USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 > Part 20
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The care of the poor is under the direction of a Board of Overseers. There have been times when there were very few cases of destitution in the city. Of recent years some four hundred
MORSE SCHOOL
people have annually found shelter at the City Home, and perhaps two hundred more have been under the charge of the City at various other hospitals and institutions. The private institutions and relief societies do a large benefi- cent work.
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THE OUTLOOK
The territory of Cambridge is four and a half miles long and from one to two miles wide. Across the center of the city runs the modest elevation known as Dana Hill. To the east the surface is level and was formerly meadow and marsh. To the west the land is a trifle higher, though never much above the old high- tide levels until near the western boundary of the city, where there is another line of low hills running northeasterly from the Mount Auburn tower, over the elevation where the Reservoir formerly stood, by the hill now crowned by the dome of the Harvard Observatory, and terminating in what was formerly known as Gallows Hill just west of Massachusetts Avenue.
that should be more amply availed of and pre- served. The charm or significance of a city is in something more than the picturesqueness of its surroundings.
In one respect Cambridge is topographically fortunate. At either end of the city there is a large permanent body of water, and along the entire southern boundary stretches another permanent open space, the channel of the Charles River. At the eastern end of the city the Charles River Basin forms a great water park of more than five hundred acres, and at the western end the Fresh Pond basin makes another natural water park of some three hun- dred acres. Both of these areas, as well as the
HARVARD BRIDGE
The territory is comparatively lacking in dis- tinction or picturesque features. There are no rugged crags like those which contribute such regal possibilities to the Riverside Drive in New York; no mountain such as rises behind the city of Montreal; no panorama of a snowclad range such as greets the eye from Capitol Hill in Denver; no outlook across a shining lake to distant mountains as at Burlington, Vt. There is no superb Castle Rock such as dominates the site of Edinburgh, no Acropolis, no Cathe- dral-crowned hilltop. The site of Cambridge is comparatively commonplace and yet there are opportunities of beauty and attractiveness
bank of the Charles River for nearly its entire length, are now public reservations of inesti- mable value.
In his epoch-making report of 1893 upon the Park development of the Metropolitan District, Charles Eliot first drew public attention to these advantages and showed how they should and could be preserved. In his special report of the same year to the newly organized Cam- bridge Park Commission he pointed out how the river bank should be utilized and what other properties should be acquired for public use. He first recommended the acquisition by the city of the river frontage at the extreme eastern
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
end of the city between the two canals which penetrate the manufacturing district of East Cambridge. He advocated a water front reser- vation of considerable breadth and available for the recreation of a crowded population. This reservation, which he called "The Front," would extend nearly 1,500 feet along the river bank and be enclosed by a sea wall. Provision was to be made for children's games and for boating on the river.
Next there was pointed out the value of the public esplanade, already planned by the Cam- bridge Embankment Company, which provided an avenue and promenade 200 feet wide along the whole river front between the Cambridge and
In order to complete this admirable park development it is still necessary to provide for finishing the river parkway between Captain's Island and the Western Avenue Bridge. Most of the work has been done, and it is to be hoped that within another year the incomplete section between River Street and Western Avenue will be constructed. This is the most expensive part of the parkway, as it involves some re- arrangement of the buildings of the Riverside Press and the Cambridge Electric Light Com- pany.
It will next be necessary to provide connec- tions between this attractive river parkway, which will become the chief highway for pleasure-
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THE NEW CAMBRIDGE BRIDGE
the Brookline bridges. Above the Brookline Bridge, Mr. Eliot recommended the acquisition of the whole of the Captain's Island property with the marshes about it for a playground and a bathing beach. From Captain's Island to the Cambridge Hospital he recommended a continuous river front parkway and the acqui- sition of the bordering marshes. These prop- erties, together with two inland fields, the Rindge Field in North Cambridge and the Binney Field, now known as the Cambridge Field, in East Cambridge, were rapidly secured, and the fields have since been laid out as attractive recreation parks.
driving and automobiling, and the more thickly settled centers of the city. Particularly a park- way connection should be made between the river parkway and Quincy Square along the line of the present DeWolf Street. This will provide a much-needed driving connection be- tween the grounds of Harvard College and Boston.
Still another improvement is the opening of a boulevard or parkway which will connect the Harvard Bridge with the Wellington Bridge in Somerville. At present traffic and pleasure- driving between Boston and the northern sub- urbs has to find its way through an intricate
THE OUTLOOK
147
labyrinth of streets, either in the North End of Boston and Charlestown or in Cambridgeport and Somerville. The Metropolitan Commission has made excellent plans for the proposed park- way, and these plans should be carried out as soon as financial conditions permit.
