Way Down Yonder in Pawtucket, Part I

From Dave Brigham:

I apologize in advance for this, but I often feel the need to explain my headline choices:

I'll admit that before posting that video, I couldn't recall what a paw paw is. I may have known when I was a kid and had occasion to sing the song. It's a fruit.

Anyway...let's dig into Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the fourth-largest city in the smallest state in the Union. This marks only the second time I've explored any municipality of Lil' Rhody. In September 2017, I wrote about a mini-vacation my family took in Newport (see September 28, 2017, "No Yachts, No Mansions").

I covered a lot of territory back in late June, so I'm splitting this review into two parts.

But first, a note about pronunciation. I've been saying "Paw-tucket" forever, but someone I met recently who lives on the South Coast of Massachusetts corrected me. "It's "Pah-tucket," he told me. Fair enough.

I like to park near town or city halls when I explore a place. Sometimes there's free parking, and usually such a building is located in the center of the action. So, after finding my spot in the lot on Roosevelt Avenue, I headed west for a short distance along Exchange Street. I was quite taken by the mural on the side of the Graham Building.

Built sometime between 1926 and 1929, the building was likely erected by the owner of H.L. Graham & Sons, a plumbing contractor, according to the National Register of Historic Places registration form for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District.

As for the mural, it was completed by Rene Gomez for the Mental Health Stigma Campaign. "'I suffer from ADHD and I struggle with it every day. I also have an autistic son and it’s also something touching, meaningful to my heart,'" Gomez said in this NewsNation article. "'Being Hispanic, I had to put a Hispanic message up there,'" he continued. "'I grew up in a household where it wasn’t OK to cry and talk about my feelings, and that’s a stigma I would like to break.'”

"The murals also feature sign language and it’s LGBTQ-friendly because, to Gomez, it doesn’t matter who you are — mental health is mental health," the article continues. The mural program is in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Latino Arts.

Next, I cut down Montgomery Street, after getting a peek at a ghost sign.

The Times newspaper was founded in Pawtucket in 1885 as The Evening Times. "Five years later, David O. Black bought the paper, and became the first of four generations to keep it in his family," per Wikipedia. "Black commissioned a new building for the newspaper at 23 Exchange street (sic)." The building was completed in 1896, and was the home of the paper until 2019.

"In October 2023, [current owner] Triboro Massachusetts News Media announced that The Times would be merging with sister paper The Call of Woonsocket to become The Blackstone Valley Call & Times, a Monday–Saturday newspaper," Wikipedia continues.

The old newspaper headquarters, which was designed by architects William R. Walker & Son, has been vacant since 2023, I believe.

Facing the rear of the old Times building, at the corner of Summer and North Union streets, is the former Henry Arnold Livery Stable, which in more recent years was home to Feldman Furniture. Below is a ghost sign facing southeast along Summer Street (I will feature another ghost sign from this building in a follow-up post).

(Ghost sign for Sealy Mattress on side of old Feldman Furniture building.)

"Henry F. Arnold was the proprietor of the Broad Street stables in 1891, when he first appears in city directories; an advertisement boasts '37 fine livery horses, and almost every description of carriage,' available 24 hours a day," per the Art in Ruins web site, quoting from the National Register nomination for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District. For this post, and the one to follow, I relied as heavily on Art in Ruins as I do on MACRIS when writing about Massachusetts towns and cities.

"In 1892 Arnold...moved the stables to this new building...with 176 horse stalls on the ground floor and two floors of carriage storage above. The stables were accessed from North Union Street, while the three storefronts on Summer Street were occupied by various small, mostly auto-related businesses. In 1921, H.M. Arnold & Son Co. converted this building to a vehicular garage, and maintained that business until 1940. In 1945 Feldman’s Furniture Co. moved in, with retail space on Summer Street and storage on North Union...."

Check out that web site for a photo of the great Feldman's sign that used to grace this building. When I was in the city, there appeared to be construction under way at this site, likely for condos.

