History Cambridge is excited to announce our 2026 neighborhood: West Cambridge
As defined by the City of Cambridge, the neighborhood of West Cambridge is bounded on the west by Fresh Pond, on the north by Concord Avenue, on the south by the Charles River and the Mount Auburn and Cambridge Cemeteries, and on the east by John F. Kennedy Street. The area overlaps significantly with what had long been known as “Old Cambridge,” centered around the Cambridge Common and Harvard College. But although West Cambridge does contain part of that area, it also stretches west to Fresh Pond and the Belmont and Watertown borders.
It is an economically diverse neighborhood, encompassing not only the multi-million dollar mansions on Brattle Street, but also more modest single-family and multi-family homes and apartment buildings. Although the area just west of Harvard Square is arguably best known for its most famous residents, including William Brattle, Andrew Craigie, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, West Cambridge was also home to working-class laborers and immigrant communities, as well as the area known as Lewisville, where free Black Cantabrigians have lived, worked, and supported one another since the late eighteenth century.
West Cambridge is rich in Revolutionary heritage, with Cambridge Common serving as the site on which General George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775 and prepared to defend the city against the British during the Siege of Boston. During his time in Cambridge, Washington lived and worked in the mansion of a former Brattle Street merchant, John Vassall, Jr.; the Vassalls, like many of the wealthy Cantabrigians whose Loyalism in the lead-up to the Revolution gave their addresses along Brattle Street the nickname “Tory Row,” had fled to the protection of the British troops in Boston and subsequently had their Cambridge property seized for use by the Patriots.
Once the white Vassall family had fled, their enslaved workers, including Tony and Cuba Vassall and their children, were able to self-liberate and join with other free and formerly-enslaved Black Cantabrigians to rent and purchase land and homes in what became known as the Lewisville section of the neighborhood. Many of the houses in this area have been in Black Cambridge families for generations, and it remains a stronghold of Black community in the city.
As a center for the printing, stablery, and blacksmithing industries, West Cambridge was also home to a number of immigrant workers in the cottages built in the Half-Crown and Marsh districts. The building of these cottages was relegated to land prone to drainage problems, as it was much cheaper to obtain than the more desirable areas of the neighborhood closer to Brattle Street. Many of these residents also worked in the ice industry on Fresh Pond, cutting and shipping ice for cooling before the age of refrigeration.
Today, West Cambridge is a neighborhood of large houses, small condos, and apartment buildings. It features areas of commerce and education as well as residential districts, and is home to Cantabrigians from diverse backgrounds. Its origins as a college town and its reputation as the center of Revolutionary action are well-known, but people of many different races, ethnicities, and social classes have called – and continue to call – West Cambridge home.
