By Marion Severynse Veterans Day is an appropriate time to pay homage to the role that North Cambridge and its residents have played in the military history of Massachuestts and the United States. There are nine Memorial Pole and Dedication Markers commemorating Gold Star service members in the area bounded by Rindge Avenue, Massachusetts Avenue, and Alewife Brook Parkway. In … Read More
1986 Neighborhood Trivia Hunt
Cambridge has certainly changed over time, and our 1986 trivia hunt shows just how true that is. It serves as a kind of time capsule of our city. Take a trip back in time with this self-guided tour to see how many of these sites are still around. Which ones do you recognize? Which ones do you remember? What are … Read More
Savoring the Legacy of Joyce Chen
Chef. Restaurateur. Entrepreneur. by Stephen Chen, president of Joyce Chen Foods Reproduced from joycechenfoods.com with permission Born in Beijing in 1917, my mother Joyce Chen came to this country with my dad, sister and brother in 1949. We moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where friends of the family had settled, and where I was born. Surrounded by Chinese students at Harvard … Read More
Self-Guided Tour: Clay, Bricks, Dump, Park: A Tour of North Cambridge
This tour begins with glacial time – 10,000 years ago when ice left behind vast deposits of clay in North Cambridge, then fast-forwards 9,800 years to the neighborhood’s brickmaking heyday, and the dump left in its wake. Clay shaped one of Cambridge’s biggest industries, and the lives of North Cantabrigians for generations. Take a walk through North Cambridge to find out how.
The Remarkable John “Jack” Emerson: Founder of the J. H. Emerson Company
By Daphne Abeel, 2005 When Will and George Emerson begin to talk about their family background and their father, who founded the J. H. Emerson Company, they mention somewhat offhandedly that they are descended from a brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson and that their paternal grandfather was related to the artist Maxfield Parrish. But it is only when they begin … Read More