CultureNOW - Massachusetts Ave (MIT): Peter Vanderwarker

Massachusetts Ave (MIT)

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
Many Bostonians know that the neighborhood we call the Back Bay was originally, as its name implies, a tidal salt marsh, and that it was made into solid ground with landfill brought to the site.

Not so many know, however, that an attempt was made to imitate the Back Bay on the Cambridge side of the river. What today we think of as MIT began as an 1880s landfill project to create a new neighborhood that never happened.

The city of Cambridge joined with the Charles River Embankment Company to do the work. They got their earth by dredging mud from the bottom of the Charles. They mapped streets and lots on the new land, and they established strict guidelines for the fine houses they expected to be built. None was to cost less than $5,000; materials were limited to brick, stone, and iron. They even hired Calvert Vaux, the co-designer of New York's Central Park, to fashion handsome boulevards and a riverfront esplanade.

But the development was a flop. The depression of 1893 put the private company out of business. In 1903, the approximate date of the older photo, only a few buildings existed. The huge apartment house, which looks as if it ought to be the background for a medieval jousting contest, was built in 1900 and called Riverbank Court.

Then, in 1912, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, housed in scattered buildings in the Back Bay, decided it needed a new campus. For $775,000, it acquired 50 acres of the Cambridge landfill. In the new photo, we can still see Riverbank Court (now Ashdown House), facing Memorial Drive, plus three of the original town houses. Every building in the photo is now part of MIT.

What we don't see is the great new campus that opened in June 1916, designed by architect William Welles Bosworth, with its famous domes and classical columns. It stands just to the right of our photo. Things were more fun then. At the opening celebration, a nighttime procession of faculty and students, all in costume, crossed the Charles in a Venetian-style boat, then marched to the main courtyard of the new campus to witness a drama, The Masque of Power, with a chorus of 500 singers. Historian Mark Jarzombek describes it:

"The first act opened to a shadowy scene, with rumbling music representing Chaos. This was followed by the Dance of the Elements -- air, water, fire, and earth. Man arrives on the scene and vainly tries to master the elements until Will and Wisdom arrive to lead Man through the historical ages, with each age contributing its share of Progress. Out of a dark corner, however, there suddenly appear Greed, Selfishness and War."

And so on.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Up from the Mud", Boston Globe, 27 February 2005

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Location

Memorial Drive & Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
United States

Nearby Items

MIT Chapel (Bldg. W15)		836 feet
Altarpiece for MIT Chapel		983 feet
Bell Tower for MIT Chapel		0.2 miles
Kresge Auditorium (Bldg. W16)		0.2 miles
SENSEable City Lab at MIT		0.2 miles
Loohooloo		0.2 miles
Maclaurin Buildings (Bldgs. 3, 4, 10)		0.2 miles