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.
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