Old Cambridge Historic District | |
Location | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
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Coordinates | 42°22′37″N71°8′25″W / 42.37694°N 71.14028°W |
Area | 52 acres (21 ha) |
Architectural style | Late 19th and 20th century Revivals, Greek Revival, Late Victorian |
MPS | Cambridge MRA |
NRHP reference No. | 83000821 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 30, 1983 |
The Old Cambridge Historic District is a historic district encompassing a residential neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts that dates to colonial times. It is located just west of Harvard Square, and includes all of the properties on Brattle Street west of Mason Street to Fresh Pond Parkway, all of the properties on Mason Street and Elmwood Avenue, and nearby properties on Craigie Street. The district includes five National Historic Landmarks: Elmwood, the Reginald A. Daly House, the Oliver Hastings House, the Mary Fiske Stoughton House, and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, as well as several other houses listed separately on the National Register. The district follows the general route of the Watertown Path, an early colonial road that supposedly followed a Native American trail. This portion of the way became known as Tory Row during the American Revolution, because many of the fine mansions lining it were owned by Loyalists. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it continued by a fashionable location, and now features a number of architecturally significant buildings. [2] It includes 215 contributing buildings and one other contributing sites over an area of 52 acres (21 ha). One included building is the Cambridge Historical Society's offices, which are in the NRHP-listed Hooper-Lee Nichols House, located at 159 Brattle Street. [3]
The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1983. [1] It abuts a number of other historic districts, including the Cambridge Common Historic District, the Ash Street Historic District, and the Berkeley Street Historic District. [2]
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.
The Hooper–Lee–Nichols House is an historic Colonial American house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Initially constructed in 1685 and enlarged and remodeled many times thereafter, it is located at 159 Brattle Street in Cambridge. It is the second-oldest house in the city. The house is now headquarters for History Cambridge, formerly the Cambridge Historical Society.
The Colonial Germantown Historic District is a designated National Historic Landmark District in the Germantown and Mount Airy neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along both sides of Germantown Avenue. This road followed a Native American path from the Delaware River just north of Old City Philadelphia, through Germantown, about 6 miles northwest of Center City Philadelphia, and on to Pottstown. Settlement in the Germantown area began, at the invitation of William Penn, in 1683 by Nederlanders and Germans under the leadership of Francis Daniel Pastorius fleeing religious persecution.
The U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) classifies its listings by various types of properties. Listed properties generally fall into one of five categories, though there are special considerations for other types of properties which do not fit into these five broad categories or fit into more specialized subcategories. The five general categories for NRHP properties are: building, district, object, site, and structure.
The Ash Street Historic District Cambridge, Massachusetts is a residential historic district on Ash Street and Ash Street Place between Brattle and Mount Auburn Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, off Brattle Street just west of Harvard Square. The district consists of ten well-preserved houses, most of which were built between 1850 and 1890. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The Cambridge Common Historic District is a historic district encompassing one of the oldest parts of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is centered on the Cambridge Common, which was a center of civic activity in Cambridge after its founding in 1631. It was the site of the election for governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, and was a military barracks site during the American Revolutionary War. The common was gradually reduced in size to its present roughly triangular shape, and surrounded by buildings in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1973 a historic district encompassing the extant common and everything within 100 feet (30 m) of it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1987 the district was amended to rationalize the boundary, which overlapped adjacent districts and included portions of some buildings.
Brattle Hall is a historic building along Brattle Street near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was constructed in 1889 for the Cambridge Social Union – established in 1871 – when that organization moved into the adjacent William Brattle House that year. Brattle Hall was built to house the organization's library, and to provide a space for larger meetings and social functions. Brattle Hall was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, originally in the Dutch Colonial Revival style, but it acquired more of a Colonial Revival feel with the 1907 addition of brick ends, designed by Charles Cogswell.
The William Brattle House is an historic house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the seven Colonial mansions described by historian Samuel Atkins Eliot as making up Tory Row, housing several prominent figures in early colonial history. It remains in use by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
The East Cambridge Historic District encompasses the historic center of East Cambridge, Massachusetts. It includes the major buildings that were built to house county services for Middlesex County beginning in the 1810s, and a cluster of largely vernacular Greek Revival worker housing located west of the county complex on Otis, Thorndike, Spring, and Sciarappa Streets. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Hubbard Park Historic District encompasses a residential development and park west of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The area was originally the estate of Gardiner Hubbard, who had a 6-acre (2.4 ha) estate and house on nearby Brattle Street. In the 1880s Hubbard commissioned architects to build a ring of high quality homes around his mansion, which was demolished in 1939 and is now the site of Hubbard Park. The houses in this development are now located on Mercer Circle, Sparks Street, and Hubbard Park Road.
Preston City is a village and the original town center of the town of Preston, Connecticut. The core of the village around the junction of Old Northwest Road and Route 164 is designated as the Preston City Historic District, a historic district that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The district is located along Old Shetucket and Amos Roads, which, prior to the 1930s, were major thoroughfares.
The Newtown Borough Historic District is a 100-acre (40 ha) historic district in the borough of Newtown in Newtown, Connecticut. There is a local historic district and an overlapping district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
The Charles Newton House is a historic house at 24 Brattle Street in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Norwichtown is a historic neighborhood in the city of Norwich, Connecticut. It is generally the area immediately north of the Yantic River between I-395 and Route 169.
The Hillside Historic District in Waterbury, Connecticut is a 106-acre (43 ha) historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1987. It encompasses a residential area north of the city's central business district, and is bounded on the south by West Main Street, the west by Willow Avenue and Cliff and Frederick Streets, on the north by Buckingham Street and Woodland Terrace, and on the east by Cooke Street. Developed principally over an 80-year period between 1840 and 1920, it includes a cross-section of architectural styles of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The area was a desirable neighborhood of the city for much of this time, and was home to a number of the city's elite. In 1987, it included 395 buildings deemed to contribute to the historic character of the area, and one other contributing structure. It includes the Wilby High School and the Benedict-Miller House, which are both separately listed. 32 Hillside Road, a several acre property that includes the Benedict Miller House, was the original site of The University of Connecticut's Waterbury Branch until 2003.
Hartwell and Richardson was a Boston, Massachusetts architectural firm established in 1881, by Henry Walker Hartwell (1833–1919) and William Cummings Richardson (1854–1935). The firm contributed significantly to the current building stock and architecture of the greater Boston area. Many of its buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tory Row is the nickname historically given by some to the part of Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where many Loyalists had mansions at the time of the American Revolutionary War, and given by others to seven Colonial mansions along Brattle Street. Its historic buildings from the 18th century include the William Brattle House and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 of the seven Colonial mansions making up Tory Row, called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." Owners of Caribbean slave plantations, including the Vassall and Royall families, built the mansions as a statement of the "incredible wealth" they had amassed from slave labor in Jamaica and Antigua, and they enslaved an unusually high number of people on the premises.
Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War, is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store, and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived, as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."
The Wilder Homestead is located on Ashfield Road, 0.25 miles (0.40 km) south of the Upper Road/Ashfield Road junction, in Buckland, Massachusetts. The property includes three buildings, two of which contribute to its significance. The house was built c. 1775, and is a fairly typical Georgian colonial two story house, in which the rear roof extends down to the first floor in saltbox fashion. A 19th century ell extends from the east side of the house. The house was built for Gardner Wilder, who had recently moved to the area, and had purchased 200 acres (81 ha) to farm.