Confectioner's Row

Last Seen

WBUR

True Crime, Missing, Mystery, Boston, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, WBUR senior arts and culture reporter Andrea Shea drove by an old, mysterious factory in Cambridge, Mass. To her surprise, it turned to be the last vestige of a 20th century candy hub called Confectioner's Row.

Manufacturing jobs dried up, and only one factory, Cambridge Brands, remains. In this episode of Last Seen, Andrea walks us through the history of Confectioner's Row and meets face-to-face with the CEO of Cambridge Brands — who is touted as a real life Willy Wonka.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last scene is made at a public radio station, WBUR in Boston, which means it's made possible
0:06.0	by you, the listener.
0:07.9	If you want the show to keep going, support it.
0:10.5	Give in any amount at WBUR.org slash pod power.
0:14.5	That's WBUR.org slash pod power.
0:18.2	Thank you.
0:19.2	Here's the show.
0:30.6	When you were a kid, did you have a favorite candy?
0:33.9	If you close your eyes, can you feel it melting on your tongue or cracking between your teeth?
0:40.3	Well like a lot of kids in the 70s and 80s, Andrea Shea used to freeze long chocolate
0:45.8	covered Charleston shoes and she'd smack them on the counter into bite-sized pieces.
0:51.5	So for a little nostalgia, we're going to do it together.
0:54.8	Okay, so you just take the bar, hold it in your hand and you just...
1:00.7	Wow, let me try.
1:02.8	Oh, that feels good.
1:05.1	And you can keep doing it until it smacks into a whole bunch of little pieces.
1:12.7	Is this so it doesn't like crack your teeth?
1:15.0	It was a commercial.
1:24.4	Everyone was doing it.
1:25.4	You know, you'd go to the Penny Candy store and buy Charleston shoes, ride your bike over
1:30.0	a whole failure paper bag and come home, stick it in the freezer and smack away.
1:35.1	Sack away.
	...

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