#1 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard Square (Neighborhood)
Cambridge MA
~0.09 miles from Cambridge city center
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Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. Adjacent to the historic heart of Harvard University, Harvard Yard, the Square (as it is called locally) functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge and the inner western suburbs of Boston.
It is also home to Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway bus transportation hub. In an extended sense, the name "Harvard Square" can refer to the entire neighborhood surrounding this intersection for several blocks in each direction. The nearby Cambridge Common has a large park area with a playground, baseball field, and some local memorials.
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#2 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard University
Cambridge
~0.13 miles from Cambridge city center
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Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units. It is also the first and oldest corporation in the United States.
Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after John Harvard, a young clergyman from the London Borough of Southwark and alumnus of Cambridge University (after which Cambridge, Massachusetts is named), who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 (which was half of his estate), assuring its continued operation. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" occurs in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.
During his 40-year tenure as Harvard president (1869–1909), Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliot's reforms included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels.
Harvard has the second-largest financial endowment of any non-profit organization (behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), standing at $26 billion as of September 2009.
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#3 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
Cambridge MA
~0.16 miles from Cambridge city center
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The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments was established about 1949 to preserve Harvard's historically important scicntific apparatus and to protect it from being cannibalized for parts or discarded because of obsolcscence. Preservation began through the efforts of David Wheatland, who originally stored the instruments in his office in Cruft Laboratory. After the first public exhibition was held in the main lobby of Mallinckrodt Chemical Laboratory in 1949, the collection was established in the basement of the Semitic Museum. It was later moved to the basement of Perkins Hall and, in 1973, to Allston Burr Lecture Hall. With the impending demolition of this building, the collection, which had grown considerably, was transferred during 1979 and 1980 to its present location in the lower level of the Science Center. Through the efforts of Wheatland, the first curator, and Ebenezer Gay, who joined him in 1967, the collection now contains close to 20,000 artifacts illustrating the historical development of a broad range of subjects. The instruments provide students with the opportunity of examining, first-hand, devices that had a role in significant advances in science and technology. Documentation in the Harvard Archives relating to the purchase and use of many of the instruments makes the collection unique in this country.
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#4 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Center For Conservation
32 Quincy St Fl 4 Cambridge MA - 617-495-2392
~0.21 miles from Cambridge city center
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Center For Conservation
32 Quincy St Dept 4
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 495-2392
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#5 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard Museum of Natural History
Cambridge MA
~0.23 miles from Cambridge city center
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The Harvard Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It has three parts:
the Harvard University Herbaria
the Museum of Comparative Zoology
the Harvard Mineralogical Museum.
The museum is physically connected to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and one admission grants visitors access to both museums.
The Harvard Museum of Natural History was created in 1995 as the “public face” of three research museums — the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Geological Museum, and the Herbaria—with a mission to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the human place in it. Museum exhibitions draw on Harvard University’s natural history collections; Harvard’s research faculty provides unparalleled expertise; and an array of programs for members and the general public sparks a lively exchange of information and ideas, founded in the spirit of discovery. With more than 155,000 visitors annually[1], the Harvard Museum of Natural History is the University’s most-visited museum.
In the Museum’s permanent galleries, visitors encounter the rich diversity of life on earth, from dinosaurs to fossil invertebrates and reptiles, to large mammals, birds and fish, and the only mounted Kronosaurus. The mineralogical galleries present a systematic display of meteorites, minerals and gemstones. The galleries also house the historic Blaschka glass models of plants, popularly known as the Glass Flowers. In addition, a series of changing exhibitions bring focus to timely subjects, often featuring the work of world-renowned nature photographers.
The Museum’s educational programs encourage a hands-on, observation-based approach. With a growing reputation as a source of unique and effective science education and a successful partnership with Cambridge public schools, the Museum welcomes increasing numbers of school children and their families to its programs each year.
Public lectures are another of the Museum’s primary activities. Each year, over twenty free presentations by Harvard biologists, international conservationists, and popular authors lead their audiences to a closer look at current issues in the world of science and nature.
