Cambridge Common Historic District | |
Location in Massachusetts | |
Location | Roughly SE of Waterhouse St., bordered by Garden St. and Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts |
---|---|
Coordinates | 42°22′35″N71°07′14″W / 42.37651°N 71.12049°W |
Area | 8.5 acres (3.4 ha) [1] |
Built | 1770 |
Sculptor | Anne Whitney, et al. |
Architectural style | Greek Revival, Federal |
MPS | Cambridge MRA |
NRHP reference No. | 87000499 [2] |
Added to NRHP | January 26, 1987 |
Cambridge Common is a public park and National Historic Landmark in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is located near Harvard Square and borders on several parts of Harvard University. The north end of the park has a large playground. The park is maintained by the Cambridge Department of Public Works. [3]
In the colonial period, Cambridge Common served as a pasture on which animals grazed. [4] It was also used as a military training ground. [5] It originally extended from what is now Linnaean Street in the north all the way south to Harvard Square between Massachusetts Avenue and Garden Street. [6]
Public executions took place in the northern portion of this space, known as Gallows Hill, located today west of Massachusetts Avenue around Lancaster Street. [7] Executed at this site on September 22, 1755, were two enslaved African Americans, Mark and Phillis, who were both accused and convicted of poisoning their enslaver, John Codman of Charlestown. [8] [9] Phillis was burned at the stake, and Mark was killed by hanging on gallows some ten yards away from the stake. [10] His body was subsequently exhibited publicly for decades in Charlestown, such that even Paul Revere remembered passing by its site while on his famous ride. [11] [12] [13] [14] Phillis was later described by a newspaper as "the last recorded victim" of this punishment in New England. [15]
Legend has it that George Washington took command of the Continental Army in a ceremony underneath the Washington Elm. Yet historical research suggests no such ceremony took place. [16]
The current space was not enclosed until 1830. [4]
Barracks were constructed on the common during World War I as the Navy Department built structures for its Radio School on the grounds. [17]
Cambridge Common has long been a site for public gatherings in which groups met before marching to Boston Common as part of protests for Civil Rights or against the Vietnam War. [18] [19]
Matt Damon recalled how Ben Affleck helped him in a fight during a football game on the Common in the mid-1980s. [20]
A commemorative plaque marks the location of the Washington Elm, a tree under which legend claims Washington stood as he first assumed command of the Continental Army. Nearby is a trio of bronze cannons, a plaque for Henry Knox, and another for Tadeusz Kościuszko.
In the northeast corner is the Statue of John Bridge, also known as The Puritan, by Thomas Ridgeway Gould.
Slightly southeast of the center of the Common is a memorial to the American Civil War with a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a covered area near the base of the memorial. On top of the memorial is a statue of a soldier.
Cambridge Common is also the site of an Irish Famine Memorial, dedicated on July 23, 1997, by then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and unveiled to an audience of 3,000 people. [21] The Memorial sculpture was created by Maurice Harron, a sculptor from Derry, Northern Ireland. There is a similar memorial in downtown Boston.
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Also called Mishawum by the Massachusett, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic River and Boston Harbor waterways. Charlestown was laid out in 1629 by engineer Thomas Graves, one of its earliest settlers, during the reign of Charles I of England. It was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Boston Common is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of 50 acres (20 ha) of land bounded by Tremont Street, Park Street, Beacon Street, Charles Street, and Boylston Street.
Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. Adjacent to Harvard Yard, the historic heart of Harvard University, the Square functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge, the western and northern neighborhoods and the inner suburbs of Boston. The Square is served by Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway and a bus transportation hub.
