Welcome to Torn Down Tuesday where we feature buildings in Cambridge that have been demolished. Today we highlight the building that once stood where the Fresh Pond Mall is located today: 541 Concord Ave, the Prest-O-Lite industrial complex.
Aerial views: Prest-O-Lite complex at 541 Concord Ave (1947 and 1948)
Businessmen Carl Fisher, James Allison and P.C. Avery started Concentrated Acetelyene Company (later changed to Prest-O-Lite) in Indianapolis in 1906 with the plan to manufacture portable cylinders containing compressed acetylene.
Motor Vehicles – In Use – Model 18-F three-speed twin, Prest-O-Lite attachment with side car. Photographer: Harley-Davidson Motor Co., 1917-1918 (NARA)
The cylinders would allow drivers of motorcycles and automobiles to operate headlights on their vehicles via a sparking switch.
Advertisement from Scientific American (6 January 1912)
The company invented this technology before the use of electric lights, which were pioneered by Cadillac in 1912. In 1920, the Prest-O-Light Company obtained a permit to build a plant in Northwest Cambridge. The complex would include 13 buildings with the purpose of producing acetylene for use their line of products.
1930 Bromley Atlas image showing location of Prest-O-Lite complex
Bordered by Concord Ave and Alewife Brook Parkway, the site was originally marshland and later owned by the New England Brick Company. Construction for Prest-O-Lite was carried out by John T. Scully Co. builders, a company that had completed large projects for companies such as Simplex Wire & Cable Company and lumber dealer E. D. Sawyer. Like many industrial buildings of Northwest Cambridge from this period, the buildings were of an extended form and low scale.
Clipping from Cambridge Chronicle (7 August 1920)
North Cambridge was composed of prime agricultural land during the colonial period, while West Cambridge began as a swath of grazing land before evolving into a fringe industrial area during the 19th century. Up until the mid-twentieth century, much of the area was still composed of industrial or commercial properties.
Image of Prest-O-Lite fire, unknown source (1952)
Prest-O-Light operated in North Cambridge for over three decades without major incident. However, at 1:15pm on the day after Christmas 1952, an explosion of 200 gas cylinders rocked the neighborhood and shattered windows up to half a mile away. It was reported that the multi-colored flames rose 200 feet over the building and the ensuing smoke was visible from 20 miles away.
Aerial image of Fresh Pond Shopping Center, Patriquin Collection (1984)
Just a few years after the massive fire, the Prest-O-Lite complex was razed in 1959 to make way for the Fresh Pond Shopping Center, which was developed in 1962. Check out our Instagram post to read more about the Fresh Pond Shopping Center!
In 1907, shoe and leather interests in Boston and Cambridge, began to envision a trade exhibition building for the marketing and sale of goods made in the area. Led by Oran McCormick, the group canvassed the two cities, looking for prime real estate on which to construct a venue worthy of the world’s first Shoe and Leather Exposition. McCormick purchased land from property owners along the under-developed Charles River Road (now Memorial Drive). At the time of the sale, Cambridge restricted heights of buildings along the river. Fearing that the deal would fall through and the building and its revenue would be lost to Boston, the Board of Aldermen called a special meeting with the Common Council and removed the restriction, and permitted the exposition building for construction.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building during construction. CHC Archives photo from Chamber of Commerce.
Plans for the development — already in the works — were drawn by Edward T. P. Graham, a prominent local architect best known for his many Roman Catholic church designs in and around Cambridge. The white building was constructed of wood, concrete and steel, measured 500 feet long and was Classical Revival in the grandest sense, evoking memories of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building, circa 1909. CHC Archives photo from Chamber of Commerce.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building. CHC Archives photo from Chamber of Commerce.
The building featured five domes: a large central dome to represent America capped with an American flag, and four smaller ones to represent Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe with respective labeled flags. The main dome measured 125 feet from the ground floor. Under the large dome, a circular theater, an entirely new concept for exhibition buildings, with seating for upwards of 3,000 people on the upper tier anchored the two exhibition wings. A round bandstand on the ground floor was arranged for a large band, which performed every hour while the fair was open.
1909 photo of interior showing performance arena under central dome, courtesy of Cambridge Public Library-Cambridge Room.
