Looking north on Massachusetts Avenue near the intersection with Prospect Street.
Looking north across Massachusetts Avenue, down Prospect Street, from River Street,
Looking north across Massachusetts Avenue, down Prospect Street, from River Street, 2010.

In the older photograph, the building that is today occupied by Starbucks flies a banner celebrating the passage of national Prohibition. Cantabrigians were early converts to the temperance cause: the No-License Movement rallied voters to ban saloons in Cambridge as early as 1887. A jubilee held in 1897 proclaimed: “No other city the size of Cambridge is able to look back upon a period of ten years without the curse of an open saloon.” Prohibition was not repealed until 1933.

Historic image: Gift of Cliff Brown, First Baptist Church, Cambridge Historical Commission, ca. 1920

Photograph: Phyllis Bretholtz, 2010
 

“Central Square: Then and Now” portrays the history and vibrancy of Central Square over the past century. The project is a collaboration of the Clear Conscience Café, the Cambridge Historical Society, the Cambridge Historical Commission, and Phyllis Bretholtz.