Posts Tagged ‘business’
Touching History; Harvard Square, The Bank and The Tasty Diner [video]
The closing of the beloved Harvard Square restaurant The Tasty in the late 1990s was a source of tension in Cambridge. Filmmaker Federico Muchnik documented the controversy in his short film, “Touching History; Harvard Square, The Bank and The Tasty Diner.” From the filmmaker: “Touching History tells the story of the re-development of Harvard Square’s…
Read MoreSome Aspects of the East Cambridge Story
By John W. Wood, 1956 “This paper gives a totally inadequate account of an appealingly picturesque and colorful neighborhood, the area that might have been a slum and isn’t, the step-child of the University City. “ – J. W. W. For some reason, the local history of East Cambridge has been almost completely neglected. It…
Read MoreSelf-Guided Tour: Caribbean Community in the Port
This tour focuses on the history of the Caribbean community in the Port through personal stories in the context of places of work, education, worship, and outreach.
Read MoreCambridgeport: Its People and Their Stories
By Michael Kenney, Winter 2011 Cambridgeport stands, geographically and socially, midway between East Cambridge and Old Cambridge, neither a traditional southern European enclave nor the remnants of Puritan New England. This issue of the Newetowne Chronicle focuses on Cambridgeport and its vibrant past through a collection of articles and a report on the celebration of…
Read MoreNew Wine in Old Bottles
By Michael Kenney, 2017 Sunday brunch time and weekday happy hours, the courtyard at the corner of Broadway and Hampshire Street is a lively place, with hipsters and families enjoying the bars and restaurants grouped around the open brick-paved space. Hard to believe, but it was even more bustling a century ago, when shifts of…
Read MoreThe Downside of Progress
By Doug Brown, 2017 Cambridge has made a lot of things over the centuries, not all of them valuable. Our manufacturing history has its dirty, dangerous downside, and dealing with the hazards and by-products of production has always been a challenge in this jam-packed, 7.1-square-mile city. By the end of the 19th century, the technological…
Read MoreEarly Glass Making In East Cambridge
by Doris Hayes-Cavanaugh, 1926 Much has been said recently about the business growth of Cambridge, and a number of publications have stressed the fact that Cambridge, and particularly the section known as East Cambridge, now stands very high in the scale of New England manufacturing centres. Imposing schedules of plants and factories have appeared, setting…
Read MoreEighty-five Aromatic Years In Harvard Square by Catharine K. Wilder
Eighty-five Aromatic Years In Harvard Square By Catharine K. Wilder, 1968 A tiny island exists today in Harvard Square about which the poet Robert Hillyer, Harvard ’17, writes: Not all goes up in smoke, here smoke appears To give stability in changing years. Leavitt & Peirce, whose name evokes a host of blue haze memories,…
Read MoreThe Riverside Press by James Duncan Phillips
The Riverside Press By James Duncan Phillips Vice President And Treasurer Of Houghton Mifflin Company Read 27 April, 1926 In Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables he makes that delightfully simple old character, Uncle Venner, say, “In two or three years longer, I shall think of putting aside business and retiring to my farm. That’s…
Read MoreCafé Algiers: A hidden gem with a long history
by Ruth Hobeika After almost five decades in Harvard Square — at 40 Brattle Street, home of the Brattle Theatre — this much beloved international style coffeehouse shuttered on August 31. The final decision was reached August 25 after negotiations between the land-lord, who cancelled the lease, and original owner Emil Durzi fell through. “It…
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