B B Chemical Company

United States historic place

B B Chemical Company

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

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Location| 784/780 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Coordinates| 42°21′35″N 71°06′55″W﻿ / ﻿42.35972°N 71.11528°W﻿ / 42.35972; -71.11528
Built| 1937 (1937)
Architect| Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott
Architectural style| Streamline Moderne
MPS| Cambridge MRA
NRHP reference No.| 82001918 [1]
Added to NRHP| April 13, 1982

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This article is about the building. For the company whose headquarters it was, see Bostik.

The B B Chemical Company is an historic office and industrial building at 784 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was built in 1937 for the Boston Blacking Company, an adhesive manufacturer whose most famous brand name was Bostik, to a design by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott, and is a prominent local example of Streamline Moderne architecture. From 1979 to 1996, it served as the headquarters of the Polaroid Corporation.[2] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 under the incorrect name "B and B Chemical Company".[1] It is now owned by The Bulfinch Companies of Needham, Massachusetts.[3]

## Description and history

[edit]

The former B B Chemical Company building is located in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge, on the east side of Memorial Drive between River Street and Pleasant Street Extension. It is a basically rectangular structure, with a four-story central section flanked by three-storey wings. It has a frame of steel and concrete, and is mainly faced in buff brick. The central section is recessed from the wings, but a projecting cornice on the wings extends over the recess area to provide a curved canopy over the entrance. The central part of the center section is even taller, with a projecting rounded window bay topped by a clock face. The wings are symmetrical, with the ground floor composed mainly of glass blocks interspersed with regularly spaced horizontal windows. The upper floors are defined by long bands of horizontal windows.[4]

The building was designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott and built in 1937 for the B B Chemical Company, a subsidiary of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation since 1929. In 1946, it described itself as supplying "adhesives and related compounds for the shoe leather, aircraft, rubber clothing and shipbuilding industries".[5] The facility, which include a more simply designed second building behind this one, produced adhesives used in the shoe manufacturing process at other plants. It served as the headquarters for the Polaroid Corporation starting in 1979.[4] It is now owned by The Bulfinch Companies,[6] and is occupied by Harvard University's Information Technology group[7] (HUIT).[8]

## See also

[edit]

* National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
2. ^ "Polaroid 784 Memorial Drive". Cambridge Historical Society. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
3. ^ "The Polaroid Building-784 Memorial Drive". The Bulfinch Companies, Inc. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
4. ^ a b "MACRIS inventory record and NRHP nomination for B & B Chemical Company". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
5. ^ Manning's Cambridge Directory, 1946, p. 122
6. ^ "784 Memorial Drive Case Study". The Bulfinch Companies, Inc. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
7. ^ "Harvard University Expands to 784 Memorial Drive in Cambridge". Patch Media, Inc. 27 September 2017. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
8. ^ "University IT Upgrades to New Office". The Harvard Crimson, Inc. Retrieved 2019-09-19.

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