This Saturday, I'm co-leading a bicycle tour of historical sights around Somerville, on behalf of the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission. The ride will focus on the many commuter rail stations that Somerville once had, and on the Green Line stations that will soon take their place.

The ride starts at Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue, at 10 am. We'll take about three hours to ride about seven miles, stopping along the way at railroad-related sites and at such historic landmarks as the Prospect Hill Tower and the Old Powder House. The ride will end at the Somerville Museum, where we'll enjoy refreshments and an exhibit of the Somerville Preservation Awards.

Rain date is Sunday, June 1, same time and starting location. For more information, e-mail rnewman@thecia.net or call 617-628-8895.

We will ask for a voluntary $3 donation to support the activities of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission.

A map of the route
A turn-by-turn description (cue sheet) of the route, including elevations. (We won't be doing any major hill climbs.)

Join the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission for a bicycle tour of historical sights around Somerville. This year's ride will focus on the many commuter rail stations that Somerville once had, and on the Green Line stations that will soon take their place.

The ride starts at Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue, at 10 am on Saturday, May 31. We'll take about three hours to ride about ten miles, stopping along the way at railroad-related sites and at such historic landmarks as the Prospect Hill Tower and the Old Powder House. The ride will end at the Somerville Museum, where we'll enjoy refreshments and an exhibit of the Somerville Preservation Awards.

Rain date is Sunday, June 1, same time and starting location. For more information, e-mail rnewman@thecia.net or call 617-628-8895.

Actually it's a photocopy of an old photo, so I don't want any further degradation in quality - and any ability to interpolate to make it less photocopy-y, and repair the images of the damage that obviously existed in the original picture (water stains, tears), would be a plus.

I got this copy of a photo of our street when it was first developed, 14 houses in 1874, from a neighbor when she was selling. She didn't seem to have an original, just these copies, and didn't leave one for the buyer as she promised. So this seems to be the only copy/version of this photo available.

I lent it to the historical society so they could have a copy, but if the extra copy she gave me back is anything to go by, they didn't do a very good job. I would like to have a high-quality digital copy for myself, and copies for those of the houses that are owner-occupied and whose owners are interested, so this picture doesn't disappear back into someone's garage. (That's where this one was originally hanging, I'm told.)

Any suggestions of particularly good photo wizards in or beyond Somerville?

(I did see the scanning thread from last year, but this seems more specialized than that.)

Anne

Hi everyone - first time poster to this community, but relatively long-time lurker.

Anyway, thought this might be of interest - it's a t.v. news piece on Davis Square from Summer 2004.

Click here to watch

Candlewick Press, publisher of Where's Waldo? and other fine children's books, has moved into the Dover Plaza building behind the Somerville Theatre. They are in the space formerly occupied by the Share Group telemarketing firm.

Here's a Somerville Journal article on our newest Davis Square business.

Kind of a random question, but I'm considering getting one - it looks fun and would be a good way to walk around. Have any of you used one in the Davis area and found anything neat? If so where?

On New Year's Day each year, the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission celebrates the raising of the first American flag to feature thirteen red and white horizontal stripes. Know as “the Flag of Grand Union,” it was first raised by George Washington over the Continental Army’s encampment on Prospect Hill during the siege of Boston in 1776.



The event begins at 11:30 am at the City Hall parking lot, where re-enactors, fife and drum players, and local elected officials assemble for a short procession. The parade reaches Prospect Hill Park at noon, where there will be a ceremony that includes raising a replica of the First Flag onto the top of Prospect Hill Tower. Coffee, hot cider, and other refreshments will be available. In past years, people have been allowed to climb to the top of the tower, but I can't guarantee you'll be able to do it this year.

I've been going to this event for a few years and have always enjoyed it. To get there from Davis Square, take the #88 or #90 bus from Davis Square at 11:31 am, and get off either at City Hall (if you want to join the parade) or at the first bus stop on McGrath Highway (if you just want to walk up the hill yourself to the ceremony). Sometimes the bus ends up driving behind the parade.

Here's a flyer for the event, and the official press release.

While looking for something completely different, I came across this map of Somerville 150 years ago. Very interesting to see, for example, that the high school is still in the same place. Anyone know of other historical maps on line?

