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.