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Archive for the 'Area Info' Category
Massachusetts Home Sales Impacted by Flooding
Water bubbling up from the street in Arlington after the rain
Massachusetts Home Sales Impacted by Flooding Real estate agents and buyers have slogged through a lot of wet basements in Massachusetts in the last few weeks. It was the worst flooding in Eastern Massachusetts in decades. Even days after the rain ended you would still come across sump pumps dumping water out onto yards or sidewalks from flooded basements.
The flooding, and the fact that much of Massachusetts was declared a disaster area, is impacting real estate closings.
There’s a good chance in the next few weeks that your lender may require an additional visit from the bank’s appraiser if you’re closing on a property in Middlesex County or another county that was declared a disaster area. If your appraisal predated the storms the bank may require another inspection prior to closing.
In some cases you may be required to pay for the inspection. And it’s possible that your closing may be delayed by a few days. All of this is still unfolding so it’s hard to predict exactly how the inspections will work and what the impact will be – particularly if the property was severely flooded.
Street Cleaning Starts In Cambridge
Street Cleaning In Cambridge Starts Today
It’s no joke if your car got towed this morning – street cleaning in Cambridge started today, April 1, 2010.
Cambridge streets are swept each month and if your car is still on the street you’ll be towed and get a ticket. Ouch!
There’s more information on the Cambridge street schedule on the City’s website.
Moving the car is a hassle and getting towed is a lousy way to start or end your day but I’m psyched that the streets are getting cleaned again. Litter is one of my biggest pet peeves and Cambridge is overdue for a cleaning.
Happy April Fool’s Day!!
Get A Bargain On A Rain Barrel For Your Garden
Conserve water and save money with a rain barrel
Get a Bargain on a Rain Barrel for Your Garden Hard as it is to imagine, given all the recent rain, there’ll come a time this summer when you’ll need to water your garden or lawn.
It’s amazing how high your water bill can climb in the summer when you’re watering outdoors. A rain barrel collects water from your gutters and stores it, under cover, to be used for irrigation. Hook a hose up to the barrel and you can make use of the water when you need it and prevent rain water from running into the sewer system.
Rain Barrel Discounts For Cambridge and Nearby Towns
A number of Massachusetts towns and cities offer a discount on rain barrels in the spring. The regular price for the recycled plastic barrel is $119.95.
Rain barrels can be ordered online, and details for each town’s program are available on the New England Rain Barrel Company website where you can click on your town or city’s name for details about the program offered in your area.
Here are the discounts available and the order deadlines for local towns:
- Arlington- rain barrels are $74.95 and must be ordered by Monday, May 17, 2010 to get the discount. Composters are also available for $89.95, a $40 discount, if ordered by May 17th. The first 40 Arlington residents who purchase a composter will get an additional $35 discount – now that’s a deal!
- Cambridge – residents can purchase a rain barrel for $74.95 if ordered by Friday, May 14, 2010
- Medford – residents get a discounted price of $74.95 through the Mystic River Watershed Association if orders are placed by Thursday, May 27, 2010
- Somerville- rain barrels can be purchased for $74.95 and composters are available for $89.95, a $40 discount. Orders must be placed by Monday, May 3, 2010 to buy at the discounted price.
- Watertown – barrels are available for $74.95 if ordered by Friday, April 23, 2010.
Get a bargain on a rain barrel for your garden – check out the New England Rain Barrel Company.
Oysters In Cambridge – Then And Now
Former Aku-Aku Tiki Is Now A Sea Captain At The Summer Shack
Oysters in Cambridge – Then and Now. Did you know that Cambridge was once home to extensive oyster beds?
Cambridge Oysters – Then
The oyster beds were along the banks of the Charles in what is now Cambridgeport. In the 1600s the oyster beds produced enormous oysters in such quantities that navigating past the reef on the Charles River was difficult.
The salt marshes that bordered the river were filled in the 1800s and the oyster beds are now covered by land that includes Fort Washington and MIT.
Oysters In Cambridge – Now
A local group – the Massachusetts Oyster Project - is working to reintroduce oysters to rivers that flow into Boston Harbor. The group has introduced oysters to the Charles River in Charlestown.
Oysters filter water and can counteract pollution. A renewed oyster population will lead to a cleaner Charles and a cleaner Boston Harbor.
You’re probably not going to be eating oysters out of the Charles anytime soon. So where can you get oysters in Cambridge?
Where To Buy Oysters In Cambridge
Cantabridgians in search of raw oysters have a number of local options:
Jasper White’s Summer Shack at Alewife has a popular oyster bar. This is the first Summer Shack, opened in 2000, in the former Aku-Aku. The tiki at the front entrance is now a sea captain in a yellow slicker. 617-520-9500.
