Category: cambridge (4)

Everyone knows MIT as a Cambridge institution with a global reputation. But for its first 55 years, MIT called the Back Bay home. 101 years ago, MIT made the move from Back Bay to Cambridge. Join us as we trace “Boston Tech” from its founding to its relocation across the Charles River. This tour will feature some of the sites of the original Back Bay campus while discussing the drivers and the drama leading to the construction of its new campus. find out more

This tour is a 90 minute walk through historic East Cambridge, the neighborhood built upon a glacial hill. Discover the place where the continental flag adopted by the 1775 Continental Congress flew first at Fort Putnam during the Revolutionary War and where a beautiful square in the heart of the neighborhood hosts the Charles Bulfinch courthouse and several striking buildings that once comprised the Middlesex County seat. Learn about the complicated Andrew Craigie, considered to be the creator of East Cambridge, and his planning and building strategies that have left a legacy that is still visible today. Historic houses, churches and storefronts hold many stories of the lives lived in this vibrant neighborhood that became home to so many Europeans who immigrated from the beginning of the nineteenth into the twentieth centuries to make East Cambridge one of the nation’s industrial powerhouses that produced the first great glass industry in the country as well as multiple manufacturers of many things, among them: soap, rope, barrels, caskets, firecrackers, steam pumps, hats, furniture and candy. find out more

The Kendall Square area has exploded with new development and is one of the hottest commercial real estate markets in the country. A center for innovation, it boasts offices for Google, Akamai, Biogen, Microsoft, Facebook, and more. This recent boom has been accompanied by the construction of new living spaces, restaurants, and hotels. In the early 20th century, Kendall Square was home to distilleries, electric power plants, soap and hosiery factories, and the Kendal Boiler and Tank Company. It remained MIT’s industrial backyard after it arrived in 1916. Once ​planned to be the home of NASA's Electronics Research Center, Kendall Square was a ghost town by the 1980s. Today, it boasts a thriving live/work/play environment that is integrated with its academic neighbor and home to many startups. find out more

Established in 1636, the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a college in Cambridge and later named it Harvard College for its first benefactor. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in America. Learn the history of this venerable institution and its relationship to the world around it through the rich mix of American architecture and objects in Harvard Yard. This tour will tell the stories of Harvard Yard’s development over the centuries and the social changes that the university has seen. find out more