884 Broadway

So, I'm wondering what this place is, it looks like it used to be a place the hipsters from the 40's and 50's bee-bopped all night long, but now it looks like it's been abandoned and falling apart.  Kinda looks like a speakeasy or something, could be a great restaurant if fixed up.  Anyone know what this place is?

This Saturday, June 23, I'm co-leading a Bicycle Tour of Historic Somerville and Medford, sponsored by the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission.

The ride starts at 10 am in the parking lot of Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue (just east of School Street). We'll ride for about 10 miles, and we should be finished around 1 pm.

We'll visit historic sites throughout Somerville and Medford, including the Old Powder House, the Isaac Royall House, and the armories and historical museums of both cities.

For more information, e-mail me at rnewman@theCIA.net. Or just post a comment here, and I'll reply.

(This ride was originally scheduled for the weekend of May 19-20, but was rained out both days. We aren't setting another rain date this time. We will go ahead with the ride on June 23 unless there is steady, heavy rain.)

According to the city Historic Preservation Commission, there are seven hills in Somerville. (EDIT: There are also seven hills in Worcester, where I attended college, but I digress.)

1. Central Hill
2. Mount Benedict or Plowed Hill
3. Cobble Hill
4. Prospect Hill or Mount Pisgah
5. Spring Hill
6. Winter Hill
7. Walnut Hill, Strawberry Hill or Clarendon Hill

I know Winter Hill is on Broadway, Clarendon Hill is by Johnny Foodmaster, and Prospect Hill is where the tower overlooks Union Square.

I read that Mt. Benedict, home to the former McLean Asylum for the Criminally Insane (before it moved to Belmont), existed in East Somerville by Franklin Street and is now leveled.

I'm guessing Cobble Hill was also leveled, down where the Cobble Hill condos are on Washington Street. But there's also a Cobble Hill Laundromat on the corner of Medford and Central Streets.

I'm guessing Central Hill is where Central Street meets Broadway.

Spring Hill?

Join the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission for a Bicycle Tour of Historic Somerville and Medford.

The ride starts on Saturday, June 23rd at 10 am in the parking lot of Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue (just east of School Street). We'll ride for about 10 miles, and we should be finished around 1 pm.

We'll visit historic sites throughout Somerville and Medford, including the Old Powder House, the Isaac Royall House, and the armories and historical museums of both cities.

For more information, contact Brandon Wilson at (617) 776-3938, or Ron Newman at rnewman@theCIA.net, or Dick Bauer at dick.bauer@alum.mit.edu

(This ride was originally scheduled for the weekend of May 19-20, but was rained out both days. We aren't setting another rain date this time. We will go ahead with the ride on June 23 unless there is steady, heavy rain.)

EDIT 5/18/07: Regretfully, we are cancelling this event entirely. It will not take place on either Saturday May 19 or Sunday, May 20. The weather forecast is just too dismal for both days. We will try to reschedule for some time in June. Sorry!

On Saturday, May 19, the Somerville Bicycle Committee and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission will lead a bicycle tour of historic sites in Somerville and Medford.

The ride meets at 10 am at Somerville City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue. It will be about ten miles long and take about three hours (since we're making lots of stops).

If it rains, we'll reschedule the ride for the following day (Sunday, May 20), same time and location.

E-mail me, Ron Newman <rnewman@thecia.net> if you'd like any other information. Or post a comment here, and I'll answer it.

Wikipedia doesn't have the answer. Please don't bite my head off if there's a plaque somewhere I haven't read yet.

Somerville native and singer of "Monster Mash", at the age of 69.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070426/obit_pickett.html?.v=1

Anyone know what neighborhood he lived in?

which do you prefer?

While doing some research on the T this afternoon I came across something in the Somerville News from 2004 where the former Mayor of Somerville recalled that the Chamber of Commerce didn't want the subway to come to Davis. Brune tells how he as an alderman and then later mayor wanted the subway, yet the T wanted it to go to Arlington which wanted no part of it and that is why it ends in Alewife today.