A robust travel program complements the museum’s mission to enhance awareness of the natural world. Traveling in small groups often led by Harvard science faculty, Museum travelers experience exotic destinations that are of particular importance as recognized hotspots of biodiversity.
The museum is member-based, with over 3,200 current members, primarily from the Boston metropolitan area. While the Museum is affiliated with the Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and receives important support from the University, it derives most of its operating income from admissions, membership, gifts, and programmatic revenues.
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#6 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard University Art Museums
Cambridge MA
~0.23 miles from Cambridge city center
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In 1874 when the President and Fellows of Harvard College appointed Charles Eliot Norton the first professor of art history in America, they could hardly have anticipated a day when Harvard would have three distinct art museums, each a vital part of the university and the larger museum community.
The three museums that comprise the Harvard Art Museum are entities of their own, each with a particular focus and collection strength. They are linked through a common mission and with a common administration, and all are deeply engaged with the university and the communities that surround it.
As we move toward the future, a new building will unite the three museums under one roof and as a single destination that will more effectively carry out the mission of the Harvard Art Museum. Each museum will maintain its separate identity, closely tied to the ideas that inspired its creation and that inform the institution's rich history.
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#7 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Museum of Interactive Art
1208 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge MA - 617-498-0100
~0.24 miles from Cambridge city center
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The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College organizes and presents innovative, multidisciplinary exhibitions that receive national and international recognition, attracting audiences from the Boston area and beyond. Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times has written that the McMullen is in the vanguard of museums creating exhibitions that "reach far beyond traditional art history," providing political, historical, and cultural context for works on view. In the coming years, the McMullen Museum plans to enhance its tradition of playing a major role in the cultural and intellectual life of the University, as well as the international community of scholars and art enthusiasts.
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#8 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard Peabody Museum Archlgy
11 Divinity Ave Cambridge MA - 617-495-2248
~0.26 miles from Cambridge city center
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Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology and houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.
The Peabody Museum...
Engages in ongoing anthropological discourse through exhibitions, workshops, symposia, and publications;
Allows faculty and students to draw upon the collections to enrich classes and research; and
Serves a wide public audience through educational programs developed in collaboration with Harvard’s Museum of Natural History.
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#9 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Harvard Semitic Museum
6 Divinity Ave Cambridge MA - 617-495-4631
~0.26 miles from Cambridge city center
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The Semitic Museum at Harvard University was founded in 1889, and moved into its present location at 6 Divinity Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1903.
From the beginning, it was the home of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, a departmental library, a repository for research collections, a public educational institute, and a center for archaeological exploration. Among the Museum's early achievements were the first scientific excavations in the Holy Land (at Samaria in 1907-1912) and excavations at Nuzi and Tell el-Khaleifeh in the Sinai, where the earliest alphabet was found.
The Museum's artifacts include pottery, cylinder seals, sculpture, coins and cuneiform tablets. Many are from museum-sponsored excavations in Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Cyprus, and Tunisia. The museum holds a replica of the Merneptah stele. The Museum is dedicated to the use of these collections for the teaching, research, and publication of Near Eastern archaeology, history, and culture.
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#10 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Cambridge MA
~0.27 miles from Cambridge city center
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#11 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Weston Jesuit School of Theology
3 Phillips Place Cambridge MA - 617-492-1960
~0.27 miles from Cambridge city center
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Weston Jesuit School of Theology is a graduate divinity school of Boston College and an ecclesiastical faculty of theology that trains men and women, both lay and religious, for service, especially for the Roman Catholic Church.
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#12 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Lesley College
29 Everett St Cambridge MA - 800-999-1959
~0.32 miles from Cambridge city center
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Lesley College is the undergraduate section, and founding institution of, Lesley University.
