By Maria Membreno
For the past 100 years, it has been used as offices for lawyers, for the Tri-City Mental Health and Retardation Association, and for the Industrial Aid Society which, as far back as 1894, ran a day nursery for working factory women. Now, the historic M. Ida Converse building stands vacant on 15 Ferry Street and is in danger of being demolished.
The developer who owns the building, and the vacant lot next to it, wants the building removed so he can build a 7-story commercial/residential structure on the two lots, but some city officials and residents are still hopeful the building can be saved, perhaps by moving it to another nearby location.
“We want to make sure that we preserve this site and this building wherever it is in order to be able to teach the next generation not only about Malden history but about the importance of philanthropy in our community, as a way to move forward that people give back to their community,” Malden Public Library Director Dora St. Martin told the Historical Commission at one of its meetings back in February.
The Industrial Aid Society was created in 1875 by Malden’s first mayor Elisha S. Converse after his rubber shoe factory was destroyed by fire, putting thousands of people out of work.
According to documents filed with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the association’s purpose was to help men and women find work and to give them temporary financial assistance for their families. In 1894, the society started a day nursery for children of working mothers.
“I would like to just let people know that what came from that site was not only the Industrial Aid Society and its care of working women’s children but also the Visiting Nurses Association…and also the hospital movement which eventually gave birth to the Malden Hospital,” St. Martin told the commissioners.
“That site is extremely important as we teach the next generation about the industrial history of Malden and the working women who worked within the mills,” she added.
According to property inventory forms filed with the Mass. Historical Commission, the day nursery was originally located in a house on Waverly Street in 1894. In 1895, Elisha Converse bought the property at 21 Ferry Street and 15 Ferry Street and donated it to the Industrial Aid Association to use for a day nursery. The nursery was then moved to a building at 21 Ferry Street. In 1906, the 15 Ferry Street building was completed next door. A covered passageway originally connected those two buildings. But by 1930, a new building was needed to house the nursery and Mary Ida Converse donated $100,000 to erect a new day nursery building at 21 Ferry Street.
The Converse family funded the buildings, which Elisha, his wife, Mary Diana, and their daughter, Mary Ida Converse, furnished.
Day nurseries for mothers weren’t completely unheard of in the late 1800s. However, they were extremely uncommon.
According to a report called “Historical Sketch of the Day Nursery Movement, from Virginia Commonwealth University, day nurseries grew from 3 to approximately 700 from 1878 to 1916, and the fourth-ever day nursery was established in Boston in 1878.
When the one in Malden opened in 1894, there were less than 175 day nurseries across the nation, according to the report.
In 1987 the Industrial Aid Association filed a petition to sell the two buildings. After being granted permission by the Middlesex Probate and Family Court in 1988, the Association sold the buildings to The Bank for Savings.
In 1988, the Malden Redevelopment Authority demolished the 21 Ferry Street building to build a municipal parking lot. In 1992, local attorney Christopher Fallon and Ferry Street Realty Trust bought the building at 15 Ferry St. and used it for law offices as well as a district office for constituents as he was Malden’s state representative.
Under Fallon, the building’s interior was restored. The building remained under Fallon until 2018, when Ferry Street Realty Trust sold the land and building to Alpha Business Center, LLC which now owns it and hopes to build a 7-story residential/commercial building on that lot and the vacant lot next to it at 1 Salem Street.
The city’s teen center was located at 1 Salem Street but was torn down four years ago when it was determined the building was unsafe.
City officials have been looking at places nearby where the 15 Ferry Street building can be moved. The latest spot being investigated is directly across the street in front of the high school, next to CVS, but that’s seen as a long shot as financing for the move is uncertain, as reported by Neighborhood View. At least two other locations were discussed before being dismissed.
Still, the historical significance of the building has been documented in filings with the Massachusetts Historical Commission which state:
“The structure takes its rightful place among the many structures built in Malden through the philanthropy of the Converse family. It is one of only three structures which survive from the Converse family. The other surviving structures are the Converse Memorial Building of the Malden Public Library (MAL. 49) and The Malden Home for Aged Persons. The Converse family had also donated land for The Malden Hospital and contributed towards the erection of the first hospital building, the original Malden YMCA on Pleasant Street, and the Malden Auditorium.”
City Councillor Ryan O’Malley also shared his thoughts on the matter at the Malden Historical Commission’s meeting last February.
“I come before you to speak in support of saving 15 Ferry Street for its historic significance as one of the last remaining buildings that were donated or donated to the people of Malden or built for the people of Malden by the Converse family,” he said.
Maria Membreno is a journalism student at Emerson College. Her work appears as part of a collaborative partnership between the “Community News Reporting” class taught by Mark Micheli at Emerson College and the Neighborhood View editorial staff.
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Correction: The caption for the exterior photo of 21 Ferry St. was corrected from the original post. It was not the building that was torn down for a parking lot. It was an earlier version of that building before it was reconstructed in 1930. The 1930 version was torn down for a municipal parking lot in 1988.
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