Next I headed north-northwest on Summer Street, where I immediately spotted another great mural on the side of 28 Summer Street.

This work features Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Enslaved as a child, Wheatley was emancipated by the Wheatley family of Boston shortly after her book was published in 1773. I have referred to Wheatley before, in a post about Boston's Chinatown neighborhood where a plaque honors her memory.

This mural was painted by Lee Adam Beard, an artist who goes by Soems. This mural and two that I will showcase below, as well as others in the downtown, all feature farmous Black people from history, per this article on the Valley Breeze web site. Developer Leslie Moore spearheaded the project on various buildings she owns.

Just up the street, at 3 Exchange Street, is a wildly colorful depiction of a peacock.

The mural on the side of the Beswick Building was created by local artist Charles Clear, according to this Valley Breeze article. As for the Beswick, it was completed in 1891 "for Frances Beswick, widow of a saloon keeper and brewer who lived on the opposite comer of Exchange and Summer Streets in the early 1890s," according to this Art In Ruins article.

The building has suffered two fires in its lifetime and has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Developers have announced plans to renovate the place. I'm not sure of the status of that project.

Next, I made my way southeast on Main Street, where I was pleasantly surprised by two more Soems works of art.

This mural features William Grant Still, a composer born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. He composed nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works, per Wikipedia. This work is located on the side of the Still on Main, a group of shops with the motto, "Eat. Shop. Vibe."

The building is known historically as the W.T. Grant Building. Grant's was a department store chain founded in Lynn, Mass., in 1906. The chain was in business until 1976. In more recent years, the building was home to the Mill River Arcade, Preachers on a Mission and The Grant, a live entertainment venue.

Just up the street is The Green on Main, an events and retail space that Leslie Moore opened in 2022.

"The Green on Main, located in the Artéé Fabrics & Home building at 230 Main St....is intended to resemble a downtown park, complete with tables for eating or playing board games such as chess, and comfortable hanging chairs," per this Valley Breeze article. There are vendors and food offerings in the space, which is intended as a place for businesses that can't maintain regular hours, while adding life to Main Street, the article continues.

I'm not sure how many tenants are located in what is known historically as the Toole Building, which rose in 1892. Two floors were added in 1922

The mural at the left side of the entrance, another one by Soems, pays tribute to Victor Green, a postal employee who, with assistance from his wife Alma, started the Green Book in Harlem in 1936. "[C]alled alternately The Negro Motorist Green Book, The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, and The Travelers’ Green Book over its 30-year existence," the guide was one of "the most successful and long-lived" methods of helping African-American travelers during the Jim Crow era know where they could safely eat, shop and lodge, according to the National Park Service.

The NPS web site quotes Dino Thompson, a native of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about the importance of the Green Book: "...[it] didn’t tell you if a place had a good steak, or good seafood, or had a soft bed...it told you where you would be safe; it told you where you’d be welcome and not made to go around the kitchen and order something to go...The rest [of the guide books out there] are just fluff...To my mind, it’s still the only necessary travel guide that’s ever been printed."

Frankly, I'm surprised the Trump administration has allowed this information to remain on the NPS web site.

From there, I wound my way south on East Avenue, and then west on Church Street. There, I made a less than great image of the Slater Cotton Mill apartments (let's blame it on the sun angle dissuading me from getting a better shot).

Built between 1880 and 1889 for the Slater Cotton Company, this massive mill building by 1892 contained 1,475 looms and employed 600 workers, according to this Art in Ruins write-up. The company "apparently fared poorly in the first decade of the 20th century," that blog post continues. "By October 1908, it had fallen so deeply in debt that it was reorganized as a new corporation, the Slater Manufacturing Company. At this time, its functions were broadened to include manufacturing of silk cloth."

The company continued to struggle and by 1918 it had sold its various operations and become a real estate holding company, renting space to other manufacturers. In succeeding years, the building was used by ER Hutchinson Co., which made jewelry displays. I'm not sure whether other companies also occupied the old mill before 2007, when a developer acquired the property and converted it to apartments.

