The building that housed the old Bradford Café at 454 Massachusetts Avenue was built in 1806 as part of a U-shaped, three-story brick building at the corner of Brookline Street known as South Row. Judge Francis Dana and his associates had recently opened the West Boston Bridge, and had visions of developing Lafayette Square (the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street) as the business center of Cambridgeport.
South Row survived intact until 1929, when the western leg and most of the Massachusetts Avenue frontage were demolished. The remainder of South Row was acquired by MIT in 1979, but by the 1990s it was badly deteriorated. Demolition was not an option, said Sullivan, as the building “was the only extant structure associated with the early development of Cambridgeport.” There was also, covered-over on the inside and long-hidden down a narrow alleyway, a Georgian-style fan-capped door.
What doomed the building was the discovery of a forgotten oil-spill that extended under the foundation. But a restored building had been promised to the Central Square Theater and it had already received a Community Development Block Grant for the project.
Sullivan suggested that MIT’s architect Eric Pfeufer “replicate” the original building, acknowledging that was a solution “frowned upon by my colleagues.” But, he said, with the proposed Central Square Theater flanking the replicated 1806 building on a bricked plaza, it “made sense from an urban design standpoint.”
