor Casino, in the industrial northwest corner of Charlestown, I am in my comfort zone. Odd for a guy who grew up in a fairly rural town, and who lives in a suburb now, I know. There's just something about the grit and the grime and the patinas and the history and, well, the opportunities to make great photos in places like this that really appeal to me. Obviously.

Also, I feel an obligation to document old buildings and signs and industries and neighborhoods before they get erased. But you already know that.

I've explored Charlestown quite a bit over the years - check out Part I, Part II and Part III of my series on Boston's oldest neighborhood. But in any city or town I trek through, I miss things or I run out of time. This return trip to Charlestown was triggered by looking at Google Street View for another post I was writing, and seeing a ghost sign that had me jumping out of my skin. I'm saving that site for the bottom of this post.

Let's start this short tour with the former home of Flynn's Auto Salvage, located at the corner of Dorrance Street and Mystic Avenue.

I don't know anything about the old junkyard -- when it opened, when it got scrapped. Prior to the junkyard, according to MACRIS, this was the site (under the address of 3 Sherman Street) of the Osgood and Hart Iron Foundry. Founded just after the Civil War, the foundry was in operation until at least 1916.

The Boston assessor's office says the property is owned by One Mystic Owner LLC (catchy name, eh?). That company also owns several adjoining properties in what is known as Sherman Square. And you won't be surprised to learn that there is a redevelopment plan in the works.

Known as One Mystic Avenue, the proposed residential tower will rise to 25 stories and include underground car and bike parking, as well as a restaurant or retail space on the ground floor. This is the kind of thing that's happening all across Greater Boston - old industrial sites being snapped up and turned into gleaming office/lab/residential/hotel projects.

Despite the gritty nature of this neighborhood, its location is pretty prime: steps away from the Orange Line Sullivan Square subway stop, right off the highway, a quick walk to the casino and a short distance from the Assembly Square development. The project has been in the works since December 2020; it is currently under review by the Boston Planning & Development Agency.

The next two properties are also included in the redevelopment footprint. At the corner of Dorrance and Temple streets is the abandoned Bell/Simons Company building.

Founded in 1940 as The Bell Pump Company in Hartford, Connecticut, the HVAC, refrigeration and plumbing outfit acquired The Joseph Simons company 17 years later. Today, The Bell/Simons Company operates out of more than 30 locations all across New England.

I'm not sure when the company vacated this property. The nearest Bell/Simons location is in Malden.

While I was excited to make photos of the old junkyard and HVAC joints, the next site literally had me saying, out loud, to myself, "What the hell is THAT place?!"

The Cronin Club on Temple Street was founded 1981, according to some of the limited information I found online. Located behind the Bell/Simons property, the club seems to be a private clubhouse of sorts, perhaps patronized by people who work in the area. I believe it's connected to the family that ran Flynn's auto salvage. It will be gone before too long.

Now to the place I stumbled across on Google Street View.

I assumed that the Whittemore-Wright Company was, to paraphrase Monty Python, a late company, but I was wrong. Founded in 1908, the company proclaims itself to be "one of the top manufactures of tanning oils in the global market today," on its web site. It manufactures anionic oils, bisulfited oils, cationic oils and other things that I know nothing about.

So do the signs painted all over the building count as ghost signs if the place is still in business?

As for the building, located on the corner of Alford Street and Arlington Avenue, next to an MBTA bus garage, it was built in 1880 for Silas Burbank & Son Varnish, according to MACRIS. "This building ranks among the oldest buildings representative of the paint and varnish industry in the Boston area," MACRIS continues.

"This building has historical associations with Silas Burbank (1800-1874)," according to MACRIS. "He had been a varnish maker in Salem before the Civil War, as his father had done before him in Newburyport. In 1864, Burbank and his son Charles purchased the land on Alford St. After his father's death, Charles Burbank operated the factory alone, but in 1877, Nathaniel F. Ryder joined the firm, which later became Burbank and Ryder. The company marketed varnish under the trade name Bunker Hill, and for a number of years did a successful business."

