quirkymarshmallows93

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Happy stairs week! So honored to be featured again in 2025 for a third year :)

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Below is some juicy Boston metro area Ikea lore for your Saturday morning, compliments of user hazardousnorth on Reddit. Photo from the grand opening week of the Stoughton, MA store, November 10, 2005.

So, former Stoughton Ikea employee here (2009 - 2011). A lot of interesting points I learned because I used to live on Fellsway West in Somerville and commuted to Ikea from Somerville - by redline, bus, and bike every day - for over a year and a half, thinking once the Ikea Assembly location opened I'd have it made in the shade.

Take these anecdotes with a grain of salt, but a lot of this comes from the mouth of the then-manager of Stoughton who was at the time a 25+ year Ikea veteran who had worked in some truly unique Ikea situations* and was himself heavily invested in bringing Ikea to Somerville

ANYWAY, Boston was eyed, firmly, by Ikea Sweden H.Q. as the first North American market they wanted to penetrate, back in the early 70s when they were first looking at North American expansion.

Ingvar Kamprad felt that with all the universities and schools in the Boston metro that they would have a strong retail base. And since so many students were international, that with the melting pot of American students being encouraged by word of mouth from their already ikea-familiarized foreign schoolmates, that success in Boston was all but guaranteed. This would, in turn, sow the seeds for US expansion as students graduated from the Boston-area institutions and returned home or moved to their new municipalities and word of mouth would drive interest in further N.A./U.S. expansion

Unfortunately, the reality of opening in Boston was as fraught with difficulties in the 70s as it was the 90s-00s. The pushback materialized even then. The ground was so heavily polluted from the Ford Edsel plant, and proximity of - surprise, surprise - just another of Massachusetts notoriously unsafe for life waterways the Mystic River. On top of that, the site was an absolute eyesore and much would need to be done to make the site acceptable - aesthetically and from a unpolluted perspective - before Ingvar would agree to anything (At the time Ikea was privately held by the Kamprad family, and Ingvar maintained strict control - it wasn't until the early aughts or so that he finally relinquished the reins).

The Assembly site became the front runner for Ikea's North American debut and Ikea negotiated hard, getting a "lock" on the Assembly property as their intended location for where they wanted it to open, as the Ford plant had closed in the late 50s and left a huge gap in the taxbase. But what little I came to understand was that Ikea faced a lot of hurdles in trying to penetrate Boston and the U.S. market at first. Despite talks going on in the background between Ikea, Somerville, and the legislature for years, factors like traffic, environment, disagreements on taxation and subsidies held up an official agreement until the early 90s.

Ultimately, the delays proved unacceptable. Ikea not only needed to set it's plans in motion for the retail stores, but their own furniture production infrastructure needed to be ramped up if anything was going to happen (look into "Swedwood" if you're curious) and Ingvar was concerned if they didn't get a foothold in North America a competitor or imitator would beat him to the punch. Soooo the first Ikea store in North America wound up being in Canada - Toronto, I believe.

Ikea finally ironed out some kind of agreement to move into the space, making several concessions and good-faith improvement commitments in order to secure their interests. From the mid-90s -about 1995 I believe it was - Ikea N.A. corporate out of Conshocken, P.A was paying a handsome sum on a land-lease to retain the space, on the order of about a million or so a year in lease payments and contributions to the land improvements they wanted to see made in the space.

In the interim, Ikea felt they were failing to capitalize on the Boston metro pot o' gold and the decision was made, while Assembly's pot bubbled, that they would develop a second site chosen by the magic of market research: proximity to major roadway infrastructure, within an hour from Boston and Providence and ample space for parking. Naturally, a town willing to play ball and grease the rails to opening was paramount as well.

One part of this tale that I found interesting was that a senior member of the Kamprad family personally scouted locations by riding in a helicopter over the greater Boston metro over a span of about two weeks.

