The Waltham Watch Company Factory Exhibit
The historic Watch Factory complex spans roughly 400,000 square feet across 22 connected buildings and is situated along the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, that is one of the Most Unusual Museums in Boston. The Waltham Watch Company worked on the Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival-style complex for 50 years, beginning in the 1860s. The slender wings and orderly rows of windows that make up The Watch Factory were created to maximize daylighting for the intricate manufacture of timepieces. In May 2007, the building was purchased by Watch City Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Berkeley Investments, a Boston-based developer. The property was later restored and used adaptively to become a vibrant mix of commercial, residential, and retail uses with riverfront facilities, under the direction of Berkeley.
Waltham is formally referred to as The Watch City since the Waltham Watch Company's factory is depicted on the city seal, despite the city being famed for its invention and industry. The Waltham Watch Company was the first American company to adopt assembly-line mass production methods to create timepieces, which led to the production of more and less expensive watches and, more crucially, the most accurate clocks and watches in the world at the time. The three massive red brick structures on Crescent Street that once housed the Waltham Watch Company hold a permanent exhibition of instruments, clocks, advertisements, and pictures of the WWC employees who produced industrial history here. These buildings are now luxury loft apartments and offices.
Location: 280 Congress Street, Suite 1350, Boston, MA 02210
Contact: 617.439.0088
Website: walthamwatchfactory.com