Finally, the Fresh Pond Parkway should be promptly extended through the marshes at the north of Fresh Pond to connect with the park- way now under construction along Alewife Brook and the Mystic River. This will give a complete circumferential road for pleasure- driving, and connect the great Metropolitan park reservations to the south of the Charles with those to the north of the river.
enlargement is needed at the Boston end of the bridge to provide space to allow the traffic to be distributed. The Charles River Parkway further needs, for the sake of Boston traffic solely, to be extended through this new square in a broad, direct street following the line of Parkman and Fruit Streets, Sudbury Place and Eaton Street to the North Station. There is no street improvement in Boston more urgently needed than this direct connection between the North Station and the Cambridge Bridge and the Charles River Parkway. The present narrow, crooked and inconvenient connections are disgracefully insufficient.
After the completion of the Parkdevelopments,
1
THE VIADUCT (Over the Charles; from Boston to East Cambridge)
One of the most sorely-needed street improve- ments which affect the interests of Cambridge lies wholly within the limits and jurisdiction of Boston. The approach to the Cambridge Bridge at the junction of Cambridge and Charles Streets is utterly squalid and inadequate. The approaching streets are less than half the width of the bridge and are further blocked by the piers of the Elevated Railroad. It is impossible for the bridge to perform its traffic duties effi -. ciently through such a cramped entrance and exit, and the dignity of the design of the bridge is sadly marred by this incongruous and ill- related approach. Evidently a considerable
the question of new bridges must have atten- tion. A good bridge requires not only strength and durability, but also fitness and beauty. The dam at Craigie Bridge and the Cambridge Bridge are fine and permanent structures, but the rest of the bridges over the Charles are temporary in construction and wholly lacking in artistic merit. The Boylston Street Bridge must be first attended to, and there is a splendid opportunity there for the building of a bridge which shall be worthy of the place. It is the site of the original "Great Bridge," and it is the highway which connects Cambridge with all the region on the south of the river. It has,
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
too, new significance as the connection between the grounds and buildings of Harvard College in Cambridge and the Stadium and athletic grounds on the Boston side of the river. The bridges at Western Avenue, River Street and Brookline Street are poor wooden structures which are constantly in need of repair and quite unworthy of the beautiful water park which they span. They should be replaced as soon as possible by stone or steel bridges of handsome and reason- ably uniform design. To reduce the cost of such thoroughfares, Boston and Cambridge should carefully consider the feasibility of sub- stituting earth causeways for portions of the bridge structures. A third to a half the cost of a continuous bridge between the present embankment lines might be saved by such earthworks. The interspaces be- tween the bridges might be re- deemed from mo- notony by cause- ways planted with trees and shrub- bery, and their margins devoted to fuller recreative use by taking ad- vantage of em- bankments in- tended to reduce the cost of the bridging opera- tions. Earth causeways of this kind, if used as peninsulas to shorten the actual water space to be spanned, would place the bridges in mid- stream and produce a series of basins not unlike the Alster Basins at Hamburg, while if these causeways were placed in mid-stream like islands and connected with the Boston and Cambridge shores by short bridges, an effect would be pro- duced like that to be seen in the rivers which contain the Isle de la Cite at Paris, the Island at Geneva, or the Kohlen-Islen of Munich. If these mid-stream islands were connected with one another to form one island of greater length, its recreative service would be immensely in- creased, and the appearance of the lower basin would be controlled largely by it rather than by the bridge structures and their approaches.
This disposition of the earthworks would leave the present margins of the basin uninterrupted and would not interfere with convenient along- shore passenger boat traffic or pleasure boating, although the headroom under the bridges could not be so great as with the peninsula treatment. On the other hand, the peninsulas would in- terrupt the continuity of the present embank- ments and force pleasure and passenger boating into the mid-stream of the basin. The service of tree-planted earthworks of either kind, to check the winds of the basin and to make its use for skating and boating more popular would be important.
When the trees are grown, the bridges built, and stately buildings, such as those planned for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have arisen on the embankment, the basin and channel of the Charles will become the great center of the Metropolitan Dis- trict. It will have a distinction which will be comparable only to the splen- did quays and bridges of the Seine at Paris, and the magnificent promenades which extend for three miles along the Danube at Budapest.
KELLEY SCHOOL
The growth of a city should have the same oversight that an architect gives to the erection of a building. The liberty of the individual to do what he pleases with his own property ought not to be permitted to become a detri- ment to the convenience or attractiveness of the community as a whole. Town planning has become a science. In many European and American cities large dreams of city planning have been worked into practical success. Care- ful attention is given to the topography, the natural advantages, the best uses to which each district of the city should be put. The prevailing winds are studied, and factories permitted to lo- cate only in certain prescribed areas. Some sec- tions are devoted primarily to business and
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THE OUTLOOK
others to residences. Streets, parks, open spaces, play-grounds, sites for public buildings and schoolhouses are arranged for in advance of the city's growth. The orderly development of the whole municipality is the first considera- tion. Everything must be done for the good of the community at large. The health, beauty and comfort of the whole city stand higher than the individual rights of the land speculators or the builders of factories and tenements.