I was looking at ridership numbers on the T and while the figures are a few years old i was surprised that Davis handles more passengers than Alewife which is something I am sure wasn't planned on 30 years ago when the subway extension was being designed.

Anyone interested this is what I wrote on my blog
A look at T's ridership numbers

On New Year's Day each year, the City of Somerville celebrates the raising of the first-ever American Flag, which occurred on Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776. The event begins at 11:30 am at the City Hall parking lot, where re-enactors, fife and drum players, and local elected officials assemble for a short procession. The parade reaches the Prospect Hill Tower at noon, where there will be a ceremony that includes raising a replica of the First Flag onto the top of Prospect Hill Tower. Coffee, hot cider, and other refreshments will be available.

I've been going to this event for a few years and have always enjoyed it. To get there from Davis Square, take the #88 bus from Davis Square at 11:31 am, and get off at either City Hall (if you want to join the parade) or at the first bus stop on McGrath Highway (if you just want to walk up the hill yourself to the ceremony). Sometimes the bus ends up driving behind the parade.

Here's the official city press release for the event.

Last week, someone posted about construction work at the Round House on Atherton Street. The house has indeed been sold to someone who plans to fix it up and live in it. Here is a letter from Brandon Wilson, director of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission, with more details.

I cut over to Porter via some back roads, one of which takes me briefly over Atherton Street, where I found the Round House's land had all its trees and bushes cut down, and construction company signs up. Does anyone know what's going on? Could it be that somebody is actually going to rehab and live in the house after long last?

I've been going past there for years and looking longingly at the place... if I just had a spare million or two lying around, I'd buy it for myself!

Here's what the new One Davis Square building will look like in Fall 2007.

In the early 1970s, David Misch wrote and sang this song about Somerville.

If anyone has an audio recording of it -- the original 45, an audiocassette, an MP3, whatever -- please let me know. The Somerville Arts Council would like to have a copy.

UPDATE: I reached the writer of the song, who sent me an MP3 and allowed me to upload it to the Internet Archive with a Creative Commons license.
You can listen to it here:
http://www.archive.org/details/Somerville_By_David_Misch

Hey - I'm moving back to Davis Square after living abroad for five years. What has changed, commercially?

Hi there, I'm a grad student in an urban planning masters program, researching Davis Square. Most of the history of the red line expansion I've read refers to the Davis Square Action Plan or "Davis Square Planning Study" that the Davis Square Task Force drafted.

Anyone know where I could get a copy of this plan/study?

Thanks a lot.
aileen

Tip O’Neill’s North Cambridge

Explore the history and architecture of this North Cambridge neighborhood, from the first day of the American Revolution through the 20th century. The tour will discuss the neighborhood's agricultural and early industrial origins and its development as a streetcar suburb. Massachusetts Avenue and adjacent side streets will be featured, including several sites associated with the late Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Guide: Charlie Bahne, Cambridge historian
Meet at St. James’s Church, corner Massachusetts Avenue and Beech Street, 1 pm
More information: 617 354 0539 or bahne02138@aol.com

This event is part of Cambridge Discovery Days, which includes many other walking tours throughout Cambridge this Saturday.

Saturday, July 8, 10:30 am: Meet in front of CVS for a Porter Square Public Art ACTS Tour

Tour begins with dancers, actors and a juggler playfully responding to the unusual new shapes and spaces created by Toshihiro Katayama's Porter Square Landscape Design. Next, the tour rounds the corner to the Davenport Street Mural for an interactive performance inspired by the artwork and history of the neighborhood. Optional: finish with conversation, coffee and goodies at Porter Square Books and Café Zing!

Public Art ACTS is a collaboration between the Cambridge Arts Council and Underground Railway Theater.

This event is part of Cambridge Discovery Days, which includes many other walking tours throughout Cambridge this Saturday.

