Lost Melrose, Volume Seven

In this episode of Lost Melrose, we remember 37 Washington Street, a part of the Boston Rubber Shoe Company factory complex that the Melrose Historical Commission agreed to let fall in January of 2016.

The repurposing of the BRSC factory complex into residential space, still ongoing next door at 99 Washington Street, has been by far the most extensive historic preservation project in Melrose history. The initial development required review by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and because the Melrose Historical Commission is the local proxy of the MHC, we became the legal arbiter of the project's historical integrity.

There were a number of difficult decisions in that process. Most memorably, the developer at one point floated the idea of demolishing the original smokestack and replacing it with an artificial copy. Our commission refused to budge on that point, and the smokestack remains. When we were asked a couple of years later to allow the demolition of 37 Washington Street, a building that significantly postdated the core factory complex and that had few distinctive features to recommend it, we were much more sympathetic.

In return for our support of the demolition, we asked for one small bit of mitigation: that an interpretive panel detailing the history of the site be placed along Washington Street for the edification of passersby. The developers agreed to this concession, a panel was designed, it was reviewed by the Planning Board and the Historical Commission in 2018--and three years and three site owners later, we are still waiting for its installation. You can see the draft of the panel in the second image. It profiles the use of the building in the 1950s as the site of the National Radio Company, a manufacturer of short-wave radios, and of the Vogue Doll Company in the late 1960s, creators of the popular Ginny Doll.

We hope that one day soon you will be able to see the full panel for yourself. It’s been a long time coming.