Competent town planning is carried into many details. There must be no telegraph or tele- phone wires overhead, but they must be placed in conduits underground. There must be no obtruding street railway tracks under foot.
PEABODY SCHOOL
The tracks must be of a pattern which will offer no obstruction to traffic. The street pavements should be of the most approved quality and kept thoroughly cleaned and re- paired. The sewers must be in the center of the streets, but the gas, water, light and tele- phone conduits placed under the sidewalks close to the building line. It should never be necessary to block a street or tear up the pave- ment in order to get access to them. Business signs should be under public control so that they be inoffensive, and bill-boards should be pro- hibited or limited to certain districts only. Smoke ordinances should be rigidly enforced. In a city like Cambridge special provision should be made for recreation on the water front, where landing stages should be provided for pleasure sailing, rowing and motor boating, and in the winter for skating and ice-boating.
Such a regulation of a city plan and adminis- tration permits sufficiently free play for indi- vidual initiative, but it subordinates the in- terests of property to those of humanity. It reserves to the city the right to determine where the liberty of the individual must yield to the good of the community. The whole design and administration must be directed to the task of upbuilding the health and happiness of all the people. It has been abundantly proved that careful attention to these matters also promotes industrial prosperity. A hand- some and well-planned city attracts an ever- increasing population. It draws to itself busi- ness. People choose a beautiful city as a place where they wish to live. Good schools make better citizens. Parks and playgrounds pro- mote health and morality. A handsome city well planned and well administered pays in the current coin of commerce and also in the cheerfulness and the well-being of all the citi- zens.
Another improvement which will make life in Cambridge healthier and happier is more ample provisions for playgrounds. We are coming to understand that play is not simply something that children like to have, but some- thing they must have. Playgrounds are not a luxury but a necessity in a modern city. The City has recently established a Playground Commission, and both the needs and the possi- bilities have been carefully studied. The Com- mission has purchased and contracted for various available land for playground purposes, mostly in connection with schools, and it is developing some of the older properties held by the City. The plans of the Commission provide for three types of playgrounds. In the first place, there should be a considerable number of small play- grounds well distributed over the city so that little children need not be obliged to travel too far from home. The schoolhouse land is very well adapted for this type of playground. In the second place, it is necessary to provide larger playgrounds for the boys and young men, which should also be well distributed, though not so numerous as the children's grounds. In the third place, there should be recreation parks. These should include the types previously men- tioned, but in addition should offer opportunity for field days for the schools, for competition
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
in all the best forms of outdoor sports, and be the natural center for the observance of local and national celebrations.
"The details of development of these play- grounds," said Mayor Barry in his address of
RUSSELL SCHOOL
1911, "are comprehensive. Playgrounds are to be enclosed by suitable fences. Enclosures are to be set off within the fields. Halls are to be erected as a protection from the heat of summer and the cold of winter. These halls may also be used at night for various forms of recreation for young men and women who are obliged to work during the day, and afford a place for dancing under sanitary and moral conditions in place of the unsanitary dance-halls into which our young people are often forced, with danger to both health and morals. Nursery corners are to be fitted out with sand-boxes, wading pools, baby-hammocks and other suit- able means of amusement and instruction. Children's departments will contain teeters, merry-go-rounds, swings and slides. Girls' fields are to be set apart for the enjoyment and physical development of the girls. Baseball dia- monds, tennis courts, running tracks, bleachers, skating rinks, coasting inclines and gymnastic apparatus of various kinds are to be provided.
"Captain's Island, because of its size, its accessibility, and its situation on the river, offers the best opportunity for the main recrea- tion park of the city of Cambridge. It is there- fore necessary to have on this park, not only the usual children's corners, the usual oppor- tunity for girls' play, the activities of our young school athletes, our high school boys, but also features which will offer opportunity for whole- some recreation for the men and women of the
city. There shall be something which shall attract parents as well as children. The first development needed is an enclosed athletic field which will best be constructed in the form of a stadium. Inside of this stadium there will be a regular running track, regular athletic field and a football field. On each side of this stadium will be situated a regular diamond, each with bleachers accommodating many hundreds of spectators. At the street side of a harbor will be situated a boat house. There should be an extension of the present bathing facilities. It is proposed to build a large open- air structure, as well as a building suitable for girls' gymnastics; also a girls' field properly equipped.
"Dividing the diamonds on the main field and backing the stadium the main recreation building of this park will be situated. It will have a large shelter on each side. A music pavilion will be in the top of the structure and a band concert would readily be enjoyed by all of the people all over the park and along the river front; and the whole of Captain's Island should be fenced in to offer absolute control of the whole area."