The Davis Square Task Force will meet Wedneday, June 28 from 7-9pm in the Tufts Administration Building, 167 Holland St. Everyone is invited. Here is the agenda. (I didn't write it up, I'm just passing it on from Chris Daveta, CDAVETA@ci.somerville.ma.us)

7:00-7:10 - Intros

7:10-7:25 - Adam Dash presentation on project next to the Bike Path

7:25-7:30 - Brief update on bike path plans with MBTA

7:30-7:45- DARBI [Davis Area Resident-Business Initiative] Update

7:45-8:00 - Michele Bisoce: Som|Dog presentation about off-leash areas
on bike path

8:00-8:30 - Traffic in Davis Square - Mark Chase, Davis resident and
traffic consultant to present (continued from previous meeting)

8:30-8:40 - Sara Rosenfeld about Community Servings

8:40-8:50 - Dunkin' Donuts' possible proposal for 24 hours
Mr. Crepe coming to Someday Café site

8:50-8:55 - Sign at Middlesex Bank in Davis Sq.

8:55-9:00 - Wrap up and next meeting

The Somerville Bicycle Committee (which I'm a member of) and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission are putting on a bicycle tour of the city this Saturday. It leaves from City Hall at 10 am and wanders slowly all around our city, taking in historic sites such as the Prospect Hill Tower, the Old Powder House, the Milk Row Cemetery, and the first house anywhere in the world to have telephone service.

Please join us! Feel free to e-mail me (rnewman@thecia.net) or phone me (617-628-8895) for more information.

If there is steady rain (let's hope not), we'll postpone the ride to Sunday, same starting time and location.

Hope to see many of you there!

Wikipedia's page on the 2004 World Series has a photo, captioned "Fans dance and laugh in the Boston streets, blocking traffic half an hour after the end of the game".

If you look at it carefully, you'll see that the scene is actually Elm Street in Davis Square. Maybe you're somewhere in that picture.

(By the way, Wikipedia's pages on Davis Square, Union Square, and Somerville could all benefit from some input by LJ'ers.)

Hi everyone!

I'm a student at Tufts, and I'm writing an anthropology paper about the possible ways we interact with Davis Square as tourist destination, not just a local place for practical everyday tasks.

You may think to yourself, "I live here, so I'm not a tourist." But that's ties into an overarching point that I'm trying to make in this paper - that you don't need to be a visitor to a place to be a tourist. We can all be tourists in our backyard, I say.

I'd really appreciate it if as many of you as possible could just answer a few questions about what you do when you go to Davis, and what you think of it. Many of these questions are closely connected, so if you'd rather answer in a paragraph or something, that works too. Just try to answer them completely. Maybe you'll surprise yourself. If you want to add anything extra that you think would be helpful or relevant, great. If you don't actually live around Davis Square, that's cool too.

Try to define "tourist/tourism" as loosely as possible when answering these questions. It's pretty subjective anyway. Things to consider: picture-taking, places/things you show visitors, anything Davis is "known" for, whatever else you want to add.

1. Do you ever do "tourist-y" things in Davis Square? Have you ever? What are they? Ever surprised at how much of a "visitor" or "tourist" you are, even if you live here?

2. What would you consider the most "tourist-y" places (or aspects) of Davis Square? Why, in your opinion, would a tourist come to Davis, and what would they do?

3. What sort of things do you usually do when you go to Davis? (This question can obviously be answered much longer for some than others.) Is there any difference between what you do in Davis now and what you did when you first moved to the area? Ever go exploring? Learn new things?

4. Do you know anything about the history of Davis Square? If so, how? (Was it from being a "tourist"?) Do you *want* to know more than you do, or could you not care less?


I really appreciate any and all input. Thanks!


edit to add: thanks for your input... i definitely could use more though. i'd appreciate anything anyone has to say... thanks!

Round House

" At 36 Atherton Street between Porter and Union squares, there is round house which dates from 1856. I am fascinated by its archirecture and history and saddened by its state of direpair.

According to the Somerville Public Library, the 40-foot diameter Round House was built as a curiosity by a prominent inventor and locksmith, Enoch Robinson. It contains a glass-domed central hall and two parlors: one circular and one oval. The Somerville Old House Organization (SOHO) has a nice write up on the place, including a rare picture of the interior, seen at right. In it you can see sections of the parlor walls, which Robinson covered with a French scenic paper depicting royalty in castles, gardens, and hunting scenes. The shape of the house itself has been traced to one built in the Desert de Retz in Chambourcy, France, in 1780 and 1781 by Francois Nicolas Henri Racine de Monville (1734–1797) in the shape of a huge, round, ruined, classical column."

