This article appeared in the Feb. 19, 2003 Cambridge Chronicle

Artcraft Richdale Associates continues a Cambridge tradition

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

The last large undeveloped mill building in North Cambridge sits at 33 Richdale Avenue in Porter Square. Run by proprietors Arthur and Joan Wolfson, it carries a history which has evolved with shifting priorities and changing times. Once a sheet metal factory, the building is now mainly rented out as work and office space to a varied clientele which include small businesses as well as management companies, photographers, architects, writers, artists and musicians.

“It’s a Dick Tracy-type office building," said Joan Wolfson. “It still has much of its original mahogany woodwork, and a black-and-white checkerboard floor in one of its halls."

The Wolfsons have worked hard to preserve the character and history of the tall-ceilinged building, which was erected in 1910 as Hathaway Bakery. On one side, it was flanked by the Payne Elevator Company, which manufactured and tested elevators, and, in a kickback to a bygone era, by the town stables on the other, as well as livestock buildings to its rear. These buildings are, today, multiple unit residential properties. Triple-decker homes across the street, home to many people who worked in these buildings, remain. “Hathaway Bakery sold the building to the Beacon Wax Company in 195l, until my parents purchased it in 1973,” said Arthur Wolfson, who had worked since the age of four for the family business, Winthrop Metal Products Corp., which was located in Boston’s Chickering Piano factory building. When it was taken over by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Wolfsons found the Cambridge site. As it was larger than the company needed, the name Artcraft Richdale Associates was chosen, not for the artisan tenants it would attract, but rather as a combination of Arthur’s, and his father Crafton’s, nicknames.

“Winthrop Metal continued to produce metal components for lighting, speaker, electronics and appliances,” said Arthur Wolfson, who cited his father’s significant community service work, which included presidency of the Cambridge Kiwanis chapter and fundraising for underprivileged area school children.

Joan Wolfson represents a third generation of family Cambridge business owners. Her grandfather and father owned Crimson Cigar Company from 1925 to 1975, which was located next to Hi-Fi Pizza in Central Square. Her grandfather, Albert Chernoff, was a founder of Cambridge’s Temple Askenazi, which was later merged into Temple Beth Shalom in Central Square. He served as President; her grandmother, Sarah Chernoff, was a lifetime Hadassah member, and has a plaque at the 8 Tremont St. synagogue.

“I came aboard the Artcraft building in 1982 by working in its main office, dealing with all the aspects of business and rental spaces,” she said. When their child, Richard, was born, her mother, Claire Schecter, whose first boyfriend was ironically a long-term employee for an Artcraft tenant, regularly commuted from Braintree to Porter Square to assist.

Many of the 30 or so tenants over the past 30 years have lived in the Porter Square neighborhood, and though some are well-known (the music field alone is represented by Ellis Paul’s and rock bands Guster and Dispatch’s management, as well as Fenway Productions, which manages Mission of Burma and other local acts), the company has met its share of local regulatory challenges. One is the lack of enforcement of the street’s parking scofflaws (a large disabled truck remained in front of the building for over two years). Despite numerous calls, “We’ve seen only one parking ticket since August of 2001,” said Arthur Wolfson. “Last month, on the posted street cleaning day, we could only watch as the cleaner ironically drove around numerous vehicles which the police still refused to tag and tow.” Their commercial tenants are not allowed to apply for parking permits, and are quickly tagged if they park across the street in residential areas, even though, as Joan Wolfson pointed out, “as we’re a non-residential building, our tenants do not add any students to the school system, and we pay the city to pick up trash, a recycler to pick up recyclables, we shovel the sidewalk, and clean the street of trash ourselves.”

Taxes are another source of consternation for the couple, who continue to charge very reasonable rental rates. “Cambridge taxes the Artcraft property more than two-and-one-half times the residential rate, in addition to ‘personal property taxes’ levied for its tenants,” explained Joan Wolfson.

The Wolfsons hold an annual Artcraft Holiday Party for tenants, their families, neighbors, service, and delivery people, which has led to the sharing of resources and joint ventures; two tenants discovered at one that they were working on the same project. Twenty-year employee German Valdez once worked in the metal division alongside his father and other family members. “It often seems like just about everyone in the City of Cambridge has been in the building at one time or another,” noted Joan Wolfson. “Mo Vaughn even had his picture taken here for the 1996 Red Sox yearbook.”

For information on Artcraft Richdale Associates, please call 617-661-1028.