The college was founded in 1909 by Edith Lesley as The Lesley School, a woman's college which focused on early childhood education as a part of the international kindergarten movement established by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel. Both the college and the university are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Lesley School became Lesley College in 1944, received authority to award advanced degrees in 1953, and achieved regional accreditation in 1954. In 1998 Lesley College and The Art Institute of Boston merged. That merger, and the addition of additional graduate and undergraduate institutes and colleges, resulted in the emergence of Lesley University in 2001.
In 2005 Lesley College became co-educational.
http://www.lesley.edu
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#13 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Cambridge Historical Society
159 Brattle St Cambridge MA - 617-547-4252
~0.67 miles from Cambridge city center
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The Cambridge Museum, sponsored and maintained by the Cambridge Historical Society, was established in 1929. Our Victorian Second Empire style house was built in 1869 by John Smith, an officer of the Cambridge Valley Bank.
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#14 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Museum of Useful Things
370 Broadway Cambridge MA - 617-576-3322
~0.70 miles from Cambridge city center
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From their website:
Celebrating the Beauty of Function in everyday object, we encourage you to glance about your environment and look at the implements and tools used in your daily routines in a new light. A dustpan, stapler, or pencil has been the subject of hundreds of inventor's dreams, as we humans try to improve, simplify, and better our daily existences. Just how did these objects come to be in their current form? How could they be better?
By presenting examples from our Permanent Collection of 19th and 20th Century Useful Items, we can look back historically at a tool's evolution over the decades: how inventors defined and refined a tool; how times, changing needs, and available materials were reflected in these changes. Thousands of patents stand testimony to the human spirit of discovery and improvement, one person's idiosyncratic idea that can challenge us to examine and rethink our ordinary expectations.
Peruse our Museum Shop where you will find a collection of currently manufactured products we hope will please your senses, esthetically and practically. Some of these items are manufactured especially for the MUT, inspired by time-tested designs. We strive to find products of high-quality materials, made for long and sensible use that will stand the test of time, so you can buy confidently.
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#15 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Tibet Arts
1925 Massachusetts Ave # A Cambridge MA - 617-491-9106
~0.75 miles from Cambridge city center
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#16 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Cambridge Fine Arts
145 Huron Ave Cambridge MA - 617-497-4925
~0.80 miles from Cambridge city center
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#17 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Porter Square (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~0.86 miles from Cambridge city center
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#18 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Lfa Art Management
700 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge MA - 617-492-5575
~0.91 miles from Cambridge city center
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#19 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Huron Village (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~0.95 miles from Cambridge city center
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#20 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Central Square (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~0.96 miles from Cambridge city center
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Central Square culminates around the intersection of Bennington Street and Meridian Street in the Boston neighborhood of East Boston. The square’s intersecting streets also includes Border Street, Saratoga Street and Liverpool Street. It is a modified rotary where traffic is moving in both directions with one traffic light at the intersection of Meridian and Saratoga.
There is a shopping center adjacent to the square and, in the center of the freewheeling traffic that zips through the square, is a small park. Central Square is within 100 yards of the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel, which takes motorists to Downtown Boston.
Central Square is the site of the Italia Unita festival yearly event where the square is closed off, bands play and food carts serve their wares.
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#21 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Inman Square (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~1.09 miles from Cambridge city center
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Inman Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It lies north of Central Square, at the junction of Cambridge, Hampshire, and Inman Streets near the Cambridge–Somerville border.
Like many squares in the Boston area, Inman Square refers both to an intersection and to a retail district and neighborhood. Current residents of the area seem to converge on a broad definition of Inman Square as the region centered on the intersection of Cambridge and Hampshire Streets that radiates out around 500 feet (150 m) along Cambridge Street to Prospect and encompasses the business district and outlying houses.
Geologically, the area is part of the larger Boston Basin and attaches to the relative lowland known as the Cambridge plain. Originally, the land was both flat and surrounded by an irregular, swampy region that formed a natural boundary. Situated a short walk east of Harvard Square, north of Central Square, south of Union Square, and west of Lechmere (also known as East Cambridge), Inman Square is fairly centralized within the Mid-Cambridge/Somerville area. Hampshire Street connects it with Porter Square to the northwest and Kendall Square to the southeast.
