Posts Tagged ‘East Cambridge’
Serving with Al
By Francis H. Duehay, 2013 I served on both the School Committee and the City Council with Al Vellucci, much longer on the City Council. Al seemed to many to be unpredictable, brash, quixotic, divisive, wily, loud, dominating, and self-centered. And he was, but he was a lot more than that. He often addressed the…
Read MoreEast Cambridge’s Road to Revolution
By Darleen Bonislawski, 2013 The events leading to the April 19, 1775, skirmish on Lexington Green began in East Cambridge. Years ago, while walking in East Cambridge (where I was born), I saw a stone marker on Second Street near the Probate Court, stating to all that “Near this spot 800 British soldiers from Boston…
Read MoreAndrew Craigie: Mover and Shaker of East Cambridge
by Daphne Abeel Craigie Street, just to the west of Harvard Square, memorializes Andrew Craigie (1754-1819), but his most significant legacy is his development of East Cambridge. He also arranged to move the courthouse and the jail from Harvard Square to East Cambridge. That move, combined with his building of the Canal (or Craigie) Bridge…
Read MoreHeading East
By Michael Kenney, 2013 To head east along Cambridge Street is to become instantly conscious that this is not the Cambridge of academia and mansions, of student hangouts and jazz clubs. It is a Cambridge that pulses with an almost old-world vitality. There are three older men chatting on the sidewalk and children in school…
Read MoreSelf-Guided Bike Tour: Pedaling the People’s Republic, A History of Political Activism in Cambridge
The city played a central role in the American Revolution and the abolitionist movement before being named “The People’s Republic” for its role in the anti-war, civil rights, tenant’s rights, gay rights, sustainable development, and environmental movements. Pedaling the People’s Republic will take participants on a tour of past political activity from the Revolution to the grass roots movements of the 20th century.
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. “ For some reason, the local history of East Cambridge has been almost completely neglected. It is a little hard…
Read MoreThree Distinct and Separate Communities: The Old Cambridge Secession Attempts of 1842–44
By Edward Rodley, 2018 Introduction The Cambridge, Massachusetts, of 2017 is a heavily developed, densely populated urban center with a population that has hovered around 100,000 for the past twenty years. Regional differences exist from one part of the city to another, but the sense of Cambridge as a unique, distinct community provides a cement…
Read MoreFirst Resident in “A More Goodly Country”
By Michael Kenney, 2013 “This much I can affirm in general, that I never came to a more goodly country in my life,” wrote Thomas Graves shortly after his arrival in the Bay Colony in 1629. He was a planner and, after laying out Charlestown, was rewarded with the grant of some hundred acres of…
Read MoreWhere Portuguese Families Found a New Home
By Sarah Boyer, 2013 Portuguese families from the North End of Boston and East Boston started to move into East Cambridge soon after the Civil War. Most of them had emigrated from the Azores, an archipelago 800 miles off the coast of Portugal, mainly from the largest island, São Miguel. Their numbers increased in the…
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…
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