Across Church Street, at 450 Main Street, is another old mill building, which I assume was once part of the Slater complex.

This building, which dates to *ahem* 1900, is currently home to the city's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among other outfits.

From there I continued north on Pine Street, across Main, where I made a photo of Atlantic Furniture, which is located in yet another old mill building.

Known historically as the James S. Brown Machine Shop, this brick building runs for 400 feet along Pine Street between Main and Bayley streets. The mill dates to the 1840s and was built for Brown, who was a metal worker who toiled for a company called Pitcher and Gay, per Art in Ruins.

"Even before the construction of the 1848 factory, James Brown had a substantial and well-deserved reputation as a machinist and inventor," the Art in Ruins article continues. "In 1831 he invented a machine for cutting bevel gearing; in 1838 he patented a machine for boring the tubes of speeder flyers from solid iron; and in 1842, he patented a lathe for creating irregular metal forms. In the new shop on Church Hill, Brown built a variety of textile machinery, including mules and speeders, and cordage machinery; by the mid-nineteenth century, the factory employed three hundred hands."

A jewelry manufacturer occupied this building in more recent years before the furniture company took over a long time ago.

Across Pine Street running perpendicular is another mill building that's almost as large as Brown's machine shop. Built in the late 19th/early 20th century, 248 Pine Street is a 35,000 square-foot old factory that, on the day of my exploration over the summer, was on the market.

Originally home to H.A. Briggs & Co., this facility was used, among other things, to process cotton waste.

What is cotton waste? Well, the Old Structures Engineering blog, in discussing this very building, has an answer: it "apparently means scraps (left over from making various cotton products) that are being reused, with cleaning being a common use. In other words, rags, maybe fancy rags."

More recently, this place was home to Summit Manufacturing Corp.

On the corner of Pine and Bayley streets is Don Armando Meat Market.

Zoom in to see the little square cow near the door. The company has been in business for quite a few years, I believe.

At the corner of Bayley and Commerce streets I spied a sign for the Rhodium Room, operated by RI Spirits, a distillery that makes products using the Rhodium name.

Also located in this cluster of buildings is Isle Brewers Guild and The Guild, each of which offers contract beer brewing.

I continued north on Commerce Street, and snapped a photo of an old mill, a smokestack and a new development along Goff Avenue.

The complex is known as 125 Lofts, a community of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The development is located in the former Union Wadding Company complex (also seen in the image below).

"The Union Wadding complex used to be the site of nineteen one- to four-story brick buildings with a prominent round-section chimney sited next to a late 19th-century boiler house," per my new friend, Art in Ruins. Check out that link, as it features tons of great photos. Makes me wish I'd walked around this area a bit more before moving on.

Anyway, back to Union Wadding: "The cotton wadding and waste business was prone to fire; several fires between the earliest development of the site in 1847 and 1870 destroyed most of the original factory buildings. A major fire in October 2010 — unrelated to the manufacture of cotton wadding but under suspicious circumstances — claimed ten buildings at the west end of the complex. The surviving Union Wadding buildings represent building campaigns carried out between 1870 and ca. 1930."

The company went into receivership in 2004 and subsequently went out of business.

I headed east on Goff Avenue, then north on Broad Street, having no idea about the urbex fantasy world I was about to encounter.

Accessible via Broad Street, between Clay and Barton streets (the latter of which is blocked off), the Pawtucket-Central Falls railroad station was completed in 1916 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The station, which straddles Pawtucket and neighboring Central Falls, was in use for barely 40 years. As regular readers of this blog know, I don't really do urbex. But obviously plenty of other people have explored this place.

