From Dave Brigham:
I pinpointed the northeast corner of Boston's Charlestown neighborhood because, well, why not. I'd visited nearby areas of Somerville and during that process, discovered some great old painted signs on a building at the eastern edge of Charlestown (see June 3, 2023, "Change is Coming to Charlestown's Northwest Corner"). I figured I might as well poke around the area near the old Schrafft's candy factory, an iconic site situated between Alford and Medford streets. As usual, I knew a little about what I would find, but was pleasantly surprised by what I didn't know was there, including some sweet history.
Currently known as Schrafft's City Center, this complex includes three buildings featuring office and warehouse space, as well as a gym, a child-care center, a coffee bar and rooftop farming. Built between 1925 and 1928 for the W. F. Schraffts and Sons Co., this Art Deco industrial plant contained "over 16 acres of floor space and was the largest confectionery plant in the country engaged in producing fine-quality candy," according to MACRIS.
Prior to the construction of the Wonka-esque factory, Schrafft's occupied a smaller building on this site, MACRIS continues. The circa-1925 factory was entirely self-contained, MACRIS indicates, with "candy-making equipment, cold-storage rooms, a box and printing shop, dining and recreation rooms, and the offices of the company." The candy outfit sold the building to the American Safety Razor Company in 1981.
At its height, Schrafft's operated this factory, as well as 55 restaurants/stores in New York and other states. In 1967, PET, Inc. acquired the candy maker, splitting up the candy, restaurant, ice cream and cake businesses, according to Wikipedia. Gulf + Western bought the Schrafft's candy operation in 1974, and shut it down less than a decade later, according to Wikipedia.
In addition to the factory, an "adjoining power plant was equipped with two oil-fired steam turbine engine generators, and five refrigeration compressors, each driven by a direct-connected turbine," according to MACRIS. That building is shown below. It is home to a Bright Horizons child-care center and some law offices.
Across a large parking lot, and around the bend of extant railroad tracks, is the former U.S. Baking Co. complex.
"The U.S. Baking Co./Brockway Smith Corporation complex encompasses components dating from c.1890-l925," according to MACRIS. "The long rectangular brick component is essentially intact -- evidently the third floor is a later addition. The 5-story steel frame and concrete warehouse and factory dates to 1924. The brick segment has historical associations with the U.S. Baking Co. During the 1890's, this company 'comprised the principal biscuit manufacturers of the central states.'"
In 1898, U.S. Baking merged with the New York Biscuit Company to form National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco.
This Patch article offers more detail about the buildings. "By 1912, Brockway Smith had occupied the NABISCO building, and rebuilt it into a warehouse. The property’s side tracks and waterfront created an ideal location for the well-known manufacturers of 'doors, sash and blinds, windows and door frames.' In 1924, Brockway Smith built an additional five-story steel and concrete building. The corporation moved most of its offices and consolidated most of its plant in Charlestown."
The old Schrafft's factory is in the background in the photo above, with the former baking operation on the right. These tracks are part of what's left of a spur leading from the railroad underneath Interstate 93 and running parallel to Medford Street and connecting to piers along the Mystic River, I believe.
Along the nice section of this right-of-way, I saw many people walking their dogs. I, of course, also had to check out the not-so-great length of rail, behind a former stove factory that's situated between the former Schrafft's and U.S. Baking operations.
(Some sort of a thing along the railroad tracks.)
(Two shots of the rear of the old factory.)
(I'm assuming this area, which has been filled in with cinder blocks, was a loading and unloading area for stoves and other products, as it sits about 20 feet from the tracks.)
From 1892 to 1926, this building on Medford Street was the headquarters of the S.M. Howes Company, which manufactured stoves. The building rose around 1870, and was originally home to Weymss Brothers and Company, a furniture-making company, per MACRIS.
I love the ghost sign below, which is different than the faded old painted advertisements I'm used to seeing. I'm not sure of its age, as I haven't found out anything about the Mathews company that at some point made chicken pies. I'm also not sure what businesses were located here after the stove company moved out in the 1920s.
I can tell you that nowadays these brick buildings are home to artist studios and a gallery.
The nonprofit Stove Factory Gallery is operated by the Artists Group of Charlestown, which was founded in 1996. The old factory also houses 24 artist studios.
East-southeast from the stove factory, following Medford Street and the railroad tracks, there is a squat, yellow-brick building with an expansive parking lot stretching to the Mystic River. There are no signs on 425 Medford Street, and the lot is filled with an odd assortment of vehicles, such as state-plated cars, movie-company trucks and trailers, regular cars and even an old Super Duck tour bus.
(A side track of the railroad spur used to go right into this building.)
I had no clue what this place could be. I thought maybe it was a state-owned building such as a crime lab or a police department annex. Once I began my research for this post, I learned the sweet truth: this was once a warehouse for the Domino Sugar refinery that stood between Medford Street and the Mystic River. Over the course of living in and around Boston for the last three decades, I've heard or read bits and pieces about the refinery, but I had no idea about its location or history.
Built in 1960, the refinery consisted of numerous buildings, including "a steel and hammered aluminum warehouse in the shape of a dome, 107 feet high with capacity to store 66 million pounds of raw sugar," according to this Patch article. This was a gigantic complex, according to the article. "From dockside the MS Domino Crystal, a 9,500-ton bulk carrier, fed its cargo of bulk raw cane sugar into the dome, with the help of three traveling electric cranes. Covered conveyor belts later conveyed the sugar from the dome into the refining center. Fifteen stories above ground level were seven large product storage silos where 5 million pounds of refined sugar could be stored. There were massive tanks for liquid sugars." The warehouse pictured above could hold 10 million pounds of packaged sugar.