In 1913, the varnish maker moved to a new plant in Everett, and leased this building to Whittemore-Wright.

Sushi Fortune Pants

From Dave Brigham:

More often than not, I am opposed to old buildings being torn down. These buildings along Route 9 in Newton's Thompsonville village (although I'm sure some folks would try to convince you this is Chestnut Hill) fall into the "not" category. At least one of these was built in 1930, according to the city's assessor's database. I didn't make mention of these places when I wrote a bout T'ville as part of my "I Seek Newton" series (see March 7, 2017, "I Seek Newton, Part VII: Thompsonville").

Now that they are on life support, however, I am interested. I am not, nevertheless, sad that they will be torn down. Let's talk about the two restaurants and one retailer that have been displaced.

Sushi Man, which serves, you know, sushi, and other stuff, closed sometime last year. The eatery was able to relocate to a building about 200 feet away, on the corner of Jackson Street and Langley Road. When I checked these buildings out recently, however, the restaurant was temporarily closed. I believe renovations of some sort were under way.

Fortune Panda doesn't seem to have found a new location. I don't know how long it was in business, but it was quite a few years.

As for Fancy Pants, a second-hand boutique specializing in children's clothing, it moved to Natick, along Route 9 just over the Wellesley line.

I haven't been able to find out what will replace these buildings, but I'm guessing it will be a residential property, possibly with a retail/restaurant component.

Tales of Paper, Beer, Soda and Ice Cream

From Dave Brigham:

On a recent foray into Somerville, I crossed the line into a section of Boston's Charlestown neighborhood I've chronicled before (see March 16, 2019, "Where Am I? Somertown? Charlesville?"). I wasn't planning on making photos of any of the same places I'd shot for that prior post, but my love for old buildings got the better of me. And I'm glad it did, because I learned more about one building I'd shot before, and took photos of a few buildings I'd missed, all of which have great histories.

Longtime fans of the blog will recognize the location in the top photo from the previously mentioned 2019 post (the photo at bottom is of the same place). At that time, I wrote, "I've been unable to find out anything about when [Boston Paper Board] started or when it went out of business." There was a time when I didn't rely on MACRIS quite so heavily. Now that I do, I can tell you much more about these buildings and others along Roland Street, which back up to a set of sidetracks used by the MBTA.

While the company's name is on the facade of this building, Boston Paper Board wasn't the original tenant. The company moved here in the 1950s, according to MACRIS, when its property was taken for the construction of the Southeast Expressway, which is located about 250 feet due east. "Founded about 1916 as a converter, the company [supplied] newsprint to the Boston Globe and other local customers," MACRIS reports. I'm not sure when Boston Paper Board got torn up as a business, or perhaps merged with another firm.

The original purpose for these buildings (there are at least two on the site) was as a brewery. This site "provides the only surviving evidence of Charlestown's important 19th [century] brewing industry," MACRIS indicates. "Architecturally, it is significant as an essentially intact turn of the century Boston area brewery. The nucleus of this brewery complex is a massive brick towered segment to the rear of a 2-story cartellated structure (1912) facing Roland St."

For more about Boston's beer brewing history, see June 4, 2022, "Brewing Up Memories of Boston's Past," in which I focus on erstwhile beer businesses in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury.

(Rear of the old brewery/paper company site.)

Again, from MACRIS: "Boston Bldg. Dept. records indicate that a 3-story brick structure was given a bldg. permit for this site on June 25, l897 -- the owner is listed as Syndicate Brewery. Less than two weeks later, on July 7, 1897, Puritan Brewing Co. was granted a permit to build a 1-story wash house/packing room. The architect was Hettinger and Hartmann and the builder was D.J. Gillis. The plant was completed in the Spring of 1898.

"According to Peter Stotl [author of A Guide to the Industrial Archeology of Eastern, Mass.], 'the brewery, before it closed in 1908, had an annual production of about 8,000 barrels....By 1912, this concern was known as the Commercial Brewing Co. In that year the 2-story castellated bldg. facing Roland St. was constructed....The building was to be occupied as a bottling establishment. In 1914, a pump house was erected on the premises.'"