Two interior corridors ran the length of the building and were lined with mahogany and glass display cases that were electrically lit to display exhibitor’s leather shoes and goods. Flanking the exhibits, 6’x14′ sample rooms showcased the finest products, and dealers staffed pop-up shops and fittings for patrons where they could be measured and order directly from the companies.
1909 photo of interior showing displays and sample rooms, courtesy of Cambridge Public Library-Cambridge Room.
On the ground floor at one end, a 10,000 square foot working exhibit served as a functioning shoe factory and was sponsored by the United Shoe Machinery Company, which educated visitors on every step in the manufacture of leather shoes from assembling of materials to the finishing shine.
Balconies on the building’s upper level overlooked the displays on the ground floor as well and housed displays for retailers’ exhibits which showed local and international dealers just what styles are in demand in other parts of the country, the displays were organized by state. A promenade on the roof of the building encircled the entirety of the structure and offered views of landmark buildings in Cambridge and Boston, as well as a front-row seat to the booming industrial development along the Charles River and nearby Kendall Square.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building central dome, before 1920. CHC Archives Photo from Chamber of Commerce.
The World’s First Shoe and Leather Exposition was held the entire month of July 1909 and an estimated 30,000 visitors attended the opening night. Attendance later dwindled due to the closing of the Harvard Bridge for repairs coupled with limited places to stay in Cambridge. By the end of the month, fair organizers were over $150,000 in debt. They failed to recruit other industries for trade shows and the building’s future was uncertain. The group, which had feared bankruptcy and demolition of the building were saved when Frederic Fisk, the man who initially owned the land, and his business parner William S. Youngman purchased the complex for redevelopment.
Circa 1910 photo of interior, courtesy of Cambridge Public Library-Cambridge Room.
Half of the building was leased to the J. Frank Cutter Automobile Company. Mr. Cutter had been in the carriage and automobile business for about 25 years. His company was one of the most active builders of limousines and landaulet car bodies as well as automobile tops and slip covers. The other half of the building was occupied by the Velie Motor Vehicle Co.’s Boston factory branch.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building interior, circa 1948. CHC Archives Photo from Chamber of Commerce.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building, circa 1948. CHC Archives Photo from Chamber of Commerce.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building. CHC Archives Photo from Chamber of Commerce.
The building, with its large central dome, suffered from deferred maintenance and seemed small and inadequate compared to the Great Dome at MIT’s new campus next door. The Shoe and Leather exposition building was demolished in phases beginning in the 1920s before the site was completely cleared in 1948 for the Eastgate Apartments at 100 Memorial Drive.
Shoe and Leather Expo Building, circa 1948 photo. CHC Archives Photo from Chamber of Commerce.
Joyce Chen (1917-1994) was born on September 12, 1917 in Beijing, China. Born into a wealthy family, she discovered her passion for cooking at a very early age. Her father, a railroad administrator and city executive, hired a family chef that cooked all of their meals. Chen learned about Chinese cuisine simply by watching their chef and other family members cook in their home kitchen. During the Chinese Communist Revolution, Chen and her family moved to the United States. Along with her husband Thomas Chen and their two children Henry and Helen, the family left Shanghai, China in 1949 and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Joyce Chen, image courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com.
While living near Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she frequently met Chinese students that missed the food they’d grown up with. Chen’s children attended Buckingham School and she would often cook food to be served at school events. Her meals quickly became popular among college students and the families at the Buckingham School. This inspired Chen to open her first restaurant in 1958, called “Joyce Chen Restaurant.” At this restaurant, she served both Chinese and American dishes to encourage customers to try new foods. She often served “buffet-style” meals, to allow customers to try samples of everything. She created a menu with both Chinese and English translations of her food and numbered the menu items for easier communication in her restaurants. This made it easier for customers who spoke different languages to order at her restaurant.
Joyce Chen, image courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com
Joyce Chen’s first restaurant at 617 Concord Avenue in Cambridge. Courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com
In 1967, Chen opened her second restaurant called “The Joyce Chen Small Eating Place.” That same year, Chen starred in Joyce Chen Cooks, her own cooking show on PBS that aired worldwide. This twenty-six-episode broadcast was filmed in the same studio as famous chef Julia Child’s show, and the two became good friends. Her business empire expanded, and two larger restaurants were built in the Boston area with an architecturally unique restaurant at 390 Rindge Avenue.