Central Square is an area in Cambridge, Massachusetts centered on the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Prospect Street and Western Avenue. Lafayette Square, formed by the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Columbia Street, Sidney Street and Main Street, is also considered a part of the Central Square area. Harvard Square is to the northwest along Massachusetts Avenue, Inman Square is to the north along Prospect Street and Kendall Square is to the east along Main Street. The section of Central Square along Massachusetts Avenue between Clinton Street and Main Street is designated the Central Square Historic District, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) path through Boston that passes by 17 locations significant to the history of the United States, marked largely with brick. It winds from Boston Common in downtown Boston, to the Old North Church in the North End and the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Stops along the trail include simple explanatory ground markers, graveyards, notable churches and buildings, and a historic naval frigate. Most of the sites are free or suggest donations, although the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the Paul Revere House charge admission. The Freedom Trail is overseen by the City of Boston's Freedom Trail Commission and is supported in part by grants from various non-profit organizations and foundations, private philanthropy, and Boston National Historical Park.
The Bunker Hill Monument is a monument erected at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston, Massachusetts, which was among the first major battles between the Red Coats and Patriots in the American Revolutionary War. The 221-foot granite obelisk was erected between 1825 and 1843 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, with granite from nearby Quincy conveyed to the site via the purpose-built Granite Railway, followed by a trip by barge. There are 294 steps to the top.
Cyrus Edwin Dallin was an American sculptor best known for his depictions of Native Americans. He created more than 260 works, including the Equestrian Statue of Paul Revere in Boston; the Angel Moroni atop Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City; and Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908), at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was also an accomplished painter and an Olympic archer.
Massachusetts Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts, and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. According to Boston magazine, "Its 16 miles of blacktop run from gritty industrial zones to verdant suburbia, passing gentrified brownstones, college campuses and bustling commercial strips."
The written history of Boston begins with a letter drafted by the first European inhabitant of the Shawmut Peninsula, William Blaxton. This letter is dated September 7, 1630, and was addressed to the leader of the Puritan settlement of Charlestown, Isaac Johnson. The letter acknowledged the difficulty in finding potable water on that side of Back Bay. As a remedy, Blaxton advertised an excellent spring at the foot of what is now Beacon Hill and invited the Puritans to settle with him on Shawmut.
Martin Milmore (1844–1883) was an American sculptor.
The Town is a 2010 American crime drama film co-written, directed by, and starring Ben Affleck, adapted from Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. It also stars Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Slaine, and follows a Boston bank robber who begins to develop romantic feelings for a victim of one of his previous robberies, while he and his crew set out to get one final score by robbing Fenway Park.
Alfred E. Vellucci (1915–2002) was an American politician who served as the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served four non-consecutive terms as mayor, and was known for his often antagonistic relationship with Harvard University.
Mark was a black slave owned by Captain John Codman (1696-1755) of Massachusetts in Charlestown, Boston 20 years before the American Revolutionary War. Though some texts refer to Mark as "Mark Codman", he was probably not referred to as such during his life as giving a slave the surname of his master was not commonly done with New England slaves. The contemporary documents from the investigation and trial only use Mark for his name.
Paul Revere Park is a five-acre (2.0 ha) park located on the Charles River in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The park was the first park to open along the "Lost Half Mile" of the Charles River as mitigation for the taking of planned parkland for the construction of the Big Dig. The park runs along the Charles River between the Freedom Trail on North Washington Street and the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge. The park features a large oval-shaped lawn, an informal performance area, and a playground.
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating women such as Abigail Adams, Amelia Earhart, and Phillis Wheatley. The guidebook includes seven walks and introduces more than 200 Boston women.
The John Bridge Monument, in the northeast corner of the Cambridge Common in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was given by Samuel James Bridge in honor of his ancestor John Bridge (1578–1665) and sculpted by Thomas R. Gould.
The Boston Irish Famine Memorial is a memorial park located on a plaza between Washington Street and School Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The park contains two groups of statues to contrast an Irish family suffering during the Great Famine of 1845–1852 with a prosperous family that had immigrated to America. Funded by a trust led by Boston businessman Thomas Flatley, the park was opened in 1998. It has received contrasting reviews and has since been called "the most mocked and reviled public sculpture in Boston".
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman's Memorial or the Emancipation Group was a monument in Park Square in Boston. Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1879, its sister statue is located in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Boston statue was taken down by the City of Boston on December 29, 2020, following a unanimous vote from the Boston Art Commission on June 30 to remove the memorial.