The raw bar at the East Coast Grill on Cambridge Street in Inman Square is another popular option for oyster lovers. 617-491-6568
Rialto in Harvard Square has Duxbury oysters for $1 on Monday nights. 617-661-5050
Concrete Buildings In Cambridge
William James Hall - Minoru Yamasaki
Robert Campbell, the Boston Globe’s architecture critic, had an excellent article in last Sunday’s paper about concrete buildings in Cambridge and Boston. Even if it’s not your favorite architectural style the article will give you a new appreciation for these 1950s – 1970s buildings.
Campbell writes:
“No other American city boasts as much noteworthy concrete architecture in as small an area as Boston and Cambridge”
At right is Harvard’s William James Hall, Minoru Yamasaki’s 1963 building which Robert Bell Rettig describes in Guide to Cambridge Architecture as “fourteen stories of pure white concrete”. Yamasaki also designed the 1962 Engineering Sciences Laboratory included in the slide show below.
Here’s a sampling of concrete buildings in Cambridge. I’ll try to add more the next time the sky is blue!
Click on the “Architecture” link below for more posts about Cambridge architecture.
North Cambridge Catholic High School Closing
On December 22nd, just before the holidays, the Archdiocese of Boston, announced that the North Cambridge Catholic High School on Norris Street would be closing and moving to Dorchester.
The school is relocating to 100 Savin Hill Avenue in Dorchester, the former St. William School. The school’s name will be changed to Cristo Rey Boston. North Cambridge Catholic has been part of a national association of Catholic high schools called the Cristo Rey Network since 2004.
North Cambridge Catholic High School, 40 Norris Street
It seems that the Archdiocese plans to sell the school building after the move. Will North Cambridge have a new schoolhouse condo building? Let’s hope so.
Renovated schools make super condos and 40 Norris Street is an exceptional building. The Northwest Cambridge: Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge calls it “one of the handsomest schools in the city.” It’s massive, over 35,000 sq.ft. according to City records, and has large rounded windows on the upper floors. The satellite view of the school shows twenty or so parking spaces currently sited behind the building.
The school was built in 1898 for the City of Cambridge and served as the Ellis School until the 1950s. The building was designed by Boston architect A.H. Gould.
Norris Street is a pleasant, residential street lined with multi-families. It’s a one-way street running from Cedar Street to Mass Ave. The bike path is nearby and Davis Square is not far. At one end of Norris you’ll find the path that leads into a very nice park and playground, the Reverend Williams Park.
Schoolhouse condos would be a great addition to the neighborhood. The closest renovated school in Cambridge is the former Lincoln School on Mead Street at the corner of Walden and condos turn over infrequently there.
Watch this space for updates on the North Cambridge Catholic High School closing and plans for the building’s future.
Related posts:
Schoolhouse Condos In Cambridge and Somerville
Condos in Renovated Schools in Medford
The North Cambridge Catholic High School is at 40 Norris Street, Cambridge, MA 02140.
Jingle Bells – Medford’s Christmas Carol
I thought this would be a simple Christmas post about Jingle Bells and its Medford origins. Turns out it’s a much more interesting story than I knew.
Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont and describes the sleigh races held on Pleasant Street between Medford Square and Malden. Peirpont was born in Boston in 1822, son of the Reverend John Pierpont, a Unitarian minister, ardent abolitionist and noted poet.
Sleigh racing in the 1800s - theme of Jingle Bells
Turns out Pierpont was, from an early age, a bit of wild man, called a “19th century scalawag” in a Dec. 21, 1997 Boston Globe article who “had a woman in every port”. He ran away to sea aboard The Shark at the age of 14. Back on the East Coast he married Millicent Cowee in the 1840s and with his wife and two children moved to Medford when his father became minister of the Unitarian Church in Medford in 1849.
James left the family behind and joined the Gold Rush in San Francisco shortly thereafter. Failing to find success he returned to Medford.
Back in Medford, Pierpont is said to have composed Jingle Bells while playing the piano at a Medford boarding house, the Seccomb House, by the intersection of High and Forest Streets.
In 1853, James’ brother John, Jr. accepted a position as minister of the Savannah, Georgia Unitarian Church. Again leaving his wife and children with his parents, James moved to Savannah and became the organist and music director in his brother’s church. In 1857 Jingle Bells, initially called “One Horse Open Sleigh”, was published, leading Savannah to attempt to lay claim to the song in recent years.
Back in Medford, Pierpont’s wife died of TB. The following year he married Eliza Purse of Savannah, whom descendants suggest he had been living with prior to his wife’s death and who gave birth to a child shortly after their marriage. Pierpont’s two children from his first marriage remained with their grandparents.