Commercial Brewing remained in business until 1940, minus the Prohibition Era. By 1950, Savage and Co. Bakers Supplies was located in the front portion of the complex, according to MACRIS, with W.H. Flickinger Plumbing supplies located to the rear. And then Boston Paper Board moved in and we're up to date.

Just down the street from the old Puritan Brewery is the Puritan Garage, which dates to 1920.

So, you may be asking yourself, is there a plan afoot for this old brewery/paper company site that's been abandoned for years and which sits within a city where there are more construction cranes in the sky than there are Dunkin' shops on the streets?

Does Ben Affleck order "iced coffee, milk, and two sugars, sometimes Splenda"?

"The Proposed Project consists of approximately 767,723 gsf of new lab/office, residential and retail development. These uses, including 122 residential units, are proposed in four new buildings ranging in height from six to nine stories, along with 327 vehicle parking spaces and 441 bicycle parking spaces," states a project description filed with the Boston Planning & Development Agency by a group known as Sullivan Square Holdings, LLC and a company called Rise Together.

The pair also has plans for other sites in this area of Charlestown.

Three doors down from the old brewery/paper company site, just over the city line in Somerville, a residential-and-hotel project is being built. These sites are at the northeastern edge of the Inner Belt district of Somerville, "a historically industrial zone...with factories, warehouses, distribution centers, railroad connections, regional maintenance facilities, MBTA and Amtrak offices," per Wikipedia. I wrote about the Inner Belt and the adjacent Brickbottom district recently (see April 22, 2023, "Walking Around Belt-Bottom").

Next door to Boston Paper Board, at 52 Roland Street, is another former bottling operation that was known by various names.

MACRIS doesn't have a full write-up on this property, which dates to 1908, but does indicate that its historic names are Wirth's Bottling Co. and Hanover Bottling Co., and it is commonly known as Bay State Group - Prospect Hill Bottling Company.

Hanover Bottling moved to Alford Street in Charlestown in 1924, I believe. I'm not sure if the company was the original tenant at 52 Roland. As for Wirth's Bottling Company, I'm wondering whether it was related to the former Jacob Wirth Restaurant in Boston's Theater District. The German-American eatery was Boston's second-oldest restaurant, after the Union Oyster House, until its demise in 2018. I ate there a handful of times and it was always quite the scene, with the German-themed decorations, music and beer. And the sausages. Oh, the sausages.

Some Internet sleuthing led me to a listing for "Jacob Wirth Bottling" out of Providence, as well as "Jacob Worth, soda water manufacturer" in Boston. These could be the same company, with a spelling error in the latter case leading to confusion. Wikipedia indicates that Jacob Wirth Restaurant "was the first distributor of Anheuser Busch products," which means beer, so it would make sense that the restaurant might have had a soda bottling operation as well as a beer distribution arm.

Prospect Hill Bottling offers our strongest story.

"Domenick, Giuseppe and Felice Cusolito founded Prospect Hill Bottling and Soda Water Co. during 1914 in Somerville, Massachusetts," according to the company's web site. "When Domenick went to register his new company, which would be producing Prospect Hill Ginger Ale, the Clerk at the Secretary of State’s office suggested that they use a shorter name and asked, 'Isn’t that where the Tower is?' Tower Ginger Ale was born."

Brilliant!

The web site continues: "The fast growth of the company was curtailed by the stock market crash of 1929; however thanks to the early success of the new company, Prospect Hill Bottling and Soda Water Co. was able to survive even when the bank that held the company’s working capital could not." Check out that web site linked in the previous paragraph. I'm pretty sure the second photo, of a two-story brick building with a one-story addition, is 52 Roland Street.

Long story, short: "By the 1950’s, Tower Root Beer was known across all the New England states....However, in 1969 the company was sold to a conglomerate of soft drink companies and the family business was dissolved. [Founder Domenick Cusolito's son] Richard reacquired the rights to the trademark in 1970 and operated as a franchise company for eight years. In 1978 Richard decided to dissolve his franchises and remove Tower Root Beer from the market....For over thirty years, Tower Root Beer's recipe sat under lock & key until Richard's son (Dominick's grandson) Larry Cusolito decided to re-establish the family soft drink business and reintroduce Tower Root Beer to the New England region. He located his grandfather's original hand written recipe with his grandmother's birth certificate."

