Month: January 2020

Modern Monday – Continental Terrace at 29 Concord Avenue

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Constructed in 1960 and designed by Hugh Stubbins & Associates, Inc., Continental Terrace at 29 Concord Avenue is an apartment building that maximized space while providing natural light throughout. The 8-story brick building consists of 103 apartments and features distinctive white balconies for every unit.

View of Continental Terrace with central front entrance descending below grade. City of Cambridge.

The design encompassed 81,690 square feet organized around a galleried central well.  Stubbins was able to add an 8th floor by dropping the ground floor a half level below the sidewalk, providing more units while staying under the 65-foot height limit as measured from the sidewalk. The building has a single loaded system and one elevator which opens out onto a light-filled atrium furnished with couches. Since the building is single loaded, each corridor is adjacent to the open atrium, making the space feel larger and more pleasant.  Stubbins provided residents with access to daylight from most parts of the building.

Architect’s rendering of 29 Concord Avenue. Francis Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate Design School.

The design of the lobby and the single elevator fostered interaction among neighbors creating a sense of community.  Since the building was designed a half story below grade, to reach the vestibule one descends between two garden terraces into what feels like a private area, deterring strangers from wandering inside.  This is also the location of the mailboxes, and according to one former resident people often linger there to check mail, further contributing a sense of security.  Residents were also known to spend time in the lobby which has views of the upper corridors.

Article in Architectural Forum showing floor plans as well as a view of the atrium from above. Architectural Forum, June 1961.
View of atrium in Architectural Forum, June 1961.
Architect’s first floor plan illustrating the lobby and arrangement of units with patio/gardens. Francis Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate Design School.

In the apartments, the living room receives natural light from a floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall window while the bedroom has one narrow tall window. The interior layout is very open, and spaces flow easily with minimal doors and walls, but does reduce opportunities for privacy. Each unit has a private balcony which also makes the unit feel larger. Basement level apartments also have gardens.

Article in Architectural Forum with photographs of interior units. Architectural Forum, June 1961.

Architect: Hugh Stubbins & Associates, Inc. Landscape Architect: John L. Wacker. Structural Engineer: Goldberg & LeMessurier. Mechanical Engineer: Delbrook Engineering, Inc. Electrical Engineer: Fred S. Dubin Associates. Acoustical Consultant: Bolt, Beranek & Newman. Contractor: John F. Griffin Co.

Sources

Pierson, Caroline (former resident), “Why Design Matters: The Effect of Architecture on Living Experience.” March 2010.

“Apartments Around a Well,” Architectural Forum, June 1961.

Torn Down Tuesday – Ivers & Pond Piano Company

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Located on the corner of Main and Albany Streets in Cambridgeport, Ivers & Pond Piano Company was a preeminent manufacturer of grand and upright pianos known for their use of exotic woods such as mahogany and rosewood, and detailed cabinet work.

Illustration of factory. Cambridge Sentinel, Jan. 17, 1925.

William H. Ivers started the company in 1870 with a small factory in Dedham, MA, and ten years later he partnered with Handel Pond, a noted organist. Soon thereafter, the company decided to move manufacturing to a site in Cambridgeport adjacent to the railroad with plenty of land available for expansion. The first factory was constructed in 1881, consisting of a 5-story brick building with a flat roof. Two 6-story additions were built soon after in 1883 and 1886. The overall architecture was typical for the period with brick bearing wall facades and regularly spaced double hung windows. The only ornamentation occurs at the corner facing Main Street, where the façade projects outward from the main plane of the building, incorporating pilasters topped with arches and a cornice that raises the height of the roof. The factory continued to add more manufacturing space, storage rooms for wood, drying facilities, a coal shed, and a boiler house, enabling production of 2,500 to 3,000 pianos each year. Ivers resigned as president of the company in 1887, and Pond assumed leadership until his death in 1908. Pond’s sons, Clarence and Shepard, then took the reins as president and treasurer.

Below is an excerpt from one of the company’s brochures explaining the process involved in constructing their pianos.

Ivers & Pond Piano Co. catalog, 1899, http://www.antiquepianoshop.com
Map showing the first building on the corner Main and Albany Streets.
1886 Hopkins Atlas. CHC Collection.

By 1905, the factory consisted of 5 6-story buildings, 5 dry-kilns and lumber sheds, encompassing 160,000 square feet. To facilitate shipping, spur tracks connected to the Grand Junction railroad. The factory employed 300 workers, while the offices and warerooms located on Boylston Street in Boston had 50 employees. The company’s advertising listed over 500 educational and musical institutions as customers, including the New England Conservatory of Music which purchased over 250 pianos.

