The Fitchburg Line Industrial Corridor errata

[tastyanagram.livejournal.com]

Hi, everyone. I'm a Somerville resident, formerly of Davis Square, and currently living on Prospect Hill. I'm contemplating starting an LJ community for the Union Square area, if anyone's interested, but in this post I just wanted to share an extremely interesting page I've found this morning: http://pixels.furiousbees.com/somind/

The author mentions LJ in the introduction so forgive me if it's already been posted here. Here's an excerpt taken from the text at the link given above:

There are at least four large businesses that I know of occupying this little cluster of industry: Ames Safety Envelope, which occupies a dwindling share of a huge complex of buildings divided by Dane Street; the Peter Forg Manufacturing Co., which does metal stamping and fabricating right across the track from Ames; L. Bornstein Flooring, which operates a large and ugly structure north of Washington Street; and the H.D. Chasen Company, which sells industrial supplies out of a small complex on Lake Street. There's also a clutch of smaller industrial businesses or former businesses operating from smaller buildings. I've collected some information on the history of the locations on this page from the Sanborn maps available through the Somerville Public Library.

I had been meaning to photograph this area for some time, but ultimately it was an LJ friend's comment that "you are near a METALWORKING plant and I haven't seen pictures?!?!" that spurred me to action. So, beginning on a beautiful day in May, I went on a series of expeditions to explore and document some of the last working factories in Somerville. (The lighting conditions weren't always great, so I've done a fair amount of quick and dirty enhancement in Photoshop to create the final images.)

I found this page extremely informative, but I found at least one error. The author states that the Paper and Provisions Warehouse currently houses "the Somerville Boxing Club and an organ repair company", but to my knowledge it's artists' studio space. I left a comment on the associated Google map but couldn't find a way to contact the author.

If anyone has any more information, I'd love to hear about it. I absolutely love this area—there's so much to learn about its history. Did you know that Union Square used to be called Liberty Pole Square, for example?

Comments

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Other soon to be gone industries include:

-Central Steel, taken by eminent domain for Assembly Square project.

-MS Walker, a liquor distributor behind the railyards off of Washington Street that will be demolished for the recently announced "Option L" MBTA Green Line facility.

One old-school factory that remains is Rogers Foam Corp. over on Vernon and Central Streets, which shares its building with artists and has done so for decades.

The number of industries that have gone away in Somerville and in Boston in general is staggering. I recall seeing a list years ago from the late 70's of the various industries that the B&M RR served in Somerville alone and it really was remarkable how many small industrial customers existed in the city even 30 years ago.

When I was serving ever-so-briefly on the historic commission, one of the buildings that had applied for demolition was a very ugly and plain cinderblock factory on Somerville Avenue next to the Wings Over Somerville location. While the building was totally unremarkable and merely had to be reviewed since it was built in 1946, the history of the factory was interesting. It was a pocket manufacturer. Literally, this place made pockets that were sent off to various pant-makers. When NAFTA passed in '96, and you could make pockets in Mexico for pennies on the dollar, the owner of the factory closed it down, sold the building, and split the proceeds with the workers, which is a rare thing indeed. There were hundreds of places like this back in the day.

[ron_newman]

Was this the John Solomon Inc. factory? JSI's building is still visible in Google StreetView even though it has since been demolished. I mentioned it above in my list, but may have gotten the demolition date wrong.

The company still exists but now only as part of a North Carolina firm.

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is the place.

[ron_newman]

Now a construction site with a sign in front advertising 39 future condos for sale.

[ron_newman]

I hate to say it, but that one is a 'good riddance' example to me. Factories can coexist with healthy residential and commercial areas (see Rogers Foam and until recently Ames Envelope for good examples), but scrap metal yards really can't.

[ron_newman]

But perhaps not the toilets that used to be displayed along Prospect Street as you came into Union Square. Yum!