F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery, Industrial bakery building in Cambridge, Massachusetts
The F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery is a multi-story red-brick industrial building on Franklin Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Large arched windows and visible metal structural elements from the late 19th century define the look of its exterior.
The bakery was founded in 1875 and was among the first in the United States to use steam-powered machines for large-scale bread and cookie production. This way of working changed how food was made and distributed across American cities.
The building is now part of University Park, a mixed neighborhood in Cambridge where residential and commercial spaces coexist. Walking along Franklin Street, you can see how the old brick facade has been kept while the interior serves a completely different purpose today.
The building is not open to visitors from the inside, but the brick facade is easy to see from Franklin Street. The area around University Park is pleasant to walk through, especially if you are already exploring the MIT neighborhood nearby.
The bakery is said to be one of the places where the filled cookie was developed into a product sold on a large scale across the country. That legacy is still known in the neighborhood even though the building now serves as housing.
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