The NECCO building is occupied today by Novartis.
Technology Review summer intern Nidhi Subbaraman SM ’10 is writing an article on MIT’s former neighborhood candy factories, the NECCO and the Daggett plants. And she wants you to share your memories of these luscious institutions—by July 23, please. She’s drafting it as we blog!
The story idea was spawned by the alumni profile of VC investor Brad Feld ’87, SM ’88 in the July/August issue where he says that “ADP and the smell of Neccos are inseparable for me.” And that got TR editors wondering if other alumni have stories/memories about the former candy factories that operated so close to the heart of MIT.
The candy plants were big business in their day. When the NECCO plant opened at 250 Massachusetts Avenue in 1927, it was the largest factory in the world with its entire space devoted to the manufacture of candy. In 2003 NECCO relocated to Revere MA. After renovation of the 500,000 square foot facility, the world headquarters for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research now occupies that space. When the Daggett plant opened in 1952 on 400 Main Street, it and surrounding buildings provided a half million square feet of floor space to store some five million pounds of candy. That building was later rented to Polaroid.
Got stories? Please them by emailing Nidhi at nidhi_s@alum.mit.edu.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s Random hall on the far right of the photo! I have memories of years of walking between dorm and campus, inhaling the chocolate scent as I passed NECCO.
I remember working in the BT Lab (in the MIT Museum building) that had offices which faced the Junior Mint plant… nothing like the smell of chocolate mint first thing in the morning!
I remember the odor of chocolate mixed with the odor of soap that seemed to permeate East Campus in the 1950′s.
I remember a rumor that some unfortunate employees of that place got “acne in their lungs” from exposure to the chocolate fumes…
The NECCO factory seconds store, or whatever the official name was, was open four hours per week, if I recall correctly: just two hours on each of two days per week, and at those times, one could ride the elevator up to the tiny room into which were packed all manner of production line rejects, each tastier than the last, and all half price or less.
Suffice it to say that the combination of a teenage metabolism, a stressful study schedule, and a ready source of tasty treats very shortly gave rise to a love of NECCO candies that continues to this day.
You may pooh-pooh the quality of one or another of their candies, but I’ll hear none of your criticism. Pass the yummy chalky chocolate wafers, won’t you?
I remember starting each year smelling chocolate and root beer (I don’t know what candy had root beer flavoring) for about two weeks as I walked by going between Random Hall and the main campus. After that, my sense of smell became numb to the candy aromas. Fortunately, recovery came fast after each vacation and I could enjoy the aromas once again.
It is strange to walk by the building on my return visits to MIT and not have those aroma wafting in the air. Do you suppose we could get Novartis to install some devices to give off those aromas as an homage to Cambridge history?
I hope it isn’t too late…
I took an architecture studio class right across the street from the Necco factory in either ’95 or ’96. There were a couple of one-hour blocks of time when the shop opened and sold really cheap seconds, as well as regular off-the-shelf products. As poor students, we’d go over there and get the seconds. When a big project was due, a couple of us went over and got a huge armful of candy and put some on every student’s table. Caramels and candy cigarettes…and ugly chocolate–oh my!
Definitely liked the smells coming from there in 80-82. Didn’t smell like chocolate, IMO, more like a general candy- store smell- just sweet- somewhat like cotton candy, from a distance.
I’d always liked NECCO Wafers (& I’m sure my dentist loved me for that… lol). So, to smell that sweetness wafting through the air, and to realize I was only a few blocks from the source of all those wonderful rolls of colored-sugar-disks was ALMOST worth a few months’ tuition in itself
I enjoyed the smells as they grew stronger while I walked toward classes near the nuclear reactor. The juxtaposition of candy factory and nuclear technology helped me keep some perspective. Nowadays, an occassional whiff of NECCO wafers sends me back in time.
I lived in East Cambridge while a student at MIT in the early to mid 80′s, and there was another candy factory there just opposite the Lechmere T stop. This one was home to the ‘Candy Factory Outlet Store’ that sold the freshest malted milk balls I ever had. The candy came in plain white cardboard boxes and was really fresh. It was also a great place to go at Easter- lots of cheap candy and baskets. I think it was affiliated with the Necco company, but the brand name on the candy was different(maybe Havilland?).
I also remember walking by the factory on Mass Ave- best day was when they were making peppermint chocolate somethings. If I was Novartis, I would have found a way to pump lovely smells out to the world after they took over the building.
Pat PhD MIT 1987
The thing I always wondered about was a candy factory right next door to a nuclear reactor… I liked the pink wintergreen candies, possibly the source of the root beer aroma (methyl salicylate + vanillin), and I bought many a white box of candies at the Lechmere shop.
During WWII, M.I.T. had an accelerated undergraduate program. I entered as a freshman in the summer of 1943, in the Class of February 1946. I remember marching in R.O.T.C. classes on those hot summer afternoons. If the wind was from the West, we enjoyed the smell of chocolate from NECCO. But, if there was an easterly breeze, the smell of the Lever Brothers Soap Company was a decidedly less pleasant experience!
The sugar train! And $1/box for near-regulars.