Circa 1974 image of Joyce Chen’s Restaurant. Photo from CHC Collections.
The restaurant, believed to have been designed by Allan Ahaknian, was built in 1974 and employed architecture not typical for Cambridge. Partially hidden behind a tall wooden fence to screen noise from the heavily trafficked Rindge Avenue, the structure featured minimal fenestration on the sides but employed large skylights to flood the interior with natural light. The Contemporary/Shed style restaurant was a common stomping ground for residents of Cambridge and beyond. The restaurant was purchased by Just-A-Start and was converted to a child-care facility in 1999. The remainder of the lot was filled with townhomes for moderate-income, first-time homebuyers. In 2005, the structure was demolished for eight additional units of affordable condominium units. As it was not yet 50+ years old, it did not qualify for protection under the Demolition Delay Ordinance.
Circa 1984 image of Joyce Chen’s Restaurant at 390 Rindge Avenue. Image from CHC Collections.
1978 Aerial Image of 390 Rindge Ave.
2018 Aerial image of 390 Rindge Ave. Note: the building has been demolished and replaced with housing.
While her restaurants are all now closed, the impressions of Joyce Chen’s legacy can be seen in almost every Chinese-American restaurant in the country today and in the enduring popularity of “Peking ravioli.” Also, her cookbooks and branded cooking utensils can be found in kitchens all over the world.
Images and some information on Joyce Chen courtesy of joycechenfoods.com
The Harvard Undergraduate Science Center at 1 Oxford Street, is a pre-cast concrete behemoth designed by Josep Lluís Sert (1902-1983) the Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design at the time.
Staff photo of Harvard Science Center (1 Oxford Street) April 2019.
Designed in 1970 and completed just two years later, the Brutalist structure integrates its siting along the three major streets in which it is framed: Kirkland, Oxford and Cambridge Streets and is a visual link between Harvard Yard and the North Yard. The design terraces upward from the pedestrian mall overpass at Cambridge Street to limit the massing and shifts the bulk of the structure back (north) with just a more pedestrian-scaled section fronting the mall. A central spine runs down the building which visually serves as an upwards staircase and terminates at a nine-story tower.
Approximately two-fifths of the cost of the $25 Million building centered around the two un-adorned concrete towers on the western and eastern walls of the Science Center. The non-descript boxes are water-cooling towers intended to service not only the Center itself, but all buildings in the North Yard. The towers are connected by a massive pump room in the basement. The tarantula-like steel girders seemingly creep over the lecture hall area and serve to support the roof of the auditorium.
It is believed that Sert took inspiration for the design from his former mentor, Le Corbusier, who designed the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard just ten years prior. The Science Center was influenced by an unbuilt project, The Palace of the Soviets, designed for Russia by Le Corbusier in 1931 and worked on by Sert as a young architect. The current Science Center borrows the steel girder and cable vocabulary from the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets along with the use of pre-cast concrete panels to somewhat pay homage to his mentor. Sert loved the use of concrete as an “honest and muscular material that could be molded into any shape” and liked to set splashes of bright color against its textured grey – “like a parade of elephants and parrots”.
LeCorbusier’s Model of the Palace of the Soviets (unbuilt)
Aerial of the Palace of the Soviets (unbuilt)
Harvard later outgrew the Science Center and hired firm Leers-Weinzapfel Associates Architects in 2004 to expand the science village. Three vertical additions of minimal steel-framed glass volumes contrast in materiality from the concrete panel main structure yet echo elements of the initial design. The verticality of the glass panes creates a visual rhythm with the vertical grooves in the older precast concrete panels. At the interior, splashes of color and light flood the spaces and the newly dedicated museum space is visually connected to a light-filled terrace.
Rendering of completed additions by LWA Architects.
Completed additions by LWA Architects.
Interior courtyard with new addition by LWA Architects.
This post is the first in a series of four written by guest author, Dan Sullivan, owner of The Book Oasis in Stoneham.