These judicious plans prove that it is under- stood that children not only need a place to play, but also some guidance in the conduct of their play.
There is one peril which Cambridge is likely to encounter very soon. Increasing density of population will mean increase of land values and of rents, and the people will be packed in closer and closer quarters. All modern cities tend to multiply houses designed for more than one family. There is nothing inherently ob- jectionable in the two-family, three-family or even the ten-family type of dwelling. It is well nigh the universal form of dwelling in European cities. It is increasingly the form in American cities. The objection to such houses lies only in permitting them to be built without proper regulation. It is already true that every American city has on its hands a serious housing problem. Tenement houses spring up before adequate restrictions have been thought of by the community. Rapidly evils develop: unhealthy premises, dark rooms, over- crowding, excessive rents, and other deplorable manifestations of the social life of modern cities.
CHURCH OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Charles R. Greco, Architect
THORNDIKE SCHOOL Charles R. Greco, Architect
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THE OUTLOOK
Some of the evils are peculiar to a single com- munity, but most of them sooner or later are found in all cities. The chief underlying fact is that in nearly every case they are due to unnecessary neglect. There is usually a failure on the part of the municipality and of the citi- zens to recognize evil tendencies in their early stages. There is often an unwarranted feeling of confidence that all is right when they see little that is going wrong, or a false civic pride which deludes itself into thinking that every-
domestic life. When a man has a home of his own he has every incentive to be thrifty, to take his part in the duties of citizenship, and to be a real sharer in the obligations and the privileges of the community in which he lives. Very few such separate houses are now being built in Cambridge. The apartment house, the "three-decker," the two-family house are taking the place of dwellings designed for the use of a single family.
There can be no question about the fact that
Courtesy of Warren Bros. Co.
MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE LOOKING NORTH FROM WATERHOUSE STREET
thing must be satisfactory. This kind of ig- norance is played upon by the greed of those persons who for the sake of larger profits on their investments are willing to sacrifice the health and welfare of helpless people.
The only really satisfactory way of living is in separate houses, each house occupied by a single family with a small bit of land attached, and always with a reasonable privacy and a sense of individuality and opportunity for real
Cambridge is inevitably to become a city of growing density of population. The area is small, and the situation at the center of the metropolitan district has many and manifest advantages. There are already 105,000 people living on an area of only six and a half square miles. This means an average density of 25.1 persons to an acre-a density greater than that of almost any city in the country and exceeding that of Boston. More and more people every-
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
where live in cities because they prefer city life. They find there the social and industrial rela- tionships which they cannot find in the country districts. There are the opportunities for employment and for amusement. The shops, the theaters, the lighted streets, the saloons, the churches, the different lodges and societies all have their attractions. There is but little vacant land now left in Cambridge and in some parts of the city there is already dangerous congestion. As the population multiplies, the
serious housing evils are likely to develop and none need be tolerated. Where they exist today they are a reflection upon the intelligence and right-mindedness of the community. The city needs to profit by the mistakes of others, to study perilous tendencies, to be vigilant in forestalling evils, to act in time to keep the city a city of homes and not permit it to become merely a city of tenements.
It should go without saying that urban beauty requires the burying of wires, the suppression
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BUTTERFIELD THOTO
LONGFELLOW PARK
city must see to it that the buildings which are erected for dwelling purposes are suitable for people to live in. Cambridge must prevent the growth of slums and forbid the creation of types of buildings which will later become a menace to the community. It must see to it that the dwellings of the poor are maintained in a sanitary condition, are kept in repair, and are provided with the necessities of decent living. If there has been neglect and careless- ness in the past, the older buildings must be renovated and made fit for human habitation. If Cambridge is alive to a growing danger, no
of smoke, and the control of outdoor advertising. The time has gone by when the industrial pre- eminence of a city was crudely judged by the volumes of smoke pouring from the factory chimneys, the glaring prominence of the bill- boards and signs, and the network of overhead wires that shaded the streets. These are now recognized as nuisances that no progressive city will tolerate. It is more difficult, but equally necessary, to control building opera- tions, to limit the height of buildings, to require that the designs of all public buildings receive the approval of artists, and to secure in the
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THE OUTLOOK
appearance of the structures on any given block or street a reasonable degree of harmony. Most of the chief European cities have adopted ex- plicit regulations in regard to these matters, and their example deserves to be more generally followed in America.
The civic spirit of Cambridge has always been reliable. There is a keen and general interest in public affairs. The activities of the government are closely followed, and good citizenship is highly prized. If the public spirit of the community will provide the im- provements which the new times demand and
All times were modern in the time of them, And this no more than others. Do thy part Here in the living day, as did the great Who made old days immortal! So shall men, Gazing back to this far-looming hour, Say: 'Then the time when men were truly men: Though wars grew less, their spirits met the test
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