Last fall, at a presentation at the Newton Camera Club, I learned an important lesson: if you find something you like, shoot the hell out of it.
And so I did, this past Thanksgiving, when I was staying at a hotel in Windsor, CT.
I shot this lovely old tobacco barn once before (see September 20, 2017, "One-Stop Barnstorming Tour"). This time around, I got a little more up close and personal.
This property is home to Foundation Cigar Company, which, in the video below, claims the land is "one of the oldest tobacco fields in Connecticut." The video features this barn.
The company's founder and owner, Nick Melillo, wants to bring the tobacco industry back in the Nutmeg State, as he told the local NBC affiliate last year.
Foundation isn't growing tobacco on this property right now, as far as I can tell. The company's headquarters is in an old farm house on the property. The company grows tobacco elsewhere locally, and ships the product to Nicaragua to be cured for two to three years, per the local TV interview linked above.
Most times I ride the subway with my son, we eat lunch at Boston's South Station train terminal. After eating, I head out to explore various neighborhoods. For some reason, it took me a few years to come up with the brilliant idea of checking out the nearby Leather District, where I worked back in the early '90s.
Before you let your mind drop into the gutter -- not that far a fall, I imagine -- this neighborhood has nothing to do with bondage and S&M. Not that there would be anything wrong with it if that were the case.
From Wikipedia: "The district did not exist until Boston's land-making expansions filled in the former South Cove during the 1830s, making way for the development of this area as well as Chinatown. It was at first developed as a residential area, but became the center of the city's leather industry after the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which devastated the city's business district and led to the introduction of stringent commercial fire codes."
The Leather District is a very small, but vibrant and architecturally spectacular neighborhood bounded by Atlantic Avenue to the east, Essex Street to the north, John F. Fitzgerald Road to the west and Kneeland Street to the south. It sits between the South Station train and bus terminals, Chinatown, the Financial District and a tangle of highway ramps. I'm really glad I checked it out on a beautiful day. Here's what I found, in no particular order.
There is so much going on with this building at 137-139 South Street (above). What caught my eye was the porthole at the roofline. What the heck is that thing? Is there an outhouse topside? From there, the eye moves to the two V-shaped fire escapes, and the truncated third one. The building is busy with different window styles, but I like that. And I dig the awning over the entryway. Built in 1887, this Romanesque Revival beauty is home to, among other commercial and possibly residential tenants, product development and marketing company Perfect Curve.
Right next door, at 127-133 South Street is the Beebe Building, home to Les Zygomates wine bar and restaurant.
Built in 1886, this place is named for leather goods company Lucius Beebe & Sons, which moved into the building in 1930, per my favorite online research tool, the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS).
Located at the corner of South and Essex streets, 79-99 South Street is home to the NonProfit Center, which comprises more than 50 such organizations.
This big block of a building dates to 1899 and is also home to 85 residential condos known as Lincoln Plaza.
Just across narrow Tufts Street from Lincoln Plaza is 103-109 South Street, below, home to, among other tenants, a NOBULL athletic shoe and apparel store.
The building dates to 1886.
Across South Street, at the corner of East Street, is the stunning building below.
Home to BFS Business Printing, among other businesses, 76-86 South Street was built in 1895. The first known tenant was the leather firm of Hall, Haight & Co., per MACRIS. Previous owners include Fannie Edson Demmon Morrison, daughter of the original owner, and her husband, Barnabus Thacher Morrison (LOVE THOSE NAMES!!), and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Currently the building is owned by a group of artists, as is the case elsewhere in the Leather District, where many artists and galleries can be found.
There are many other buildings along South Street that look as awesome as the few I've posted above. But there's nothing like the one below.
Located on the corner of Kneeland Street, the South Street Diner has served food day and night (and overnight) to factory workers (back in the mid-20th century), artists who live in the neighborhood, tourists, area businesspeople and those desperate for something to soak up their late-night alcohol intake since the late 1940s.
From 1991 to 1993 I worked across the street at a real estate publishing company, and dined at the eatery (then known as the Blue Diner) a handful of times. Once, from our vantage point on the fifth floor, a coworker and I noticed that the iconic coffee cup sign on the diner's roof had blow off in a heavy rainstorm. We had the receptionist call down to notify the diner's owner. We all felt bad, however, when a couple of guys climbed out onto the roof in the torrential rain and had to wrestle against the wind to get the wooden sign down and back inside to safety
(210 South Street, where I worked in the early '90s, is now condos.)
To learn about just how important the diner is to the Leather District, and Boston in general, and to see cool old photos of the place and hear how it was saved from having to cut back its hours, check out the short documentary below.