"In 1959, the station building itself was in disrepair and was closed," according to Wikipedia. "Thereafter passengers accessed the platforms via stairways from Barton Street. The station was served by New Haven Railroad trains, then later by MBTA Commuter Rail, until Rhode Island stopped funding service past Attleboro on February 20, 1981. The station building was considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, but this was deferred due to concerns about its structural integrity. During the Northeast Corridor Electrification Project in the 1990s, the station tracks were relocated to increase clearances for the Acela Express to tilt when going around the curve."

I've ridden Amtrak trains through here many times over the years, but never realized that I was riding underneath this old station. But when I traveled to New York City in early October, I paid attention, pointing it out to my son as we rolled on by.

In January 2023, a new station opened a short distance west from the old one, just past the 125 Lofts development I highlighted above.

Next I walked east on Clay Street until I hit Roosevelt Avenue. I was now fully in Central Falls. I think. Google Maps tells me I was; the web site for Mel-Co-Ed, Inc. says the company is located in Pawtucket. I believe that, like the train station, this building is split by the border.

In this very pleasant industrial building, Mel-Co-Ed produces pendants, pins, bracelets, necklaces, cufflinks, tie clips, hang tags, medallions, and more, per its web site. The operation was founded in 1948 in Warwick, Rhode Island, and moved to this location in 1964. A third generation of one of the founders now runs the company.

I ventured just one building north -- definitely in Central Falls now -- to make a photo of K&W Webbing Co.

"K & W Webbing is a family-owned U.S. manufacturer...with over 100 years of combined hands-on experience in textile manufacturing and engineering design," per the company's web site. The company's "facilty includes a complete dyeing and finishing plant and equipment for the application of special treatments. Our experience in the production of webbing and tapes assures you of the highest quality at the lowest price consistent with that quality."

I crossed back into Pawtucket, where in short order I stumbled across a statue that's stirred some controversy.

Known as Toleration or Tolerance, this metal sculpture was created by artist Peruko Ccopacatty and installed in August 2021. Located at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Exchange Street, overlooking the Blackstone River, the work depicts Rev. William Blackstone. He was an early settler of Boston who moved to what is now Rhode Island in 1635. He is considered the little state's first permanent English settler.

His surname adorns not only the river this statue abuts, but also the Blackstone Valley, the town of Blackstone in Massachusetts and the Blackstone Canal, among other places.

"The statue, as is the case with many public art projects is not without controversy and Blackstone’s past was called into question as inappropriate to be recognized due to historical issues with Native Americans at the time of the founding and development of Pawtucket," per this RI News Today post.

This, despite the fact that "[l]ittle is known about Blackstone’s direct interactions with Native Americans," according to this article from the Valley Breeze.

I don't know much about Blackstone, but I'll say this, the statue certainly stands out.

Make sure to check back in two weeks for the second part of my Pawtucket report, featuring old mill buildings, a beautiful armory, a lonely carriage house, a historic riverside mill, an amazing diner and much more!

Having a Whale of a Time in New Bedford, Part IV

From Dave Brigham:

In a series I published last summer, I covered a LOT in New Bedford, Mass.: old theaters, ghost signs, cool architecture, a jail, churches, murals, a former candleworks, a giant tea kettle, new development, a whaling statue and much more (see June 22, 2024, "Having a Whale of a Time in New Bedford, Part III", June 15, 2024, "Having a Whale of a Time in New Bedford, Part II" and June 8, 2024, "Having a Whale of a Time in New Bedford, Part I").

But I knew there was more to explore. Today I am sharing the fourth part in this series, featuring all sorts of great stuff I found on my return trip: a former Sunbeam bread factory, an old ladder manufacturing plant, some cool old signs, a 94-year-old hot dog stand, an ivy-covered mill building and much more. I hope to visit the city again in the not-too-distant future.

After parking at Riverside Skateboard Park, I walked past some massively long old mill buildings hard by the Acushnet River. I was happy to see that some of these have been redeveloped into housing and office space. I thought there was still a mill operating here when I saw the bright and shiny Cliftex Corp. sign at 170 Riverside Avenue.

