Dorchester Illustration no. 2503 Keystone Conversion to War Production
The Keystone apartment building can be seen from the Southeast Expressway. The building was originally built to house the Hallet & Davis Piano Company, and that is how Hallet Street received its name. The building later passed into the ownership of another piano company.
The Keystone Manufacturing Company took over the former Hallet & Davis Piano Company building on Hallet Street in the early 1940s. Keystone manufactured toys and moving-picture cameras & projectors. In 1942, the company contributed to the war effort by converting their machinery from toy production to the production of radio filter boxes for jeeps and tanks. The photograph shows a toy truck that the company had been producing along with the new boxes for radio filters. Photographer: Howard Hollem for the US Office of War Information.
The building was constructed in 1910 by the Hallet & Davis Piano Co. An article published in The Boston Globe at the time reported: The building will be on a branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, and the Hallet & Davis piano company has a spur track of more than 1000 feet in length on its own property there. It will also have fine dock facilities, where coal and other supplies may be brought by vessel and unloaded upon its own land.