One more quick anecdote about the time I spent working in this neighborhood, and then I'll move on to more cool buildings and other stuff. Partway through my tenure on South Street, a lingerie store moved in a few doors down. While South Street isn't far from Boston's former Combat Zone -- aka the red light district -- such a business was out of place among the artist lofts, galleries, restaurants and boring businesses like the place I worked. I didn't think much of the store for the first week or two. But eventually I realized that most of the customers walking in and out were men, and they didn't look like drag queens. Then I noticed several young, thin, attractive women wearing long coats and high heels walking in and out and hanging around outside the store. I wasn't sure what to make of this, until a coworker told me that the women worked at the store, and would model the lingerie for men who were looking to purchase lacy underthings for their lady friends (or whoever....). I have no idea if anything untoward (what a great word) went on in the store, but it's certainly possible. I don't think the store lasted very long.
(This is where the lingerie shop was. Maybe if the owners had gone for a "leather and lace" thing, the store would have succeeded.)
Just up Kneeland Street from the diner I found this shuttered nightclub.
Closed down in 2013, the Splash Ultra Lounge & Burger Bar was cited and closed temporarily the year prior for overcrowding and serving alcohol to minors. The club's owner stated after the permanent closure that he would open the space again and call it Bliss. That appears never to have happened. In 2018, the Hudson Groupannounced a plan to build a 20-story hotel on the site. I'm not sure of the status of that proposed project.
Continuing west on Kneeland Street, you will come to this imposing, block-long building.
Once known as the Albany Building, this is 179 Lincoln Street. Built in 1899, this Beaux Arts-style beauty was designed by Peabody & Stearns, and was restored a decade ago by Millennium Partners. "Initial tenants included the United States Shoe Machinery Company, the U.S. Thread Company, and the Frank W. Whitcher Company, dealers in leather manufacturing," per the linked article above. In more recent years, it was home to Teradyne, a developer of automatic test equipment. Currently, companies including Smartsheet, PowerAdvocate, OUTFRONT Media, XPO Logistics and Mad*Pow call this place home.
(Looking down Lincoln Street, with the former Albany Building on the left.)
Heading north on Lincoln Street, I saw this little tableau.
I'll get to the building on the left below. In the middle is the Crawford Building, which was built in 1905 and over the years held businesses in the leather and shoe industries, among others. On the right is the Snider-Druker building, which dates to 1922 and was home to shoe-related businesses from then to at least the 1970s, per MACRIS.
Below, on the right, is the Crawford Building. In the middle is the William M. Bunting Building, which dates to 1899. The building was home to a wholesale shoe company in 1930, per MACRIS. The building on the left is currently home to the Empire Auction House.
Next in line to these buildings is 162-164 Lincoln Street, the Haskins-Hamburger Building.
Now home to the Corner Pub, this building, which dates to 1840, is probably the oldest in the Leather District. Per MACRIS: "Structure is 5-story remnant of Greek Revival row house, the last remaining example within the Leather District of a building type which once characterized the entire area from the 1840s-1880s. Other, better preserved examples, however, still remain in the Chinatown area."
How cool is that?! Here's some more great history from MACRIS: This area quickly became "a low rent district, [and] it was inhabited by the Irish and other immigrant groups for many years, until its redevelopment by the leather industry beginning in the 1880s....In 1877, the building was occupied by J.W, David & Co., groceries, O.A. Babb, provisions, and Al. Watts, dog & pigeon repository.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
The Haskins of the building's history comes from the heirs of Ralph Haskins, a well-to-do merchant who died in the 19th century. The Hamburger name comes from the Hamburger Brothers Shoe Company, per MACRIS.
The Corner Pub seems like a fun place, a great hangout for locals.
Continuing down Lincoln Street, we come to a building with a fancy "F."
This is 134-144 Lincoln, which dates to 1889. The original owner of 138-144 was Boston merchant Jonathan French, so I assume that's why the big "F" is up there. French was quite wealthy and "was for many years president of the Forest Hill Cemetery Association," per MACRIS. "He was a donor and member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; a life member of the Massachusetts Horticulture Society 1882; a member of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the American Pomological Society (the oldest fruit-growing society in the country)."
Next on our tour is 130-132 Lincoln Street, aka the J. Franklin Faxon Building, in the middle of the photo below.
This building seems like it should have two fancy "F" medallions on it. But alas, it has none. Built in 1889 and designed by William Ralph Emerson, . Among the early tenants were leather, shoe and perfume companies. Faxon was a merchant and real estate developer.
Directly across Lincoln Street from these wonderfully maintained historic buildings sits....