But Cliftex is no longer producing its Clipper Craft suits for boys and men. More than a decade ago this massive building -- measuring 130 feet deep by 598 feet long -- and others in the area were converted to apartments, per this South Coast Today article from 2013.

The building, known historically as Manomet Mill No. 1, dates to 1903, per MACRIS, and was "built for the manufacture of Mule Spun combed yarns....At the peak of it's (sic) activity, the entire Manomet complex was New Bedford's largest cotton yarn manufacturer, with 318,000 spindles and between 4,000 and 4,500 employees. Manomet No. 4 was the largest single spinning unit in the world."

The building "was sold in 1928 to the Delaware Rayon Company," MACRIS continues. "The structure, built of brick...stood three stories in height. The Delaware Rayon Company changed their name to New Bedford Rayon. The company remained in business until 1970, when a fire swept through Manomet Mill No. 1, and New Bedford Rayon was liquidated. In the same year, Cliftex Clothing purchased & refurbished this mill."

A nearby mill complex is home to menswear company Joseph Abboud. I was happy to see so many old buildings given new life.

Heading southwest on Belleville Avenue, I spied the Whaling City Club.

The building dates to 1896, according to the city's assessor's office; I'm not sure how long the club has been in existence.

I got back to my car and was heading west on Coffin Avenue when I slammed on the brakes, made a U-turn and got my bread-loving ass out of the car to make the shot below.

This former Sunbeam Bread baking plant dates to 1934, but has been empty for nearly two decades, I believe. This site is where My Bread Baking Company was founded in 1912, according to MACRIS. "In 1927 My Bread Baking Company joined the Quality Bakers of America Cooperative, Inc., of New York," MACRIS continues. "After the Second World War, Quality Bakers affiliates acquired an exclusive license to bake and sell Sunbeam Bread, doughnuts, rolls, muffins, and sweet goods. The bread was first produced in Philadelphia in 1942, but the 'batter-whipped' process for which Sunbeam Bread is principally known was pioneered by Joseph P. Duchaine" of My Bread Baking Company.

"In 1955 [the company] was bought by the New Bedford Baking Company," according to this New Bedford Guide article. "[I]n 1996 First Citizens’ Federal Credit Union purchased it and in 1998 it was resold to St. Louis based company Earthgrains. When it closed its doors in 2005, it employed approximately 180 people. Malden-based corporation Lucar Development LLC bought the property in 2006 for $725,000....In 2011, New Bedford Baking Company opened discussions with the city to reopen the Coffin Avenue facility and begin baking again. They figured it would take $8 million to being the building up to code, repair and purchase equipment, and get up and running. Getting the facility going again was projected to create 150 new jobs. Alas, nothing came to fruition and the property [was put] up for sale."

I'm not sure of the status of the building today.

As for Sunbeam Bread, the company's "long-time mascot is called Little Miss Sunbeam, according to Wikipedia. "In 1942, illustrator Ellen Barbara Segner was commissioned by the Quality Bakers of America to create a marketing symbol of a young child." In the summer of 2020, I stumbled across a Sunbeam Bread delivery trailer in Wareham, Mass., that features a faded image of Little Miss Sunbeam (see August 4, 202, "A Little Sunbeam").

My next destination was about a mile due south from the old bread factory, but I ended up finding something completely different than what I'd planned for. Ahead of time, I'd found via MACRIS the old Grinnell Cotton Textile Mill on Kilburn Street, just south of I-195. The complex is huge and held some promise, but it wasn't quite gnarly enough for me, which is a good thing for the many small businesses located there. Instead, I walked around the corner onto North Front Street and found....

...this amazing site.

Built in 1887 as a drug store, this place was constructed for Louis Normandin, according to MACRIS. "The building’s north and south halves remained a store and drug store, respectively, until at least 1924. By 1927, the building was owned by the Grinnell Manufacturing Company," MACRIS continues. By 1955, the building was in use by the Cape Cod Ladder Manufacturing Company, whose sign is still so prominent today. I assume Cape Cod Staging -- as seen in the roached-out metal vertical sign -- was part of the same business.