Inman Square likely owes its name to Ralph Inman (1713-1788), described as a gentleman of fortune and a Boston merchant. The details of his life can be pieced together from articles in the New England and Genealogical Register, vols. 12, 14, 25, 26, 30, 55, 84, 112, and 136, as well as numerous other sources. He had extensive business interests along the Boston wharf and with Thomas Sodden owned 400 acres (1.6 km2) making up "what is now the Port."
Inman also owned a "large, three-story rambling mansion" in a "little genteel Town about 4 Miles off (from Boston) calld Cambridge, where a number of Gentlemen's Families live upon their Estates." This included the Brattles, after whom Brattle Square was named.
During the American Revolutionary War, in 1775, American general Israel Putnam took over Inman's house as his headquarters. Inman was intent on remaining neutral in the war, but his intentions went for naught when his son joined the British Army, causing authorities to begin confiscating his property. He fled, leaving Mrs. Inman to deal with General Putnam. He apparently recovered from this, because he was at home again in Cambridge after the war.
Inman's wife, his second, was a business woman in her own right. She owned the sugar warehouse in Boston that the British troops took over as a barracks when they came to settle the unrest in Boston. It was from there that they marched to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
An extensive description of the house is given in NE & GR, July 1871, vol. 25, page 232. "On the Inman street side" and "looking toward Boston road" are mentioned. It was "the first object of any interest in approaching the colleges from Boston ..." At the time of the description, 6 acres (24,000 m2) were still attached to it. Inman died there in 1788. His wife predeceased him.
Inman Square's origins lie in the growth of East Cambridge, starting at around 1790, when a group of financiers led by Andrew Craigie began buying up land around Lechmere Point, home to present-day CambridgeSide Galleria shopping mall, in an effort to build a toll bridge over the Charles River. After Craigie's bridge was built, he constructed roads from the Lechmere area that had been laid out with a gridwork of streets. One of these roads was the Middlesex Turnpike, the present-day Hampshire Street, which connected Cambridge with Lowell and Boston, bringing regional traffic through the area. Craigie also laid out Cambridge Street, which would intersect with Hampshire, producing Inman Square in 1809.
By the 1860s, horse carts were common in the area and contributed to dwellings popping up along their routes. By 1900, full streetcar service was in the area, led by the Charles River Street Railway, which built its first railway through Inman Square in 1881. By 1874 the region was an urban center called both "Atwood's Corner" and "Inman Square." This ambiguity was fixed a year later in a petition that would make official the Inman Square moniker.
After transportation brought people and commerce to the region, a new era of stability overtook Inman Square. From 1910 up until the early 1950s, streetcar, automobile, and foot traffic shuffled people to and from the square where architectural instead of transportation construction was taking place. During this period commercial dwellings popped up to service the local community: drugstores, taverns, markets, bakeries, delis, and an insurance company were among the many stores that called Inman Square home.
After the streetcars left Cambridge Street around 1950 the square became "just a little bit out of the way" yet remained "around the corner from Harvard, Central, Kendall and Lechmere." Even though there is not direct rapid transit, three MBTA bus lines (69, 83, 91) stop in the square, making it accessible by mass transit. Post-streetcar visitors still regularly frequent the area's restaurant and entertainment attractions.
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#22 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Allston / Brighton (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~1.12 miles from Cambridge city center
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#23 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Brighton (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~1.12 miles from Cambridge city center
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Brighton is a neighborhood of the City of Boston, Massachusetts, located in the northwest corner of the city. It comprises land covered by the zip code 02135.
1852 Map of Boston area showing Brighton and Rail lines.
In 1630, land comprising present-day Allston-Brighton and Newton was assigned to Watertown. In 1634, the Massachusetts Bay Colony transferred ownership of the south side of the Charles River, including present-day Allston-Brighton and Newton, from Watertown to Newetowne, later renamed Cambridge.