Part 1
Just a casual glance at an 1854 map of the city makes it clear that North Cambridge was a very different place than it is today. Now the map is crowded with streets, and the houses on them are built on small lots. Massachusetts Avenue is lined with businesses. By contrast, 1854 shows an area with very few streets. Most business in the area consist of a few farms and the brick industry. The one area that is beginning to show some ‘crowding’ is the village of Dublin, which is made up of Rindge Avenue, Sargent Street, and Dublin (now Sherman) Street. Few landmarks would be recognizable by a modern visitor. The most prominent feature on that map is something that has left little trace on today’s landscape; the Cambridge Trotting Park.
Aerial view of Northwest Cambridge, 2019
From 1837 until 1855 North Cambridge had a sports arena that often drew thousands of spectators and had such a high level of talent that it regularly generated national news. Famous horses such as Black Hawk and Lady Suffolk raced on the track. The strange thing is, it got almost no coverage from the Cambridge Chronicle, and the stories that did appear in that paper seldom focused on the actual sporting events. Many did not even mention them.
H.F. Walling & Co. map of Northwest Cambridge, 1854
The course was one mile around and followed a route that was just inside what are now Rindge Avenue, Harvey and Cedar streets, and about one hundred feet beyond Clifton Street. The name ‘Trotting Park’ is slightly misleading. Yes, that was the principal type of event held on the course but not the exclusive type. Besides being the site of multiple types of horse racing, the park also hosted many foot races, or what was known at the time as ‘Pedestrianism.’ I have found descriptions of a greased pig chase, two boxing matches, and multiple mixed event ‘handicapped’ races. In addition to these there was one event that came close to what we would call a track and field meet today. It consisted of a hammer throw, a mile run, and the one-hundred–yard dash with other less traditional events.
Beadle’s dime hand-book of pedestrianism : giving the rules for training and practice in walking, running, leaping, vaulting, etc., etc. Together with a full account of the great Weston feat, 1867
Detail of ‘Running’ section, Beadle’s hand-book, 1867
My principal sources for information for these events are out of state newspapers. Why, you might ask, would these papers cover the events at the Cambridge Trotting Park and yet the hometown paper almost completely ignore them? The answer was an ethical one. You see, the principal activity at the Park was not sports competition, but rather the gambling that took place on those events, and Cambridge in the 1800’s would rather have ignored that.
Completed in 1960, the Loeb Drama Center at 64 Brattle Street stands as one of Cambridge’s greatest examples of Modern Architecture. The structure is human-scaled, made of regional materials and is a sensitive addition to its residential and commercial neighbors along Brattle Street. The scale of the building was reduced to blend in with adjacent heights and the use of New England waterstruck brick is a nod to the Harvard and Radcliffe buildings nearby. Exposed concrete serves as a sort of frame to the delicate ornamental grille which provides a lace-like effect, enhanced further at night when the light from inside the building shines through.
Architect Hugh Stubbins wanted the theater to be architecturally exciting, while still serving as a backdrop to the purpose of the building, the arts. Stubbins was quoted as saying, “the auditorium should please the imagination in such a way as to release it, not captivate it” and later went on to reference examples of recent museums and art galleries erected by architects to overshadow the art within them.
The building opens right off the sidewalk of Brattle Street by the way of deep setbacks off the first floor, forming a porch-like or arcade feeling. The sides of the building open to a garden court on one side and a spacious terrace on the other. The travertine flooring in the lobby extends gracefully to the brick-paved courtyard, contained by a red brick serpentine wall.
The theater was unveiled as a mechanical marvel as the first fully-automatic and flexible theatre in the United States. The audience’s position in relation to the stage, along with the position and shape of the stage itself could be altered between three main configurations: theater-in-the-round, proscenium, and arena seating, all possibly during the same performance. Yale’s noted stage technician and theater design engineer, George C. Izenour worked with Stubbins to integrate lighting, rigging and staging into an automated and hydraulic lift system, which could be altered and staged by just two people in mere minutes.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
The Loeb Drama Center is now home to The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University, which collaborates with artists around the world to develop and create work in new ways. To learn more about A.R.T. and their upcoming shows and events, check out their website at: https://americanrepertorytheater.org/
Color slide courtesy of CHC Staff.
Historic photos courtesy of Radcliffe College Archives and CHC slides.
We are back with the latest installment of our blog series on the wonderful CHC volunteers. Today we would like you to meet volunteer (and former staff and Commission member) Allison Crump.
How long have you been with the Cambridge Historical Commission?