What a story! The company's sodas can be found at dozens of locations throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

52 Roland Street is currently home to Piaggio Fast Forward, which makes, um, robot butlers.

OK, I've covered the paper, beer and soda promised in the headline. Let's talk about ice cream!

At 56 Roland Street, I spied an old sign that I'd missed on my first swing through there a few years ago.

Founded in 1846 in Charlestown by Harvey Perley Hood, the dairy company known today simply as Hood was originally known as HP Hood Milk. Once HP's son, Charles Harvey Hood, joined the company in 1880, the name was changed to HP Hood & Sons, according to this Dairy Processing article.

The article continues: "Around the turn of the century, the first Hood Ice Cream was produced in Hood Creamery retail stores. In the 1940s...New England’s beloved Hoodsie Cups were introduced. In 1969, the company introduced Nuform low-fat milk, becoming the most extensive line...of low-fat dairy products in New England. Three years later, the company changed its name from HP Hood & Sons to HP Hood Inc. and invented Frogurt, the first frozen yogurt in the United States based on a request for a low-fat frozen dessert from Bloomingdale’s department stores. In 1991, Hood produced its first non-dairy product, Hood Non-Dairy Country Creamer."

Today based in Lynnfield, Mass., Hood has in recent years acquired many companies, giving the dairy outfit a reach well beyond New England. Among its brands is one near and dear to my, er, stomach: Brigham's Ice Cream.

For decades, Hood was based a 13-minute walk from Roland Street, along Rutherford Avenue in Charlestown. The iconic "HOODS MILK" smokestack still stands on the site, which is in the midst of being converted to Hood Park, a 20-acre mixed-use campus that will eventually include retailers and restaurants; office/lab space; outdoor event spaces; and, of course, apartments.

I'm not sure what Hood used 56 Roland Street for, but I'd like to think it was to make ice cream. Currently, the building is home to Accion International, which "works to empower families, small businesses, and communities overlooked by the global financial system"; Blue Pearl Pet Hospital; and UMass Extension School.

Sunset Falls on the Pancake House

From Mick Melvin:

I drive from Connecticut to Pennsylvania quite often to visit family. My father gave me a scenic route so I can avoid tolls. I see plenty of content for the Backside blog, but rarely stop to take photos because I just want to get to my destination. I've been taking trips for 15 years now. One particular stretch of highway going through New Jersey has always caught my eye. Along Route 202 in Branchburg, there is an abandoned restaurant, next to a dated motel. I finally made the stop on the way back home on my last trip.

The stretch of highway has many restaurants, shopping spots, gas stations and hotels. It has always struck me funny that this place has been abandoned for such a long period of time. It is definitely an eyesore in a nice suburban area. I often imagine what this place would have been like if my family had eaten there, or if I'd stopped in for a meal on my travels from PA to CT.

Well on this particular day, I parked in a public parking lot and walked past the Sunset Motel to get to the Sunset Pancake House Family Restaurant. The motel is still in operation, but it looks outdated and a little creepy. The metal sign out front looks like one from the '70's. The space the restaurant occupies is in good condition for being abandoned for such a long time. There are no broken windows and the building looks relatively clean.

As I snapped a few shots, I felt like I was being watched. I was about to take a closer look at the restaurant when I noticed a gentleman talking on his phone next to the motel. I waved but got no response, just a blank stare. I took this as a sign to keep it moving. All I could think about was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and being trapped in this motel, never to be seen again.

I made my way past the motel and the silent man to my car, unharmed. Many questions, however, filled my head. When I returned to CT, I looked up the restaurant and hotel but the searches didn't yield much. The motel is still in operation and is used by people who don't mind scarce amenities or like their stays a little rustic. I found nothing about the restaurant, but found some reviews about the motel. People gave it fair ratings. I'm not sure how long the restaurant has been out of business or how long it operated. I'll be sure to keep my eye on the location and give an update when I can.