....a parking garage with retail on the ground level, including a C-Mart supermarket and Hei La Moon, a two-level banquet hall-style dim sum restaurant in Boston, according to this web site. Built in the 1950s, this hideous place faces Lincoln Street on one side, and looks out across John Fitzgerald Surface Road to Chinatown on the other side. Oxford Propertieshas proposed demolishing this building and erecting a 24-floor office building with retail, commercial and restaurant space on lower levels.
Steps away from the C-Mart is a tiny oasis known as the Greenway Lincoln Street Triangle, which features the mural below.
The artist, Mia Cross, launched her career in 2014 after graduating from Boston University.
Around the corner from Cross's mural, on Essex Street near South Station, is a plaque marking the approximate birthplace of Henry Knox, a brigadier general during the American Revolution and the nation's first secretary of war.
I have written previously -- see this and this -- about other memorials to Knox, who passed through Massachusetts from Fort Ticonderoga in New York in the winter of 1775-1776 to deliver to Gen. Washington "the train of artillery....used to force the British Army to evacuate Boston."
The Knox plaque is affixed to the side of the Plymouth Rock Assurance building on the corner of Atlantic Avenue.
Built in 1899 as the Essex Hotel, this proud and beautiful building is "one of only 2 complete steel frame structures constructed prior to 1900 within Leather District," per MACRIS.
Further down Atlantic Avenue, I saw this funny little scene at the rear of the aforementioned 210 South Street.
As the mailroom guy at the publishing company, I sometimes had to retrieve our daily bucket of mail off the back dock. While standing there, I would marvel at the construction work going on just across Atlantic Avenue that was part of the massive Big Dig project.
Speaking of back doors....
Located along Utica Street, which is really just an alleyway, this is the rear entrance/exit for Figaro's, a gourmet sandwich shop on Beach Street. Below are a few more shots from Utica Street.
(Big things used to go in and out this door.)
(Heavy things used to drop down this shaft way.)
(I'm not sure whether this pedestrian bridge is still active. I hope it is.)
Back out on Kneeland Street there is a building that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Currently the district six headquarters of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, this gleaming white behemoth has some architectural similarities to the classic buildings in the Leather District. Set back from Kneeland Street and hard by a highway off-ramp, this place just can't blend in. Built (not sure when) for Wang Laboratories, this property is one of two parcels in this area that the Commonwealth has been trying to redevelop for years.
The second property may be more difficult to redevelop, seeing as how it's got a massive steam plant on it.
This is the place, owned by a newly spun off company called Vicinity Energy (formerly Veolia). The idea for redevelopment is that Vicinity would build a smaller plant on the site, and the existing one would come down.
Right next to the steam plant is Reggie Wong Park, which naturally local residents want preserved in one way or another.
Wong was a well-known and popular Chinatown and Leather District pub owner, sports organizer, activist and, it seems from this obituary, all-around great guy.
So, you're asking yourself, and if you're not, I'm going to ask for you: "Is there any 'leather' left in this district?"
Yes and no. Yes, the word is there on this building at 20 East Street. But no, Boston Hide & Leather isn't a going concern. Built in 1919, this property was evidently a warehouse for the company, whose headquarters were on nearby Essex Street.
I was glad to see there are still some art galleries in the neighborhood, although I think their numbers have gone down in the quarter-century since I haunted the Leather District.
G Gallery on South Street showcases the work of Giovanni Decunto, an expressionist painter who grew up in Lawrence, Mass.
I'm gonna wrap up this tour with a place that perhaps more than any other Leather District property embodies both Boston's sepia-toned past and its internationally flavored present.
Located across from the Boston Hide building, 9 East Street was built in 1923 as the home for Engine No. 7 of Boston's fire department. According to MACRIS, this site was home to a fire house going back at least as far as 1874. Engine No. 7 moved from this site, and the South Leather Co. moved here in 1956.
For the last 12 years, this space has been home to O ya Boston, an incredibly high-end Japanese restaurant that has won rave reviews and accolades including 2008's "best new restaurant outside New York City" by Frank Bruni of the New York Times. "In its July issue, Food & Wine named chef-owner Tim Cushman a Best New Chef 2008," per this glowing review.
I had no idea when I walked by here that O ya was a restaurant. I suppose I should have guessed by the Japanese screening in the window, and the lanterns on either side, but frankly the sign is so low-key and the doorway a bit recessed, that unless you're cool and hip and rich and in-the-know (everything I'm not), you would have no clue that this is a place where you can drop a few hundred bucks on dinner with your shnookums.
OK, I hope you enjoyed this walkabout in the Leather District. It's a feast for the eyes and you can easily stroll through it in an hour or so and then grab a drink or bite to eat and call your day complete.