Less than three decades after it opened, the refinery closed up shop. "The demand for refined sugar dropped as more nutritional information came out about its hazards and manufacturers began to produce high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners as sugar substitutes," the Patch article continues. The entire plant, save for the warehouse, was demolished in the early '90s.
The Domino plant wasn't the only sugar-producing factory along Medford Street. Revere Sugar started up in this area in 1919; that plant was demolished in the early '90s
Check out this Flickr photo for an idea of the size of the plant.
In subsequent years, other companies operated out of the warehouse. Now, as you probably have guessed, there is a plan for a massive redevelopment.
In November 2021, Braintree-based real estate firm The Flatley Company, which owns the Schrafft's complex, proposed a 21-acre, 1.7 million-square-foot mixed-use development that would include space for residential, lab/office, hotel and food/retail uses, in addition to recreational areas and a public dock on the Mystic River.
The proposal is moving through the Boston Planning & Development Agency pipeline. In March of this year, the development team presented to the BPDA's Landscape/Open Space subcommittee.
Directly across from the old sugar warehouse is a rather unassuming apartment building that has a "dirty" secret.
Built around 1885, 412 Medford Street was converted to condos in the late '90s, I believe, with an addition off the back. In its early days, however, this brick building was used to manufacture stove polish. "In the 19th c., black lead, today known as graphite, was used to polish cast-iron stoves," according to MACRIS. An Irish immigrant named Robert Webb was in the stove-polishing business in a number of locations around Boston, settling in this location around 1892. "[O]n the first floor of the factory was the mill used to grind the lumps of graphite into a fine powder; the second floor was used for storage; and in a two-story brick ell to the rear was a 50hp steam engine," MACRIS continues. I imagine this was a dirty, sooty business.
More from MACRIS: "Beginning c.mid- 1890's this building was acquired by the Whittemore-Woodbury Company, manufacturers of shoe blacking and shoemakers wax. The old leadworks was used as a blacking factory and a wood-frame wax manufacturing plant was built to the rear, while a wood-frame, wax warehouse was built at the corner of North Mead St.," which is behind the current building. The shoe-blacking company, which also must have been a pretty grimy business, was located in this spot until the late 1920s, according to MACRIS. Prior to the building's conversion to residences, a restaurant was located here.
A little further southeast along Medford Street is the former Wiggins Lumber Terminal.
Built between 1912 and 1918, according to MACRIS, this building and two north of it along Terminal Street were used, as you might have guessed, for lumber storage. The buildings were situated conveniently next to both a railroad spur and a wharf along the Mystic River. MACRIS indicates that in the 1920s, these buildings were also used to store wool. Nowadays, the building above consists of apartments, a store and a restaurant.
Below are the buildings that make up the rest of the old lumber terminal. This is now the Charlestown Commerce Center.
There is a storage business here, as well as an engineering firm, rehearsal studios and the Bacon Truck Cafe.
Just to the west of the old lumber terminal, near where the sugar plant once stood, are five giant concrete silos owned by French cement company Lafarge North America.
Circling back just to the west of the old Schrafft's complex, at the rotary near Sullivan Square station, are a few more buildings I found interesting.
The Graphic Arts Finishers Building at 32 Cambridge Street is now home to apartments, in what is called The Graphic Lofts. The building dates to 1930 and was home to a company that offered printing finishers and paper die cutting services, and provided wire and perfect binding and laminating services, according to something I found online. The building was converted to condos in 2019, and is home to Foundation Kitchen, a shared culinary workspace.
Across the parking lot from the loft building is 6 Spice Street.
(View of the front of 6 Spice Street.)
In a previous post about Charlestown (see May 4, 2020, "Charlestown Jaunt, Part II"), I featured photos of buildings near this place, but apparently I wasn't interested in this one. Turns out, it has an interesting backstory and a neat place in Boston history.
(View of 6 Spice Street from the east.)
Built sometime between 1892-1901, according to MACRIS, "[a]rchitecturally it is a rare Boston area example of a late 19th c. brass foundry. Constructed of brick, this building is characterized by clean lines, planar masonry surfaces and crisply rendered fenestration. Surface excressences (sic) are limited to rock faced granite window sills and corbelled cornices." My thoughts exactly.
(View of 6 Spice Street from the west.)
From MACRIS: "By 1892 an L-shaped wooden structure labeled 'Brass Foundry' appears to the rear of #6's present site. A long, rectangular building labeled 'Boston Excelsior Co.' is shown to the rear. Julian D'Este was the treasurer of the Boston Excelsior Co. 'agents for the Crocker-Wheeler Electric Co., manufacturers of high grade electrical machinery for all purposes and in all sizes to 250 h.p.' This company's 'productions' included 'multipolar dynamos and power generators,'... By 1895 #6 Spice St. housed D'Este and Seely Co., manufacturers of Curtis Engineering Specialties.' By 1940 #6 Spice St. is listed as 'Julian D'Este, Engineering Specialities, with a listing for John D'Este, president of the Boston Excelsior Co.'
"By 1943 #6 Spice was occupied by the National Youth Administration."
I'd never heard of the National Youth Administation, which sounds like a more organized Lord of the Flies-type deal. Wikipedia, thankfully, has the goods on this organization. "The National Youth Administration (NYA) was a New Deal agency sponsored by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency. It focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25. It operated from June 26, 1935 to 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and included a Division of Negro Affairs....Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939, the NYA was transferred from the WPA to the Federal Security Agency. In 1942, the NYA was transferred to the War Manpower Commission. The NYA was discontinued in 1943."
Now you know.
Well, that wraps up this tour. Please enjoy the video below:
