8 Tyler Street: A Storied History of a Very Special Building
If these walls could talk! The corner of Tyler and Dane in Somerville, Massachusetts has spent over 150 years making and housing everything from brass tubes, eggs, envelopes, museum artifacts… and now us.
Here's the timeline
Seamless brass and copper tubes. The block started life as part of American Tube Works, the first company in America to make seamless brass and copper tubing (think locomotives, ships, and Victorian plumbing). They constructed a new building on this site in 1910 and by 1912 the company employed around 800 people and was one of the biggest industries in Massachusetts. Then it packed up for Cambridge in 1934 and the buildings went looking for a second act.
Eggs. So many eggs. After the tube-makers left, the dairy company H.P. Hood used part of the complex as its egg department - essentially an egg receiving, grading, and cold-storage warehouse. For a stretch, this was a place full of eggs!
Ames Safety Envelope. Then came the tenant that defined the place for 70+ years. Ames Safety Envelope was founded in 1919 by John W. Fitzgerald, a former postal worker who wanted a tamper-proof envelope. Ames grew into a giant and Somerville's largest employer in the '80s and '90s. Parts of this complex were its warehouse and paper-sheeting machines. Ames closed in 2010.
The maker era. The Fitzgerald family reopened the site as the Ames Business Park, and the complex filled up with makers. One building became museum storage for MIT; another, at 10 Tyler, housed Artisan's Asylum, a beloved community makerspace full of welders, jewelers, and an infamous giant eight-legged walking robot named Stompy. Artisans Asylum relocated to Allston in early 2023, and the space passed to The Engine, a startup incubator founded by MIT.
Somernova. In 2018, Rafi Properties bought the campus and rebranded it Somernova. Today the site is a wonderful mix of businesses; a brewery, a climbing gym, a bakery, a chocolate maker, and clusters of tech startups.
Which brings us to today
The eggs, envelopes, and brass tubes are gone. What's here now is Edge of Elsewhere - a new, 12,000 square-foot immersive world of art, puzzles, and mysteries, coming to Somerville in fall 2026. Inside, players collaborate to solve puzzles and complete storylines as they explore a wide variety of themed interactions.
Same fantastic building - newest chapter.