Additionally, the Ikea Stoughton store actually sits across the borders of two towns: Stoughton and Avon. The buzz at work was that when you walked into the kitchen section of the marketplace - more specifically where all the pots and pans were - you were standing in Avon.

Anyway, as years of rumours finally turned into confirmation that Ikea was officially finally coming to Assembly, the news had a bracing effect - development that had already been taking place in Assembly ramped up, and larger and deeper-pocketed investors/companies started investing heavily in Assembly. Ikea even committed to covering part of the cost of the Orange Line stop . From what I understand Ikea was not just a primary driver to getting the Assembly Orange Line stop built, but they agreed to contribute something like 10-12 million usd for the second headhouse, that was strings-unattached from any other fiscal agreement or commitment.

(originally the second headhouse was going to have a walkway directly to the upper deck of Ikea so people exiting would be able to transit directly to the Orange Line)

But it was the political and bureaucratic foot-dragging/stonewalling, along with the rampant Old guard Boston/Somerville NIMBYism that, coupled with the changed economic climate post-2008 crisis and the rise of e-commerce that were the nails in the coffin.

Ultimately it was really only an immediate Boston-Area store that could make economic sense for another New England Ikea, but from a fiscal perspective Stoughton was simply too close for comfort. The bean counters in Conshocken felt a Somerville store would "cannibalize" Stoughton. And it didn't help that Ikea N.A.'s Somerville enterprise was already deep in the red and all before even a single brick had been laid.

Had Ikea been built in Assembly back in the 70s, obviously Boston/Massachusetts/New England would have adjusted to and accepted that, if you wanted your Knubbigs, Poangs, Sverige Kottbullars, and Costco-rivaling (in price anyway) hotdogs, you were going to have to contend with city driving to get them.

But that's not what happened.

Ikea fought - hard - for Assembly, and they honored their word, paying without contest the financial commitments they made and ultimately taking a multi-million dollar bath from lease payments, environmental testing & remediation/mitigation, land development, transit infrastructure investment, and who knows what else - all that were ultimately in vain.

As a side note, my favorite of my old managers unique Ikea location stories - I am originally from New York, and back in the early 90s Ikea ran an outpost in Manhattan from their Hoboken store which, at the time, was the only store in the NY metro.. The N.A. CEO had the Swedes breathing fire down his neck, and the Hoboken manager was having his toes held to the fire because the Swedes were losing their minds about how much Kroner was being shoveled into this particular well.

Apparently, the Swedish execs were doing their best to "put a wig on a pig" to personally lower the raised eyebrows of Ingvar Kamprad. According to the story, Ingvar personally hated the idea of a small-format store and it was only much browbeating that convinced him that the visibility and brand awareness created by a store - however small - in the heart of one of the most commercially vibrant & densely populated cities on the face of the planet would repay any investment in spades.

Ingvar finally assented, but Ingvar was also notoriously..."parsimonious" and the NYC outpost was a bee in his bonnet that he wouldn't stop asking about in terms of its expenditures and return.

So, the story goes, Manhattan outpost obviously was not large and so instead of spreading themselves too thin trying to sell everything all at once, would every month completely switch the focus & format of the store. One month, kitchens, next month, bathrooms, etc. My Stoughton manager was, at the time a "shopkeeper" (at Ikea, shopkeepers are department managers) and it was his department's turn in the rotation at the outpost so he was in essence the acting A.G.M in residence at the outpost. And he was privy to this exchange between the regional director, the G.M. of Ikea Hoboken (who oversaw the operations of Manhattan Outpost, and the CEO of IKEA N.A.

it was about how much money the Manhattan outpost was going to earn. Ingvar was losing patience. The Hoboken G.M. and the R.M. kept trying to explain to the CEO that it was a loss-leader, that the store wasn't going to generate money, that with NYC rents and the cost of resetting the store each month, that any talk of profit was a lost cause, and much I-thought-this-was-understoods and didn't-we-address-this-previously's.

