Downtown Norwood Is Good

From Dave Brigham:

In recent posts about Norwood, Mass., I discussed a former mill that's been turned into a multi-purpose destination for antiquing, live music, artist studios and more (see October 29, 2022, "Bombing Around a Former Norwood Mill"); and several former printing factories and other industrial sites, including one that features yet another live entertainment venue, as well as a brewery and other cool small businesses (see November 5, 2022, "More Milling About in Norwood").

Today I present for your viewing and reading pleasure a review of downtown Norwood and other areas in this town about 20 miles southwest of Boston.

The eastern end of our tour is a commercial building at 481-489 Washington Street that dates to 1927.

I like the details on this building, which houses Oasis Caribbean Cuisine and Metalwork Antique Restoration, among other businesses.

Around the corner, on Railroad Avenue, is the former Shamrock Pub.

I'm not sure when the pub closed, but it was in business for many decades, I believe. It was located in an area of Norwood once known as Cork City, after the city in Ireland. "Railroad Ave. was the main street of Cork City," per MACRIS. "Settled by Irish immigrants during the 1850s, Cork City was developed by 'the Plymouth Rock lrish,' a term coined by local historian F. Holland Day. Many of the frst 22 Irish families were initially housed in Capt. Moses Guild's steam mill, which stood in what is now Guild Park. These first families came to Norwood to work on the construction of the Norfolk County Railroad and later the furniture factories, tanneries and ink mill that flourished in Norwood at mid century."

The area west of St. Catherine School along Railroad Avenue was known as Dublin.

Steps away, behind buildings on Central and Washington streets, I spied a gigantic dish that was a real mystery for me.

It turned out to be on the property of the Norwood Light & Broadband Department. The town service offers cable TV, high-speed internet and telephone service to residents and businesses in town, which seems very old-fashioned to me. Therefore, I like it.

Back on Washington Street, I noticed Kappy's Coins & Stamps, which was founded in 1971.

(The sign for Dandy Donuts turns out to be a ghost, as that business is gone.)

Back on Central Street, which runs parallel to Washington, I spotted a building that I knew was "something," but I had no idea what.

Any guesses?

This stucco building dates to the 1880s and served as the town's jail until the 1960s (!). This is where Norwood's version of Otis the Drunk would have spent some time.

I've never come across a former jail before, not knowingly anyway. "The interior of the 'lock up' has been completely gutted, its interior currently used by the Town as a garage and storage facility," according to a National Register of Historic Places registration form for the adjacent Norwood Memorial Municipal Building. "Norwood's 'lock-up' is evidently a unique structure within the town and possibly within Norfolk County. Indeed, few examples of this building type survive in Massachusetts."

Very cool!

On Cottage Street, west of Washington Street, I liked the mural below, which depicts people hard at work.

It is located on the former home of Babel's Paint & Decorating.

Back on Washington Street, heading south-southwest, is Limey's Pub.

The building rose in 1926. There are many buildings like this one along Norwood's main commercial drag.

Next door is the Odd Fellows Hall, which was built in 1912 and featured at the time a meeting space for the local chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), and retail space on the ground floor. The building is also known as the Hanlon's Shoes building, per MACRIS.

"The Odd Fellows Block in a certain sense, symbolizes the prosperity of Norwood during the early 20th century," MACRIS continues. "During the 1890's, Norwood came into its own as an important New England industrial center with the construction of the Norwood Press facilities and the expansion of existing industries. Increased industrial activity triggered a major building boom in Norwood which continued almost unabated from the 1890's to the (sic) through the 1920's. Commercial construction activity and civic beautification projects were the order of the day in and around Norwood Center. Once a mixed use area with several substantial homes, Norwood Center acquired a more urban, commercial look during the teens and 20's - the Odd Fellow's block was a relatively early harbinger of these changes."

On the east side of Washington Street is the W.T. Grant Co. building.

Currently home to Iglesia Pentecostal Monte de Sion Church and a Burn Boot Camp fitness facility, this building was originally the home of a Grant's department store. Built in the late 1920s, the store was part of retail chain founded by William T. Grant in 1906 in Lynn, Massachusetts. I have written about other former Grant's stores, here and here.

Around the corner on Day Street is Eagle Shoe Repair, which has been in business since 1936.

I love the folksy displays that old-school shoe stores/cobblers sometimes feature in their windows. I've seen a few over the years, including one in Newton Corner that I wrote about here.

Next door is Day Street Sports, which was founded in 1972.

Yeah, you know me: I'm more interested in a sign on the ground than one on a building.

Across from the sports shop is the wonderfully named Napper Tandy's Pub.

One of four outlets in this local chain, it was named for James Napper Tandy, an Irishman "who experienced exile, first in the United States and then in France, for his role in attempting to advance a republican insurrection in Ireland with French assistance," per Wikipedia.

Next is Conrad's Restaurant, which opened on Washington Street in 1999 (two other eateries have since opened in Walpole and Foxborough). Located in an old theater that was built in 1911, the restaurant features a function room and offers catering. Oh, did you want to know more about the old theater?