Located in what is known as the Hicks-Logan district, the old shop/factory is part of what New Bedford's mayor, Jon Mitchell, referrred to as the "most distressed neighborhood in the city," in this January 11, 2023, article from The New Bedford Light. That story is about a redevelopment plan for the area that's been in the works for many years.

The plan calls for, among other things, an "inland area west of Belleville Avenue and North Front Street extending south to Wamsutta Street" for residential, commercial and some limited industrial use, according to the article, and a "smaller waterfront area east of Belleville and North Front" for waterfront-related uses and possibly hotels and restaurants.

From there, I headed north to a section of Acushnet Avenue, where at #1637 I spied a building that I thought might be an old theater.

It's not. This building dates to around 1920 and is known as the Happy Home Furniture Company building, according to MACRIS, which provides no further details. One source online about Whaling City history indicates the store had a Sunday radio hour on local station WNBH.

The current tenant is Sugar Daddy's Tanning salon.

I headed south on Acushnet Avenue for a ways, and then doubled back. Along the way, I saw a handful of cool signs, a mix of old and newish.

(The One 2 Five bargain store is out of business.)

(Mi Antojo (My Craving) Market is located in the the Allen-Charrette Building, which I mentioned in Part III of this series.)

(I really like the sign for the Casanova Gift Shop, especially the clock.)

(Around the corner on Coffin Avenue, renovation work has brought to light an old sign for Mainline Paints. This building was (maybe is?) home to the Portuguese Times and the Portuguese Channel.

(I'm always happy to see new signs that make an effort to stand out, such as the one at Lord Utmost School of Martial Arts.)

As I continued north on Acushnet Avenue, crossing over Earle Street, I did a double-take.

Wow. Just wow.

I've been to a few Italian festivals in Boston and other locations, but I've never seen a welcoming gate like the one in New Bedford for the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament. This past summer the community enjoyed the 108th such celebration, which featured four days and four stages of live entertainment, as well as a special procession on the opening day and food and drink and more food and drink.

According to the festival's web site, the feast is the largest Portuguese Feast in the world, and the largest ethnic festival in New England, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe.

Steps away is a legendary New Bedford takeout joint.

Charlie's Hot Dog Stand traces its roots to the 1930s, when Charlie Poulos began selling food in a temporary spot at 1648 Acushnet Avenue. In 2018, the stand closed "due to health issues," according to a Facebook posting. I'm not sure when it reopened, or whether it was closed at any other time in the last 90 years.

Across the street is Samuel's Place, a breakfast joint and "waffle heaven" that unfortunately has hung up its chef's hat and waffle iron. It was located in what's known as the Dr. Bertha F. Carl House, which was built in 1896.

On the side of 1700 Acushnet Avenue, heading down Nash Road, is a ghost sign that's so worn I couldn't make out anything.

The commercial building rose in 1919, according to MACRIS. At least I know that the advertisement was painted by a company called Gaudette Signs.

My time running low, I left Acushnet Avenue and drove south to the area of Rodney French Boulevard, to check out some old industrial properties. Rodney French, by the way, was an abolitionist, politician and merchant who served as mayor of New Bedford in the mid-19th century, according to Wikipedia.

At 63 David Street, I liked the rough look of the building and the sign for Allen Gasket Cutting Machine Company.

I'm not sure when Allen Gasket was founded, but it was no later than the 1930s. In 2012, The Allpax Company of Mamaroneck, New York, acquired "certain assets" of the company. The building is shown on a map for the MACRIS file about the adjacent Butler Textile Mill property, with information indicating this building was erected in 1921, and was used to manufacture insulating plastics.

Fronting on Rodney French Boulevard and running between David and Mott streets, the former Holmes Manufacturing Cotton Yarn Mill is quite an imposing presence. And even though the complex is in decent shape, I could've made a ton of my usual gritty old factory shots. But I went with two softer images.

