Robbins & Burke Refrigerator Bodies

 

Robbins & Burke Refrigerator Bodies was once located at the corner of Landsdowne and Green Streets, (22-26 Green St.) Started in 1929 and managed by president Joseph J. Robbins, treasurer John E. Burke Jr., and Charles H. Burke, the company specialized in many types of refrigeration bodies, including ice cream trucks, frozen food trucks etc.

The company distributed its trucks out of a 1 1⁄2 story garage built in 1909 by Leon B. Murray on Green/ Landsdowne Streets. By 1937 the company self-identified itself as the largest manufacturer that exclusively specialized in refrigeration bodies in the USA. They served grocers, ice cream vendors, and other foodstuff merchants throughout the Atlantic and Gulf states. During WWII Robbins & Burke proudly fulfilled their patriotic duty by manufacturing refrigeration bodies to bring food to the warfront. According to a 1943 War Department Technical Manual, they made “semitrailer refrigerator 5-ton (10-ton gross).”

In the August 8 1947 issue of “Confectionery and Ice Cream World,” a weekly New York newspaper dedicated to the happenings of the frozen dessert industry, an article explained that due to declining health, Joseph J. Robbins sold a major company share to John E. Maloney of Brookline. Maloney was the president of Maloney Packing Co., another truck building firm located on 39 Commercial Street, Boston. Despite the new management, Robbins & Burke continued to work out of their garage in Cambridge. It is unknown when the company closed its doors, but it ran ads in the ​Boston Globe ​until 1976. The garage was later razed in 1987 and it is now a parking garage. (from the Cambridge Historical Commission.)