I came to the Commission as an Audubon summer intern in 1975, while attending the Columbia Preservation program. After graduation, I joined the staff for several years. Later I was an appointed member of the Commission for 20 years. Now I’m retired, I’m back to my roots!
What collection have you been working on? Tell us more about it.
The City Clerk’s archives include several boxes of applications to the Cambridge City Council for permission to move structures, which was once a common practice. The applications I am working with date from 1870 – 1910; these are the ones we have found, but there may well be more. [Editor’s note: We are calling this the Building Removals Collection. Allison has been going through the applications in search of the original and subsequent – post-move – locations of these structures.]
A building removal form for a property at Broadway and Main, 1888
What is the importance of the Building Removals Collection?
When I am successful at determining the original and subsequent locations, it’s a view into development patterns, as demands for more modern, larger structures in high-value locations created surplus structures available for re-use in various ways, often in areas newly subdivided for development.
What’s challenging is that descriptions of the sites are not always precise, and even when street numbers are used, these have often changed over time. In some cases, approved removals appear to have never occurred, or were subject to multiple applications as proposed routes or locations shifted. Another interesting aspect is the activity of specific moving firms at different periods.
It’s most satisfying when the survey files have speculated that a building was moved to its current location, and the removal files tie it to an original site.
Example of a completed building removal research form (completed by a former CHC staff member)
What is your academic and career background?
In undergrad, I majored in history and art history, specializing in architectural history. After Columbia and working at the Commission, I gradually migrated into affordable housing and nonprofit finance as my professional focus. It’s fun to be back in the research game.
How long have you lived in Cambridge?
Over 40 years. But I’m still a newcomer, and would never presume to describe this as my hometown. My kid’s a native, though, so that gives me some standing.
What is your favorite thing about historic preservation? (or, your favorite building in Cambridge?)
I’m most interested in the flexibility of structures to adapt to changing needs over time. That makes it possible to maintain continuity and context in the built environment, even when their original purpose has been superseded. It’s also deeply satisfying to witness the extent to which preservation values have become accepted and see individual buildings, streets and neighborhoods which once seemed doomed, now in good repair and no longer threatened. The block of Broadway between Prospect and Inman Streets is a great example of this phenomenon.
October might be almost over, but it’s still American Archives Month — and in celebration of all things archive-y, we will be highlighting some of our fabulous archives volunteers. This week we would like you to meet Kathleen Fox.
Kathleen organizing correspondence from the Ellis and Andrews Real Estate Collection
Kathleen began volunteering at the Historical Commission in October 2017, and says she is “driven by curiosity.” We asked Kathleen a few questions to learn more about her volunteer work, and her life outside of the Historical Commission.
What collections have you worked on at the Commission? Tell us about them.
I began with processing a very large collection of maps and plans in the E.F. Bowker Collection, creating a spreadsheet listing each map or plan, the streets it pertained to, the owner, the surveyor, the date, etc. Bowker was a mainstream and very successful civil engineer/surveyor in Cambridge. This was interesting work because of the light it shed on real estate development in the city, and because it was the first collection I had processed.
Plan of St. Mary’s Parochial School, E.F. Bowker Collection
Bow and Arrow Streets, E.F. Bowker Collection
What is your academic and career background?
I received my B.F.A. in 1967, and went to work as a secretary in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of American Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. After two years in New Haven I moved to Boston where I worked briefly for an architecture firm, and then as an administrative assistant in the Department of Humanities at MIT. Following that, after two years at a private research commission I spent the remainder of my working life at the Harvard School of Government (1980-2009), ending up as Assistant Dean for Teaching Support.
At the same time as I was working in academe I was a practicing artist, and taught watercolor painting at Brookline Adult Education. In about 1970 I was co-founder of an art studio in Boston next to Symphony Hall – – the Kaji Aso Studio. The studio gave classes in watercolor and oil painting, calligraphy and ceramics. It also had a poetry program and a music program. The Studio continues to this day. I drifted away in the mid-80’s , but continued my work as an artist while I worked in academe to support myself.
Somewhere along the line in the late 1990s I drifted once again – this time away from making art as I got more and more interested in history.
Do you volunteer anywhere else?
I volunteer in the Historical Collections at the Mount Auburn Cemetery and also at the Massachusetts Historical Society. I do whatever needs doing – – mostly background research and elementary preservation work.