1888 Sanborn map showing the expansion of the factory, drying room, and lumber storage. Mapjunction.com
Detail from 1888 Sanborn map showing wood floor construction. Mapjunction.com
Map from 1903 showing the expansion of the factory along Albany Street and the railroad tracks. 1903 Bromley Atlas, CHC Collection.
View of Main Street in 1909 with Ivers & Pond Piano Co. to the left.
Boston Elevated Railway photograph collection.
This “Princess Grand” piano by Ivers & Pond was a wedding gift to Rose and Joseph Kennedy in 1914. On display at the JFK Birthplace in Brookline. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Historic Site.
Map from 1930 Bromley Atlas showing the full extent of the piano factory development. CHC Collection.
Advertisement with illustration of the piano factory complex.
Cambridge Sentinel, March 27, 1926.
Plan from 1936 showing location of wood storage areas and dry houses along with main manufacturing buildings. Rice-Mank Collection.

During the Depression, the company moved its offices and warehouses from Boylston Street to Cambridge as a cost saving measure. Soon after, the company was acquired by another piano manufacturer, but accounts vary as to exactly when and by whom. Two sources claim that the factory was acquired by Winter & Company in 1945 and eventually taken over by the Aeolian Corporation of New York in 1959. Another source states the company was acquired by Aeolian in the 1930s.

Aerial view in 1947 of Ivers & Pond Piano Company with train tracks. CHC Collection.

Manufacturing most likely continued through the 1940s. In 1951, a permit was issued for the demolition of the factory building on Main Street. A year later, additional permits were issued to demolish two factory buildings on Albany Street to make way for new construction by Polaroid Corporation. Further demolition occurred in 1964 and 1965 by MIT. The Ivers & Pond name continued to be used by the Aeolian Corporation until it closed in 1983.

Sources

http://www.concertpitchpiano.com/ivers-pond-piano-prices.html

http://www.antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/ivers-pond

http://www.winchester.us/DocumentCenter/View/3476/Keyboard-business?bidId+=

http://www.mapjunction.com

http://www.lindebladpiano.com/library/ivers-and-pond

National Park Service, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Historic Site

Cambridge Chronicle January 26 1895

Cambridge Chronicle, September 1, 1938

Cambridge Chronicle, January 27, 1923

Cambridge Chronicle, September 9, 1905

Friday Frolic

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Finally–all is revealed. Sorry for the delay–the dog ate my homework.





 

Question: Magazine Street and Magazine Beach are both named for the same structure. What    was the structure? Why was it called that?

Answer: Street and beach are both reminders of the Cambridge powder magazine, on a small island surrounded by marshland. Why a magazine? The powder magazine was for storage of arms and ammunition belonging to Cambridge residents; thus a storehouse, or a collection. Time and The New Yorker are also storehouses, or collections, of writings and photographs.

Cambridge’s stone powder magazine has recently undergone extensive renovations. For more information and photos, visit https://magazinebeach.org.

Question: The northeast side of Cambridgeport was once much closer to the marshlands along the Charles River; one street separated the marshes and the dry land. What is the name of that street? 
CPT shoreline
Answer: The street at the edge of the marsh is Brookline Street. In the map’s lower left corner, Captain’s Island and the powder magazine are labelled no. 4. 

A self-portrait of the artist as a young man. 1804. Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Question: Cambridgeport has one of the only (maybe the only) streets named in honor of an artist. Name the artist and the street.

Answer: The artist was Washington Allston. Allston was a well-known Romantic-era artist, known for dramatic, large-scale Biblical and historical scenes, of tormented kings and wild-looking prophets. The Harvard Art Museums hold a small collection of his work. Allston married Margaret Remington Dana, of the prominent Cambridge family; for a time the couple lived at the northeast corner of Magazine and Auburn streets (where Allston built a studio) and entertained guests such as Edmund Dana (who donated the land for Dana Park) and Richard Henry Dana Jr. (lawyer and author of Two Years Before the Mast).  Allston was one of the first people Dana visited when he returned from his long voyage. 

Bonus: On that same street, an Episcopal mission opened in 1886 and welcomed worshipers until 1920. In 1921, the church became the cathedral of a recently established denomination, whose founder believed that true equality and spiritual freedom could only be achieved by an all-Black religious denomination—a church attended by people of color and administered by Black clergy. Who was the church’s founder and Bishop? What is the name of the church?

