National Register of Historic Places

Ritchie Building

Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Listed
October 16, 1985
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
85003308

About this property

The Ritchie Building is a historic industrial building at 112 Cypress Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Built in 1883 by Edward Samuel Ritchie, 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 in 1985. The Ritchie Building is located on the east side of Cypress Street, north of Massachusetts Route 9 and south of the MBTA Green Line D branch, 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. Edward Samuel Ritchie founded his navigational instruments company in the 1850s, and had, by the 1880s, established a main office in Boston and a manufacturing facility near Harvard Square in Cambridge. 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, was operated by Ritchie and his successors at this site until the 1950s. The building has since been rehabilitated for use as office space. National Register of Historic Places listings in Brookline, Massachusetts

Location

112 Cypress St.
Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts
42.33089, -71.12569

Categories

INDUSTRYINVENTION
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

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0.1 mi
House at 5 Lincoln Road
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House at 44 Stanton Road
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House at 25 Stanton Road
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Davis, Robert S., House
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0.2 mi

Nearby Battles

Siege of Boston – Roxbury Lines
1775Revolutionary War
1.3 mi
Siege of Boston – Cambridge Lines
1775Revolutionary War
3.1 mi

Questions about this property

When was Ritchie Building listed on the National Register?

Ritchie Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 16, 1985.

What type of historic resource is Ritchie Building?

Ritchie Building is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Ritchie Building?

The period of significance for Ritchie Building is recorded as the industrial era.

Can I research the history near Ritchie Building?

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