In 1646, Reverend John Eliot established a “Praying Indian” village on the present Newton-Brighton boundary, where resided local natives converted to Christianity. The first permanent English settlement came as settlers crossed the Charles River from Cambridge, establishing Little Cambridge, the area's name before 1807.
Before the American Revolutionary War, Little Cambridge become a small, prosperous farming community with fewer than 300 residents. Its inhabitants included wealthy Boston merchants such as Benjamin Faneuil (after whom a street in Brighton is named).
A key event in the history of Allston-Brighton was the establishment in 1775 of a cattle market to supply the Continental Army. Jonathan Winship I and Jonathan Winship II established the market, and in the post-war period that followed, the Winships become the largest meat packers in Massachusetts.
The residents of Little Cambridge resolved to secede from Cambridge when the latter's government made decisions detrimental to the cattle industry and also failed to repair the Great Bridge linking Little Cambridge with Cambridge proper. Legislative approval for separation was obtained in 1807, and Little Cambridge renamed itself Brighton.
In October 1873, the Town of Brighton voted to annex itself to the City of Boston, and in January 1874 Brighton officially became a neighborhood of the City of Boston.
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#24 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Brazialian Cultural Center
310 Webster Ave Cambridge MA - 617-547-5343
~1.22 miles from Cambridge city center
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#25 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Us Army National Guard Recruit
450 Concord Ave Cambridge MA - 617-547-2197
~1.30 miles from Cambridge city center
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#26 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Muscular Therapy Institute
122 Rindge Ave Cambridge MA - 617-576-1300
~1.31 miles from Cambridge city center
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http://www.mtinstitute.com/
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#27 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Shriner's Burns Institute Research Center
1 Kendall Sq # 1400W Cambridge MA - 617-374-5611
~1.35 miles from Cambridge city center
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#28 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Davis Square (Neighborhood)
Boston MA
~1.37 miles from Cambridge city center
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This section of Somerville is very popular as both a place to live and to relax. Although Tufts University is nearby, many residents are young and middle-aged professionals and their families. It is a fantastic area for after-work gatherings. Bars such as The Burren , Joshua Tree and Redbones make good starting points. After drinks, dining option range from the simple— Mike's Restaurant or the Rosebud Diner —to the sublime, at Gargoyles on the Square . After-dinner entertainment choices range from films at the Somerville Theater to live music and bowling.
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#29 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
MIT Museum
Boston MA
~1.41 miles from Cambridge city center
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MIT Museum, founded in 1971, is the museum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It hosts collections of holography, artificial intelligence, robotics, maritime history, and the history of MIT. Its holography collection of 1800 pieces is the largest in the world, though not all of it is exhibited. Currently works of Harold Edgerton and Arthur Ganson are the two largest displays ongoing for a long time. Occasionally, there are various exhibitions, usually on the intersection of art and technology.
Since 2005 the official mission of the museum has been, "to engage the wider community with MIT’s science, technology and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century."
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#30 of 30 Things To Do in Cambridge
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Boston MA
~1.42 miles from Cambridge city center
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities and is also a sea-grant and space-grant university.
Founded by William Barton Rogers in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the university adopted the European university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Its current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin. MIT researchers were involved in efforts to develop computers, radar, and inertial guidance in connection with defense research during World War II and the Cold War. In the past 60 years, MIT's educational disciplines have expanded beyond the physical sciences and engineering into fields like biology, brain science, economics, philosophy, linguistics, political science, and management.
MIT enrolled 4,232 undergraduates and 6,152 graduate students for the Fall 2009–2010 term. It employs about 1,009 faculty members. Its endowment and annual research expenditures are among the largest of any American university. 75 Nobel Laureates, 47 National Medal of Science recipients, and 31 MacArthur Fellows are currently or have previously been affiliated with the university. The aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would be the seventeenth largest economy in the world.
The Engineers sponsor 33 sports, most of which compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference; the Division I rowing programs compete as part of the EARC and EAWRC.
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