Answer: St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church, 137 Allston Street, was planted by the founder of the denomination, Bishop George McGuire, who designated St. Augustine’s as his bishop’s seat. He is honored with an African American Heritage Trail marker.

The church is undergoing extensive exterior restoration, roof, siding, and new handicapped access, funded in part by preservation grants from the Cambridge Historical Commission. The Cambridge Day has an article about the work with great photos. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2019/11/18/restoration-work-begins-at-st-augustines-winning-another-50000-matching-grant/

 

 

Cambridge Trivia

Posted on by cambridgehistoricalcommission

And now — the answers! Scroll below each image for the big reveal. 

Question: The Fresh Pond Hotel opened in 1796 and quickly became a favorite venue for parties and celebrations. Cambridge residents and their friends and Harvard students enjoyed good food, choice wines, and dancing—until 1886 when Cambridge voters passed the No-license law, meaning no liquor licenses. The new regulation put the hotel out of business. The Sisters of St. Joseph ran an orphans’ home there until 1888. That year the city began to clear the site and sold the hotel to a private owner, who moved the building and converted it into apartments. Where is the former Fresh Pond Hotel today?

Fresh Pond HotelL. Williard became the new proprietor ca. 1848. The hotel is at the peak of the hill. Guests could row or sail around the pond in rented boats, go fishing, and bowl in an outdoor alley.

Answer: The former hotel now stands at 234 Lakeview Avenue, with its original wood siding covered beneath stucco. On June 11, 1892, the Cambridge Chronicle reported, “Alderman Parry is to move the old Fresh Pond hotel, which he recently bought from the city, to Lake View Avenue, where it will be made into an apartment house.” In August 1893 the paper announced, “Parties desiring fine suites of room in a most delightful vicinity, cannot do better than to examine the suites offered … in the Lakeview. … Train service consists of 37 trains a day. [Each suite] contains six rooms and bath, and rent for the very reasonable sum of $12.50 per month.”Lakeview Ave 234



Question: George Washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental army, arrived in Cambridge on June 2, 1775. Two days later he moved out of the first house prepared for him and relocated to more spacious quarters. Where was his original headquarters?

stair hall ca 1968006
Main stair hall at Longfellow House-Washington’s HQ National Historic Site, the general’s second HQ. Note the bust of you-know-who next to the staircase.

Answer: The town had readied Wadsworth House, then home to Harvard College presidents. Harper’s, vol. 52 (1875-1876)Wadsworth House001

Question: Fountain Terrace in North Cambridge is named for a real fountain. Where was the fountain?

Answer: The fountain was a feature of Fresh Pond and marked the spot where the Stony Brook supply pipe entered the pond. Fountain Terrace, originally a carriage drive, passed over the pipe and into the landscaped park, giving an immediate view of the fountain.

Fresh Pond fountain003
The Fresh Pond fountain. Note the Fresh Pond Hotel on the hill across the water. Cambridge Blue Book 1906. Photo ca. 188-1892

Question: Lechmere Station — Lechmere Canal – Lechmere Sales. Who the heck was Lechmere?

Looking into industrial East Cambridge in the 1920s across part of the Lechmere Canal.

Answer:  All the Lechmeres sites are named for Richard Lechmere, a wealthy loyalist who lived in a handsome Brattle Street mansion. Through his wife, Mary Phips, Richard was related to a number of prominent Tory families: her sister Elizabeth was married to John Vassall Sr. and Rebecca to Joseph Lee. Their father, Spencer Phips, served as the colony’s lieutenant governor from 1732 to his death in 1757; he owned over 300 acres of rich marshland in East Cambridge, which he left to his to his children. (See map below.)

Life got too hot in patriot Cambridge for the Brattle Street loyalists, and in 1774 Lechmere sold the house and moved his family to British-occupied Boston. They fled to Nova Scotia in 1776, at the end of the Siege of Boston, and later removed to England.
Phips heirs004

Bonus questions: On the night of September 20, 1848, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Cambridge City Hall championing General Zachary Taylor for president and Millard Fillmore for vice president. The congressman from Illinois had had a busy week: on the 13th he had been in Worcester at the party’s state convention, then traveled eastward, campaigning in Lowell, Dorchester, and Chelsea. He had been in Dedham only that morning. Cambridge’s present City Hall was not built until 1888-89, so where did Lincoln’s speak? (Hint: today there is a Catholic church on the site.) Who won the 1848 election?   Answers: Follow this link.