Jingle Bells
When the Civil War broke out Pierpont’s father, 76 at the time, volunteered to serve with the Union Army, eventually accepting a position with the Treasury Department instead. For his 80th birthday celebration, Rev. Pierpont recieved tributes from fellow poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The Savannah Unitarian Church was closed since its abolitionist leanings were not popular in the South. While James’ brother returned to the North, James, son and brother of abolitionists, enlisted with the Confederate Army serving two years and writing several Confederate battle songs.
A few other fun facts about the family - J. Pierpont Morgan, the Wall Street financier whose library became New York’s Pierpont Morgan Library, was the son of James’s sister Juliet. James’ daughter from his first marriage, Mary, married Theodore Barnum, a cousin of circus promoter P.T. Barnum. One of his ancestors, for whom I imagine he’s named, James Pierpont was a founder of Yale and his daughter married theologian Jonathan Edwards. Yowza – it’s quite the family tree!
James Pierpont died in 1893 and is buried in Savannah with a Confederate marker at his grave.
But back to Jingle Bells.
Turns out Jingle Bells is not the simple holiday ditty that we think it is.
The Boston Herald, in a Dec. 24, 2001 article described Jingle Bells as “pre-Civil War rock ‘n roll. In its seldom heard original form, it’s about having a flashy vehicle, driving it too fast and using it to pick up girls.”
Not what you thought, huh?
Jingle Bells
Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh
Through the fields we go laughing all the way.
Bells on bob tail ring making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight.
(Chorus)
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh, O
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.
A day or two ago I thought I’d take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright was seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank, misfortune seemed his lot,
He got into a drifted bank and there we got upsot.
(Chorus)
A day or two ago, the story I must tell
I went out on the snow and on my back I fell;
A gent was riding by in a one-horse open sleigh
He laughed at me as I there sprawling laid but quickly drove away.
(Chorus)
Now the ground is white, go it while you’re young,
Take the girls along and sing this sleighing song.
Just bet a bob-tailed bay, two-forty as his speed.
Hitch him to an open sleigh and crack! You’ll take the lead.
(Chorus)
Sources:
Boston Globe, December 21, 1997. “A New Tune on ‘Jingle Bells’ Composer Medford’s Pierpont was 19th Century Scalawag.”
Boston Herald, December 24, 2001. “Jingle Bell Shock: Both Medford and Savannah, Ga. Stake Claims to ‘Racy’ Holiday Song.”
Cincinnati Post, December 23, 2003. “Birthplace of Jingle Bells Is Debated.”
Cambridge Registry of Deeds – Middlesex South Registry of Deeds
Cambridge Registry of Deeds
The Middlesex South Registry of Deeds – what we often call the Cambridge Registry of Deeds - is located in East Cambridge on Cambridge Street between Second and Third Streets. It’s hard to miss with its enormous red brick columns.
The plaque out front describes the Registry as “One of the finest Neo-Classical buildings in Massachusetts, especially noted for its colossal brick columns.” The building was designed in 1898 by Boston architect Olin B. Cutter.
In remarks at the dedication on November 13, 1900, Samuel K. Hamilton described the building:
“Viewed from any point of the compass, it presents a building imposing in size, symmetrical in proportion, and beautiful in architecture.”
The interior is beautiful as well but sorry – no photos. Nowadays you have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector, and leave your camera in the car in order to enter the building. The building also houses the Middlesex Probate Court so gets quite busy.
If you’re visiting the Cambridge Registry of Deeds for your real estate closing you’ll want to take the elevator or one of the two grand staircases to the second floor. Real estate closings take place under the rotunda in the open area that looks quite a bit like a food court. Recently a room adjacent to the area where documents are recorded was refurbished to provide additional space for closings. It’s called the Closing Room or the Settlement Room and – happily – it’s air conditioned – something we all appreciate in July or August.
Documents recorded at the Registry since the mid-1980s are available online. If you’re interested in researching the early history of your house you’ll want to visit the Registry in person. The Registry’s holdings include deeds and mortgage documents dating back to the mid-1600s.
The Middlesex South District Registry of Deeds serves Acton, Arlington, Ashby, Ashland, Ayer, Bedford, Belmont, Boxborough, Burlington, Cambridge, Concord, Everett, Framingham, Groton, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Malden, Marlboro, Maynard, Medford, Melrose, Natick, Newton, North Reading, Pepperell, Reading, Sherborn, Shirley, Somerville, Stoneham, Stow, Sudbury, Townsend, Wakefield, Waltham, Watertown, Wayland, Weston, Winchester and Woburn.
The Cambridge Registry of Deeds is located at 208 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141 just one block from the Lechmere T station. Open Monday – Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Office hours for recording – 8:00 a.m. to 3:45 pm.
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