What do you like to do in your free time?
After researching the history of my own 1893 house I got interested in researching the history of equally old houses on my block in Arlington. This haphazardly expanded – – and now people commission me to research the history of their homes. I am now working on my 29th history . Most have been in Arlington, but I have done two in Cambridge and a couple in surrounding suburbs. In the spring and summer I am also in the garden as much as possible.
What is the best (or your favorite) thing you’ve found in an archive?
At the CHC right now I am processing the papers from the real estate firm of Ellis and Andrews [old finding aid here; new one in progress]. The collection spans the period from c. 1893 to c. 1935. These real estate transactions provide a very interesting and enlightening view of the cultural and financial values of the time, not to mention the growth of the city of Cambridge in the late 19th and early 20th century . This and the Bowker collection together have completely changed the way I view the cityscape as I walk around Cambridge.
Correspondence to Mr. Melledge, Ellis and Andrews Collection
At the Massachusetts Historical Society there have been many memorable moments – – finding a flyer for a slave auction, listing the slaves by name; holding a book printed in 1504 (the oldest thing I have ever held); and a letter from a local Massachusetts businessman to President James Garfield offering to send him the water bed he had developed for good health – – in 1881!! At Mount Auburn there have been more interesting finds than I could possibly list.
Thank you, Kathleen!
Stayed tuned for another installment of our Focus On: CHC Volunteers series.
This post was authored by our Simmons 438 Archives intern, Elise Riley.
At the turn of the 19th century Cambridge’s built environment entered into a period of flux. New buildings and streets were added as the city developed. Neighborhoods expanded as houses were built into the burgeoning urban landscape. Beginning in 1910, the neighborhood of Shady Hill saw the addition of several streets including Irving Street, Bryant Street, and Francis Avenue.
Top Left: “E” – Bryant St. from corner of Irving St., May 3, 1912. Top Right: View from Irving Street. Bottom Left: View from same point as above, September 1920. Bottom Right: View from same point as above, September 2, 1916.
The Charles N. Cogswell Collection (P014) consists of a scrapbook and loose photographs that depict these changes to the built environment in Cambridge, as well as daily life, in the late 19th century. Charles N. Cogswell, a Cambridge resident and Boston architect, lived at 61 Kirkland Street from 1882 until his death in 1941, aged 76.
Charles’s brother George Cogswell on a penny-farthing.
Cogswell attended Harvard University and went on to study architecture at M.I.T. and at the Ecole de Beaux Arts, Paris. While the bulk of his professional work took place in Boston, Cogswell dedicated his free time to capturing the changing architectural landscape of his Cambridge neighborhood.
Top right: April 30, 1910. The beginning of the extension of Francis Avenue through to Museum Street, before the Andover Seminary Building was constructed. Bottom left: 61 Kirkland Street. Bottom right: [Francis Ave.] View from same point on September 2, 1916 [Professor Chas H. Haskins-House in distance]Shady Hill is located east of Harvard Yard, right next to what is now the Harvard Divinity School. The Cogswell Collection is unique because it captures the in-between moments of growth in Cambridge and shows what the city looked like as construction was happening.
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Cogswell’s neighborhood was also home to several notable Cambridge residents. While Cogswell lived on Kirkland Street, around the block on Irving Street lived Harvard professors William James and Josiah Royce.
Views from Irving Street, 1891.
Aerial view of Irving Street, 1888.
E.E. Cummings and Julia Child would later live on this same block of Irving Street, the Childs in Royce’s former home at 103 Irving Street (above).
In his scrapbook, Cogswell also included snapshots of daily life and events in and around Cambridge.
Cyanotype photographs of a regatta on the Charles River, 1887 or 1888.
Family dog, Kinch, on the Cambridge Common.
Top: View of Holmes Field, 1886 or 1887. Bottom: Shaw Barn on Kirkland Road after the fire, April 7, 1886 (owned by Prof. G.M. Lane).
The finding aid will soon be available on our website. To view photographs from the collection, check out our Flickr page, or email histcomm@cambridgema.gov to make an in-person research appointment. The Cambridge Historical Commission also holds files on 61 Kirkland Street and the other addresses mentioned in this scrapbook.