"Built by Norwood entrepreneur Charles Hubbard, the old Premier [T]heatre is said to have been the first theatre built with a pitched floor between Boston and Providence," according to MACRIS. "It is difficult to determine how much, if any portion, of the...theatre is still extant after at least three later remodelings. In 1931, it was renamed the Guild Theatre." I'm not sure when it went out of business, and what was located here before Conrad's opened at the end of last century.

We're going to travel south along Washington Street, away from downtown, before making our way back to the center. I made two trips to Norwood. On my first, I saw the building below, figured it had a story, but opted not to make a photo. After doing some research, I realized I needed to get back to shoot it.

Currently home to a chiropractor's office, and at some point before that, a tool and industrial supply company, 935 Washington Street was built in 1924 as Temple Shaare Tefilah (Gates of Prayer Synagogue). The congregation moved to a new temple in the 1960s.

At the intersection of Washington and Dean streets is Nick's Package Store.

The Better Business Bureau says this place has been in business since 1894. That sign appears to be nearly that old.

Across Washington Street is the Italian Social Club...I think.

This appears to be a bricked-up entrance. The only other access point I noticed was in the back parking lot.

Heading east on Dean Street, I spied a great bridge.

Built in 1891, this stone bridge carries (or carried) railroad tracks that split off the main line that runs through Norwood. "The railroad that built the bridge was the Walpole and Wrentham Railroad, which built its line from 1890 to 1903," per this Waymarking article. "The rails branched off at Norwood Central on the Norfolk County Railroad and continued on to Wrentham and North Attleboro and ended at another railroad at Adamsdale Junction, along the same railroad. Sections were abandoned, little by little, starting with the westernmost sections in 1963. Sections up to East Walpole were abandoned by 1973."

Just before Washington Street crosses into Walpole, I checked out the Hawes Brook Walkway.

Hawes Brook runs just to the north of a town pool, a middle school, a baseball complex and a community garden.

The brook was dammed up to form two ponds, which were used in the olden times as "his" and "hers" swimming holes, according, once again, to a Waymarking post.

"At least part of the land once belonged to the Bird family, who were owners of a paper making company just over the border in Walpole," per the Waymarking article.

Heading back toward downtown, along Broadway, is the Norwood Central train station, which I actually photographed from the parking lot on Lenox Street.

Built in 1899, the building is owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) but is used for commercial purposes. There is a platform for commuter trains here.

The station replaced on older, wooden one, and served a variety of railroads as consolidation of that business went forward, including the Norfolk County Railroad; the New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE), which built its main shops adjacent to Norwood Central; the Old Colony Railroad; and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The MBTA purchased the line in 1973 for its Franklin commuter rail line.

Along Lenox Street, near Nahatan Street, the former Norwood Tire complex backs up to the commuter train tracks.

The tire shop closed at end of June this year; prior to that it was Goodyear Tire & Rubber. The site is on the market. I'm sensing new apartments going up here.

The next building, and the three Norwood icons that follow, are all in the main downtown area, a stone's throw from the town square.

Located at 91 Central Street, this place was erected around 1940. It's home to an eye clinic and a realtor's office. I like the design -- is it Art Deco? -- and the contrast between the blue details and the red street number. It looks to me like it was a theater or maybe even an auto dealership, but I've been unable to find out any details about this place.

I've saved the best for last, and frankly I'm not sure in what order to put these final buildings. I'll start with the diner, because even though I love diners, this place just didn't please me as much as the other two buildings.

Located on Nahatan Street, the Town Square Diner is what's called an "on-site" diner, which means it was built here, as opposed to being construced by the Worcester Lunch Car Company or another manufacturer and delivered to this location.

I'm not sure how long the diner has been in business, or whether it was known by any other names. The Norwood assessor's office says the building dates to 1935. To see other photos of this place from over the years, check out this Flickr gallery.

At the corner of Cottage Street and Broadway is the Norwood Sport Center.

Offering a place for keglers to get their game on since 1940, the sport center is a locally owned business that claims on its web site to be "the first building built as a candlepin bowling alley." I just love the colors and the symmetry and the function of this place. You don't see many bowling alleys anymore, especially ones as wonderful as this one.

When I posted this photo on Instagram, one of my followers tagged it with "AccidentallyWesAnderson," a web site and Instagram account I'd never heard of. With a goal to "explore the unique, the symmetrical, the atypical, the distinctive design and amazing architecture that inspires us all," AWA - named in honor of the filmmaker with the eccentric asthetic -- is similar in scope and feel to Atlas Obscura.

I submitted the photo to the web site.

The last place on our tour is a theater the likes of which I've never seen in a small town or a big city.

The Norwood Theatre was built in 1927 and restored in 2012, after being altered by what MACRIS calls "innapropriate (sic) commercial surface treatments, to wit, a billboard-sized plastic marquee sign." This Spanish Romanesque-style building hosts concerts, musicals, comedy shows, ballet performances and more.

The theater was designed to look similar to Boston's long-gone Lowe's State Theatre, per MACRIS. Over the years it was a movie house and, I assume, a vaudeville performance venue. Originally built to hold 1,200 attendees, in its renovated form it can accommodate 731 audience members in the auditorium and balcony.

I hope you enjoyed this trek through Norwood!