He kept telling the CEO it was going to lose money, not make money, and finally the CEO said "you're not understanding me, how much money is this experiment going to make?", to which the R.M. finally threw up his hands and said "a dollar. It's going to make a dollar. Is that enough?" Which, apparently, was good enough for the CEO.

Tl;Dr - no. I'm terrible at summarizing, isn't it obvious? Read the comment, or don't. All the same to me.

Updateno book! This's all I can remember. I wanted Somerville to open so I wasn't commuting 1.6 hours for $8.25 an hour part-time. I'm Danish-American who moved to Boston from NY to study architecture & design. Swedish furnishing giant ikea was as good as I thought it got for someone like me with little experience and a desire to work with Scandinavian design. It's why I put up with it. And yes where the mgh building is was it's intended spot.

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Italia Marittima head office, 2006

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RIP Pink House, Newbury, Masachusetts

The house, visible on the way to Plum Island, was torn down this morning by order of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service

Profile Photo Source

Green Grass Photo Source

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USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.

Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.

If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.

Are you with me?

Spread the word.

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Woke up listening to bill gates talking about vaccines on the beeb

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Costco Board of Directors, Ben Baker, 2009

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I found a Dunks that still looks like this

Westwood, Massachusetts

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1998 MCI coach bus

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Old ass landline phone collection (mostly Sony)

Clockwise from top right:

Sony SPP-320 base unit: works, but the speakerphone function howls. It does not currently transit mid-40 mHz range frequency to cordless unit due to signal interference. This design looks like it belongs in an office more than a home, but was sold as a household system.

Brother IntelliFAX-2840: My cactus keeps it company. I use the output tray as a tissue box holder, when I seldom do print something I just take the tissue box off. This does not actually work as a fax machine in my setup, because the bridge I use to connect my cell phone to the analog devices, Cell2Jack, only transmits with enough fidelity for voice signals.

Sony IT-B3: not actually connected to the wall jack, just hooked on the same wall plate and daisy chained to the other phones. The end of the RJ-9 cord that connects to the dial pad broke off, so it had to be super glued in.

Sony SPP-320 cordless handset: powers on, but does not work due to above mentioned radio frequency interference. I would love to get it working at some point, but I've read that since so many modern objects - household appliances, IoT devices - emit signals of various frequencies, the technology this device uses is rendered useless due to the interference. Brick is beautiful.

Sony IT-B5: purchased in order to have full modularity, and due to slight difference from IT-B3 - three one-touch dial keys, mute function, heavier handset. Currently connected to my computer via RJ-9 to 3.5mm audio jack adapter. I plan to add the dial pad into the network and use the AirPods case as a hook weight.

Sony TAM-100 answering machine: works almost flawlessly. One of the grip feet underneath broke off, so it wobbles. The "three mailbox" function does not seem to be working, also perhaps due to the limitations of the Cell2Jack. I discovered this model at a thrift store, but upon getting a power adapter for it, I found that the unit did not work, so I purchased a second (pictured), and plan to repurpose the first broken machine. It and the SPP-320 base are placed on top of a pair of stereo speakers.

Cortelco 2500: the company that manufactures these phones is still in business, and is a direct descendent of Western Electric, the company that manufactured phones for the AT&T monopoly before the breakup of the Bell system. I love the simplicity of this phone, and wanted to make it as old school as possible, so I placed lace underneath, and a phone book in the drawer below, along with a pen and notepad. This reminds me of the phone setup my great aunt had, complete with a gossip bench. I also wrapped the cord around the base, just like the front man had it in Squid Game.

This is definitely overkill. This fascination overtook me sometime last fall, so I figured I could look into a few different models, but had to restrain myself. I really want a functioning cordless unit, but the one I found on eBay would be about $50 with shipping and taxes included. I know price gouging when I see it. I put in an offer for $20, and it was automatically rejected. This is it for now and for the foreseeable future. Maybe I will find a fix for the current cordless unit I have.