I love to walk in the woods. Always have, always will. If there are cool bridges, stone walls, old foundations and other treasures to stumble upon, all the better.
Recently I explored the conservation area in Weston, Mass., known as the Sears Land. This wooded acreage abuts the rail trail I wrote about last year (see March 24, 2019, "Weston By Musket and Sextant"). When I learned that this peaceful spot had cellar holes and remnants of a factory, I knew I had to check it out. Here's what I found.
I haven't been able to determine when the Sears family donated the 89 acres that make up this conservation land. I'm assuming these folks are descendants of Horace B. Sears, who "has been called 'the Town’s greatest benefactor,' as he made substantial contributions to the new Town Hall, Town Green, beautification of the center, and other improvements made during the early 20th century," per the Town of Weston web site.
The property stretches from Church Street to the west to Weston Station Pond to the east, the Mass. Central Rail Trail to the north to Crescent Street to the south.
(View of the rail trail from the Sears Land.)
Accessible via the rail trail or Crescent Street, the property includes the Melone House, which was once owned by Italian immigrant John Melone, who worked for the Sears family. The house (date of construction unknown, but it's old) serves as the headquarters of Land's Sake, a non-profit farming, education and land preservation group, and includes related outbuildings.
My interest, however, lay in the vestiges of industry that dot the landscape. While researching the above-linked post about the rail trail, I found a video someone made of a tour of the Sears Land. In that footage, those walking through the woods talked about ruins of an old mill, among other things. That video seems to be have disappeared from the Internet.
So I rolled up the long driveway, parked my car and started poking around.
I opted to follow a path just to the right of the Melone House that was just too inviting to ignore.
At the beginning of the trail I spied some old farm machinery.
Ambling along I saw plenty of stone walls. What is about them that I find so comforting?
I guess it has something to do with the fact that they're often nestled comfortably in the woods, covered in nice blankets of moss and lichens, reminding me of their past as property markers and of how they'll be here long after I'm gone.
There are other reminders of human intervention along the paths.
The most impressive man-made structure is Lee's Bridge, which was erected in 2013 in remembrance of Lee Cohen, a long-time Trustee of the Association, according to the Weston Forest & Trail Association web site.
(Lee's Bridge; wish my photo were better.)
"OK, what about the old mill or factory remnants I read about?" I asked myself as I enjoyed a beautiful fall day.
Crescent Street, which curves gently for a short distance along Boston Post Road (Rte. 20) in the shape of its name, was settled by colonists hundreds of years ago. Farms, of course, were the first businesses to be set up, followed by taverns and mills, per this Town of Weston web page.
From the town's web site: "Three Mile Brook....which runs just north of Crescent Street and eventually joins Stony Brook, provided the power for mills which contributed to the development of the homes along this section of the Country Road," which I believe refers to Boston Post Road. The first mill began operation around 1743, according to the town.
Other mills followed, and "the remains of a dam, a millpond, and a canal for directing water from 3 Mile Brook" exist on the Sears Land. "Large water wheels to power machinery were constructed here, and evidence of the supporting structure can still be seen." I saw some evidence of something, but I'm not sure exactly what.
(This to me looks like a foundation of some sort, or perhaps a supporting structure for a water wheel.)
(This seems too low to be a typical stone wall. Again, perhaps part of a foundation or supporting structure.)
"In 1830, Samuel F. H. Bingham from Concord bought mill rights on the 3 Mile Brook and purchased land on what is now Crescent Street. About 1838-1839, Brigham (sic, I swear) built the home at 39 Crescent Street. He also established a factory in the area behind this residence. Bingham made machinery for the manufacture of heavy woolen goods and invented the Bingham cheese and butter drill, a highly successful item which apparently was in great demand," says the Weston site.
Subsequent factories on that site and nearby produced clocks, chairs and window and door screens, per this Wicked Local Weston article.
Although I didn't find any "big moment" backside sites, I did enjoy scrambling around the remnants there. I love learning about places like this that once housed industry, and which now have returned to nature. Weston is known these days as one of the most exclusive towns in Massachusetts, with the median home price of $1.47 million ranking it in the Top 5. While most of the mills and factories that were located on and around the Sears Land were likely fairly small, there was one factory in Weston that was quite large.
"The Hook and Hastings Co. organ factory was located on Viles Street near North Avenue from 1889 to 1935," per the above-referenced Wicked Local Weston article. 'It was the largest and most important industry in Weston’s history. During that time, church and concert hall organs were shipped by rail all over the country. Power was supplied by steam." In 2017, I wrote about the area where the factory once stood (see June 23, 2017, "A Walk Through Weston's History").