(Industrial vent and lovely hydrangeas.)

(I believe this ivy-covered building was where administrators worked.)

Ccurrently a distribution center operated by Cornell-Dubilier, which makes capacitors for the power electronics industry, this giant complex dates to 1909. "Holmes Mfg. specialized in high quality (sic) mercerized combed yarn for crocheting, it was the first mill in the city to 'mercerize' cotton yarns," per MACRIS. Merriam-Webster defines mercerize as "to give (a material, such as cotton yarn) luster, strength, and receptiveness to dyes by treatment under tension with caustic soda."

Hmm. This seems to foreshadow an environmental problem.

MACRIS continues: "Because of the high quality of the fine yarns made here, two very special kinds of cotton were used. Egyptian and Pima cotton were used....During its peak production, the mill produced 200,000 pounds of yarn per week. The mill was equipped with approximately 65,000 spinning spindles.

"Holmes Manufacturing ceased operation in 1931. Holmes sold out to Kendall Company in 1934. Land, buildings and equipment were sold for $100,000. Kendall added 800 looms and manufactured gauze and diaper material until 1940. Kendall closed the plant in 1940 as a non-profit-producing unit. In 1940, Cornell Dubilier purchased [the] plant."

Now, I don't mean to single out Cornell-Dubilier or the prior tenants of this mill complex for environmental issues. Any factory or manufacturing plant is going to, unfortunately, produce toxic waste of one sort or another. It just so happens that in searching for information about this site and the present occupant, I came across a June 1, 2022, article from The New Bedford Light headlined, "New Bedford looks to end its 40-Year environmental nightmare," which focuses on two companies: Aerovox and, you guessed it, Cornell-Dubilier.

"By the late 1970s, it was clear that Aerovox, along with Cornell-Dubilier (a second electronic capacitor manufacturer on the South End peninsula), had done quite a job on the New Bedford-Fairhaven Harbor," according to the article. "Not to mention the city’s landfills. In fact, the two companies had spilled and dumped so many dangerous PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) into the Acushnet River that the site was to become the largest Superfund (EPA cleanup) site in any harbor in the country."

Wow.

In 2010, the federal government reached an agreement with Aerovox's parent company to demolish its building, which sat directly across from the Cliftex site mentioned at the top of this post. The site remains vacant. The company also commmitted to paying $366 million to clean up New Bedford Harbor.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last year that it had secured an additional $73 million (I'm not sure from what source) to finish cleaning up the harbor. "The EPA announcement...included the fact that the state of Massachusetts has reached a deal with Cornell-Dubilier to fund $3.6 million of shoreline remediation along the remediated harbor and $400,000 for the state’s cost of operating and maintaining the Superfund remedy," per the article.

Here's hoping the harbor finishes getting scrubbed ASAP.

I have more New Bedford sites in mind, so keep your eyes peeled in the coming months (years?).

Finding Easthampton in Tip Top Shape

From Dave Brigham:

When my friend Jim asked in late January if I wanted to take a road trip to Easthampton, Mass., I jumped at the opportunity. And once I realized that our initial destination was located in a former mill complex, I got pretty excited.

Jim did the driving, so I plopped into the passenger seat of his Prius and enjoyed the 85-mile ride, which was a nice change of pace for me, as I often complete 60- to 90-minute round-trip backside drives on my own. He wanted to visit a wine shop operated by the partner of one of his high school friends. I was happy to accompany him to the 01027.

Located in Hampshire County, about halfway between Holyoke and Northampton, Easthampton, like so many towns in New England, made the transition from farming to manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution. Our first stop was the former West Boylston Manufacturing Company complex that stretches for quite a distance between Pleasant Street and Lower Mill Pond.