    Here is more :   Round House

    Thanks for all of the replies and additional links!  Here are some more intersting links about the house as well as some other Somerville historic photos    Link one, house plans

Link two, Somerville Historic photos

David Guss's Lost Theatres website has two big Flash photo essays about the history of the Somerville Theatre and its surrounding neighborhood, from 1914 to the current day.

Somerville Theatre: 1914-1925
Somerville Theatre: 1926-2003

and, while you're at it, also look at Day Street Olympia

Did you know that the corner of Day and Herbert streets used to contain a movie theatre?

It started out as the West Somerville Congregational Church, which moved a building here from Cambridgeport in 1874. In 1912, the congregation moved to a new church building at 95 College Avenue, where they remain today as the First Congregational Church.

Meanwhile, they sold their old church building to a movie theatre company -- which had to overcome more than three years of community opposition before they finally opened in 1913. Even the president and women's dean of Tufts University lobbied against it. The mayor finally allowed the Day Street Olympia theatre to open only after acknowledging that it would be unfair to deny it a permit while at the same time allowing the new Somerville Theatre to be built two blocks away.

The Day Street Olympia was later renamed E. M. Loew's Davis Square Theatre. Unfortunately, it suffered frequent fires. After an especially bad fire in 1942, E.M. Loew decided that he'd had enough, and closed it. I don't know how long it remained standing before it was demolished. The site is now a metered municipal parking lot.

For much more information and many pictures, visit David Guss's excellent website, Lost Theatres of Somerville. (Click on "Day Street Olympia.")

I have no idea what "Alex Pizza and More" is, but according to the sign, that's what will replace Out of the Blue at the corner of Highland and Cutter avenues. (Out of the Blue recently moved to Elm Street, next to the Rosebud.)

The Somerville Theatre has a new and greatly improved website, including a short essay on its history, lots of historic photos, and some general information about each screen. Check it out.

The same folks own the Capitol Theatre in Arlington and have similarly improved its website, adding history and photos.

Hey All,

Posting this as it came up for me in a previous post that was sort of an amalgam of "eccentric and annoying Davis Square traits."

I realize this is a hot-button issue but I trust that people can express themselves civilly. Ok, I *hope* we can.

Gentrification. It's a big deal. People in this community talk an awful lot about how we don't want Davis to "turn into another Harvard" but in some sense the people living there now and who have populated the square over the past decade *have* turned Davis into something different from what it was.

How does one say, "I don't want Davis Square to get too gentrified" without taking responsibility for being part of the gentrification that has happened thus far? Who decides how much gentrification is too much, not enough, just right?

Maybe Davis is better, maybe it's not -- it probably depends on who you ask and what they were looking for in a neighborhood when they picked Davis.

On New Year's Day each year, the City of Somerville celebrates the raising of the first-ever American Flag, which occurred on Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776. The event begins at 11:30 am at the City Hall parking lot, where re-enactors, fife and drum players, and local elected officials assemble for a short procession. The parade reaches the Prospect Hill Tower at noon, where there will be a ceremony that includes raising a replica of the First Flag onto the top of Prospect Hill Tower. Coffee, hot cider, and other refreshments will be available.

I've been going to this event for a few years and have always enjoyed it. To get there from Davis Square, take the #88 bus from Davis Square at 11:31 am, and get off at either City Hall (if you want to join the parade) or at the first bus stop on McGrath Highway (if you just want to walk up the hill yourself to the ceremony). Sometimes the bus ends up driving behind the parade.

Here's the official city press release.

So, I'm still relatively new to Davis Square and I'm a busy bee and hardly have the time to stop in the park area behind my street and find out what's going on there but I pass by it sometimes and am very curious...
the park area that is across from Powderhouse Circle (I believe its "back" is on Liberty Ave. and "side" is on Broadway)contains a tower-like structure...can someone tell me what this was/is used for?

Thank you!
Kristin

Spontaneous celebrations in Davis Square for Red Sox winning the World Series, 12:45am 10/28/2004

125 second AVI movie (33.3 MB)

Now let's see what other contests Bostonians can win in the next week.