Banker & Tradesman's 150th Anniversary
Banker & Tradesman and its parent company, The Warren Group, celebrate 150 years of providing the real estate and financial services industries with innovative data products and breaking and in-depth news. All year, we’re producing features highlighting significant moments in the history of the industries we cover.
This Month in History: The Channel Nightclub Opens
Landmark bands of the 1980s like The Cars, the Go-Go’s and The B-52s might have been nothing more than local curiosities if it hadn’t been for The Channel nightclub, which opened in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood 42 years ago this month.
A Plan for Making Change
David Wluka has been in the real estate business longer than many Realtors today have been alive. As a residential and commercial real estate agent for nearly half a century, the Sharon resident has played key roles in real estate development south of Boston.
This Month in History: Boston Landing Station Opens
The $20 million Boston Landing station opened on the MBTA commuter rail’s Framingham/Worcester line five years ago this month as a wave of transit-oriented development crested in Greater Boston.
Advocate for Women in Banking Nears Retirement
After 29 years at Cape Cod 5, Dorothy Savarese still gets chills when customers tell her on a personal level how the bank has affected their lives. The CEO plans to step down next month.
This Month in History: Sox First Play at Fenway
The 2022 equivalent of $3.52 million was all Boston Red Sox owner Charles Taylor needed to buy the land that became the storied ballpark over the course of 1911 and 1912.
This Week in History: B&T Printer Wins Boston Marathon Seven Times
Boston printer Clarence DeMar still holds the record for the most Boston Marathon wins, 100 years after he first beat all comers running the course.
This Month in History: Pru Opens to Public
Boston’s tallest building: when it finished in 1965, the Prudential Center was a towering symbol of the city’s hopes for rebirth after residents, jobs and retailers spent decades fleeing to suburbia.
Banker & Tradesman Still Strong at 150 Years Old
What comes to mind when we think of aging in this day and age? Well, “aging in place” has become a popular dream for many of us. “Improving with age” is something we aspire to. “Seeming ageless” is something to lift a glass to for a New Year’s toast.
Banker & Tradesman turns 150 in 2022. And I’m proud to say that it has done all of the above.
We are “aging in place” right here in Massachusetts, publishing news about real estate and banking right here in Massachusetts. And collecting data from public records right here in Massachusetts to guide the business decisions of real estate and banking professionals. And we are doing it with the same Warren family ownership that has endured for five generations. In sports, coaches say that the secret to success is “staying in your lane,” and that philosophy has contributed to our success.
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As for “improving with age,” The Warren Group, the parent corporation of Banker & Tradesman, has just completed its most profitable year in 150 years.
Each generation of Warrens has had its challenges and its triumphs. My great-grandfather, Willard C. Warren was the founding entrepreneur, the king of startups before that was a “thing.” Wheeling and dealing, buying trade publications, floating bonds, opening offices nonstop for 45 years. Willard’s sudden death at the tail end of the Roaring Twenties left my grandfather, Keith F. Warren, as the corporate caretaker for the dark Depression years.
Publications were sold, or more commonly closed, economies were employed, and every payroll was a day of reckoning. With the able assistance of his brother-in-law, Gorham Cross, Keith was able to hold on until my father, Timothy M. Warren, returned from World War II, finished college on the G.I. Bill and was able to join the business and lend a hand.
My father helped make difficult decisions about selling our Kendall Square building and its printing presses and dividing the surviving publishing properties with his Cross cousins. He then set out to beef up Banker & Tradesman with an expanded editorial and advertising staff and drive circulation to its all-time high.
I joined the business in 1973 and by 1986 I helped realize my father’s long-time dream of entering the news and records of Banker & Tradesman into a computer database, opening the possibility of many derivative products, enabling web-based searches of the database and entering the world of big data that we inhabit today.
And finally, for “seeming ageless,” I marvel at the fact that the very germ of the idea that propelled my great-grandfather into this business is exactly what we do today, even as we have innovated, expanded geographically and developed new products. We go out and search public records and mine them for valuable data that we publish and make available to real estate and banking professionals so that they can make critical business decisions, just as the first readers of B&T used our first issue 150 years ago.
We plan to mark our sesquicentennial with celebrations and special news coverage all year honoring the real estate and banking industry’s contributions to this commonwealth, and we hope you will join us.
Tim Warren is publisher of Banker & Tradesman and CEO of The Warren Group.