The West Boylston Company was founded in 1814 in -- you guessed it -- West Boylston, Mass. In 1897, however, the State of Massachusetts selected a large section of the town, along with parts of neighboring Boylston, Clinton and Sterling, to create the Wachusett Reservoir. "[T]he Nashua River in the town of Clinton was impounded by the Wachusett Dam, causing 6.5 square miles to be flooded," per Wikipedia. "Over 2,200 acres of West Boylston's land was used for the reservoir, the most of any town. This disrupted the center of town and most of the industrial base. Many buildings were moved to the unaffected parts of the town but the majority were demolished and filled by the reservoir."

But the West Boylston Company did things a little -- okay, a lot -- differently. "Instead of abandoning the mill, the company dismantled it brick by brick and shipped it by train to its new home in the Pioneer Valley, where it was rebuilt on the banks of the Lower Mill Pond," according to the web site for The Boylston Rooms, a wedding venue located in the former mill complex. "Between 1899-1907, the West Boylston Company built the huge complex of mills on Pleasant Street."

That's amazing!

After the demise of the West Boylston Company, "the building finally became the property of the Lesnow Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of clothing, who operated the factory for many years until their demise in 1985," per MACRIS. "The building was acquired by the adjacent Kellogg Brush Manufacturing Company, a growing manufacturer of household brushes. A small semi-attached office building was originally the West Boylston plant superintendant's (sic) office, later became the offices of the Lesnow Company."

Today the old mill complex is home to commercial, office, artist and warehouse space. After parking in the front lot, Jim and I wandered aimlessly both outside and in (including a much-needed trip to the bathroom for two middle-aged guys) for a bit. Below is the first (and likely last) photo I've ever made inside a bathroom. I just couldn't resist the ol' piss trough.

After a few minutes, we realized we needed to walk down back to the side of the mill facing the water. I enjoyed the scenery, from the Abandoned Building Brewery....

(Wish we'd had time to stop in for a brew.)

...to the wonderful urbex paradise in one of the yet-to-be-developed areas of the complex.

I really wanted to explore more, but this wasn't my expedition.

In short order, we found ourselves in front of Tip Top Wine Shop.

I love the sign in the top photo, and was pleasantly surprised by the tile entryway. I asked one of the owners about it; she said a local artisan created it for the shop.

The store isn't large, but it's got a great selection of wine, beer, non-alcoholic beverages and chocolates, snack foods and other treats. Jim and I had a nice chat with his friend's partner and her co-owner, but didn't overstay our welcome. We asked for a lunch recommendation and then were on our way.

I made a few more photos around the mill before we got back to the car.

(Spring Action Electrical is no longer in business.)

(The Invisible Fountain is an art gallery and event space, I think.)

(Old loading dock.)

Another luxury of riding shotgun through an old mill town is getting to make photos out the window of a slow-moving car.

D&D Auto Parts & Machine is no longer in business. The building dates to 1930, per the local assessor.

We parked downtown and walked around for a little bit. I liked the feel of the area and the old buildings. At the corner of Union and School streets, on the side of Razor's Edge barber shop, I spied a ghost sign that's been partially covered by a fire escape.

I have no clue what business this advertised.

I'm going to finish up this post with two restaurants, one where we ate, the other where I'd like to meet the person responsible for the outdoor decor.

Guess which one this is?

Galaxy is open for dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays, so we were out of luck being there in the middle of the day. The restaurant serves salads, small plates, delicious-sounding entrees and more. According to the eatery's web site, "Galaxy grew out of [owner/chef Casey Douglass's] dream of opening his own restaurant. After many years of working for others, gaining notoriety in helping develop establishments such as Icarus in Boston, Del Raye in Northampton and the much missed Squires, Casey finally realized that dream by opening the once beloved Apollo Grill, which ran from 2001 to 2015. Casey is now focused on Galaxy, a restaurant born of the same dreams as the Apollo was, to serve its community using fresh ingredients with our own twist."

We ate across the street, at The Silver Spoon, which the Tip Top owners recommended.

This place serves up diner food in a cozy space poppular, from what I can tell in my limited experience, with hipsters. I had the cinnamon raisin French toast, which was delicious.