Bradlee designed many of the townhouses in Boston's South End, and was president of the Cochituate Water Board.

[1] From 1866 to 1896, his family lived in the Alvah Kittredge House, a Greek Revival mansion (built 1836) at 10 Linwood Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Bradlee's early 1860s Jordan Marsh department store, an ornate brownstone edifice with a landmark corner clock tower in what is now known as Boston's Downtown Crossing, sparked a major historic preservation movement in the city when it was torn down in 1975.

Local architect Leslie Larson had founded a coalition called the City Conservation League to try to save the old building — one of the few survivors of the Great Boston Fire of 1872 — but it made way for a low modern brick structure that sits there today as Macy's.

He built for Royal Robbins of Waltham Watch Co. a series of 8 freight stables in 1866, which serviced the adjoining Boston and Providence Railroad property.