Kendall Square reached inflection point, passing from tech to biotech center – The Boston Globe

The three-story brick building at the corner of Main and Osborn streets in Cambridge, on the edge of Kendall Square and the MIT campus, captures three distinct eras in the city’s innovation history. In the early 1800s, it was the site of Kimball & Davenport, the first builder of passenger railroad cars in America.

After World War II, it was the epicenter of the Massachusetts tech boom, home to the office and private lab of Edwin Land, Polaroid’s founder. In between, Thomas A. Watson strung a wire from Boston to Cambridge, and set up the equipment to receive the first “long distance” phone call, in 1876.