The Ritchie Building is a historic industrial building at 112 Cypress Street in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...

. Built in 1883 by

Edward Samuel Ritchie Edward Samuel Ritchie (1814–1895), an American inventor and physicist, is considered to be the most innovative instrument maker in nineteenth-century America, making important contributions to both science and navigation. Early life and career R ...

, it is a fine example of the Panel Brick style, and is further notable as the factory space in which Ritchie manufactured a nationally distributed line of navigational instruments. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1985.

Description and history

The Ritchie Building is located on the east side of Cypress Street, north of

Massachusetts Route 9 Route 9 is a major east–west state highway in Massachusetts. Along with U.S. Route 20 (US 20), Route 2, and Interstate 90, Route 9 is one of the major east–west routes of Massachusetts. The western terminus is near the center of the cit ...

and south of the

MBTA Green Line D branch The Green Line D branch (also referred to as the Highland branch or Riverside Line) is a light rail line in Newton, Brookline, and Boston, Massachusetts, operating as part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line. Th ...

, just east of the Brookline Hills station. It is a four-story rectangular brick structure, with a hip roof. The first floor is below the street level, which was raised in order to bridge the railroad tracks, and the main entrance is now on the second level. The second level is finished in stone, resembling a raised basement level, while the upper floors retain their original modest Panel Brick features, including segmented-arch window openings and a corbelled cornice.

founded his navigational instruments company in the 1850s, and had, by the 1880s, established a main office in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and a manufacturing facility near

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busin ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. He built the present facility in 1883, not far from his home on Lincoln Street, when he was unable to expand the Cambridge space. It was one of the first industrial buildings to be built in Brookline. The business, whose customers notably included the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, was operated by Ritchie and his successors at this site until the 1950s. The building has since been rehabilitated for use as office space.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Brookline, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Brookline, Massachusetts Buildings and structures completed in 1883

Description and history

See also

References