Somewhere Near Twin City

From Dave Brigham:

I'm not big on revisiting neighborhoods I've already photographed and written about. With all the redevelopment in the Greater Boston landscape, though, I feel it's important to chronicle as many old places as I can before they get torn down. And often when I check back in on a place, I come across things I missed the first time around.

Recently, after exploring Somerville's Inner Belt district (see April 22, 2023, "Walking Around Belt-Bottom"), I found myself in the area near Twin City Plaza, on the border of Somerville and Cambridge, and started wandering some more. I'd tromped through part of this area back in 2019 (see "East Cambridge-ish Randoms"), so I made it a quick hit this time. But I still found some stuff. I can always find some stuff.

Passing under the bridge carrying the new Green Line Extension to Union Square, I quickly spotted a place that I at first assumed was out of business.

Carroll & Sons Roofing has a much better-looking web site than it does a headquarters, that's for sure. In business since 1962, the company is now under second-generation ownership. The building dates to, uh, 1900.

The roofing company is just a bottle cap's throw from the former Somerville Brewing Company facility on the corner of Horace and Ward streets.

Founded in 2011, Somerville Brewing opened a brewery and taproom at this site in 2014. "In December 2017, the company expanded with American Fresh Brewhouse at Assembly Row," according to this Boston.com article. "When the coronavirus pandemic hit, American Fresh Brewhouse closed and its Somerville headquarters, like so many other local breweries, began selling beer to go."

In 2020, the company's financial taps ran dry, and Somerville Brewing went out of business. I mentioned this site in my previously cited East Cambridge-ish post, and talked about how the brewing company had filed for bankruptcy a few months prior. What I didn't know at the time was the history of this place.

The old brewery started life in 1903 as George W. Norton Soap Works, according to MACRIS. "Adjoining the 3-story factory were engine room, stables, and storage sheds," MACRIS indicates. "The company manufactured laundry soap and a specialty, 'Norton's Tidy Soap,' 'one of the purest and best laundry | soaps made.' The rendering of tallow and the production of soap was a natural offshoot of the huge meat-packing business in Somerville, the largest of whose firms, Charles H. North & Co., was located about a block distant."

Below are some shots of the rear and side walls of the old soap-making company.

The complex is now home to Typhoon HIL, which makes marine power systems, battery energy storage systems, microgrids and, I don't know, maybe bars of titaniium cryptocurrency; and Science Research Laboratory, which definitely doesn't sound like a CIA front. Not at all.

I'm often looking up when I'm on a Backside walkabout -- at buildings, signs, murals, graffiti. But I lower my gaze, too, on the lookout for entryway mosaics and manhole covers and the like.

The "METER" cover in the photo above is located in front of the former home of previously cited North Packing & Provision Company on Medford Street. I wrote about that building in the above-linked post from 2019. My effort can't compete with Daniel Fireside, who runs the Iron Covers Instagram page.

Across from the old packing plant is a building that pops up as Fedele's Fish Market on Google Maps, although there is no sign on the building and little information online. Google Street View features an old business, Executive Auto Body, which opened in 1999 and closed fairly recently. The assessor's office says the building dates to 1960.

Finally, a sign of the times in Somerville.

The parcels that most recently contained Somerville Gas and Cubby Oil, at the intersection of Medford, South and Warren streets, have either been sold or will be soon. The buildings aren't old, dating to the 1950s, but the properties are valuable, because they are close to the new Union Square Green line station, as well as the growing Boynton Yards life science/residential/arts complex.

According to this Berkshire Hathaway listing, this site features 21,344 square feet of land, and holds the possibility of being redeveloped with a total of 27 residential units or research and development space.

For more of my recent work on Somerville, check out:

April 15, 2023, "East Somerville, Part II: The Other Stuff"

April 8, 2023, "East Somerville, Part I: The Main Drag"

March 25, 2023, "Square Dancing Around Somerville"

March 11, 2023, "The Pros and Cons of Winter Hill and Gilman Square"