Maybe if you live in an area long enough you get used to such matters as a crazy quilt of roads and parking garages of endless levels. But I was a tourist, so getting around Cambridge posed something of a problem for me today.
When I finally found a space in the Aylwife parking garage, I went down to the T station and took the Red Line to Harvard Square. The day was as raw as yesterday, so I clutched my scarf even harder than before.
Next to the information booth kiosk at Harvard Square, I took a Cambridge Advantage Tour offered by Vince Dixon. Dressed in a green shirt and black tricorn hat, Vince offered a fact-filled two-hour walk through the Co-Op, Harvard Yard, Radcliffe Yard, and Cambridge Commons.
On Cambridge Commons, I was surprised—and glad to see—a statue commemorating Ireland’s Great Hunger of the 1840s—the first statue of its kind in New England. (Former Irish President Mary Robinson came to its dedication in 1997.) My photo accompanies this post.
At the conclusion of that tour, I walked down Brattle Street until I came to the Longfellow House. How could a mere poet afford such a magnificent structure? On the National Park Service tour, I found out: he’d married the daughter of a textile manufacturer, whose daughter prevailed upon him not merely to buy this house, but all the land stretching in a line from here to the Charles River!
Nearly 60 years before the happy couple moved in, the house had been abandoned by a notorious Loyalist and taken over by George Washington as his headquarters during the siege of Boston. Longfellow’s study had been the room where Washington conferred with Henry Knox about hauling the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga that were used to force the British out of Boston, and the rooms Longfellow had rented briefly as a young Harvard professor where the same ones where Washington had slept during his months here.
When I finally found a space in the Aylwife parking garage, I went down to the T station and took the Red Line to Harvard Square. The day was as raw as yesterday, so I clutched my scarf even harder than before.
Next to the information booth kiosk at Harvard Square, I took a Cambridge Advantage Tour offered by Vince Dixon. Dressed in a green shirt and black tricorn hat, Vince offered a fact-filled two-hour walk through the Co-Op, Harvard Yard, Radcliffe Yard, and Cambridge Commons.
On Cambridge Commons, I was surprised—and glad to see—a statue commemorating Ireland’s Great Hunger of the 1840s—the first statue of its kind in New England. (Former Irish President Mary Robinson came to its dedication in 1997.) My photo accompanies this post.
At the conclusion of that tour, I walked down Brattle Street until I came to the Longfellow House. How could a mere poet afford such a magnificent structure? On the National Park Service tour, I found out: he’d married the daughter of a textile manufacturer, whose daughter prevailed upon him not merely to buy this house, but all the land stretching in a line from here to the Charles River!
Nearly 60 years before the happy couple moved in, the house had been abandoned by a notorious Loyalist and taken over by George Washington as his headquarters during the siege of Boston. Longfellow’s study had been the room where Washington conferred with Henry Knox about hauling the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga that were used to force the British out of Boston, and the rooms Longfellow had rented briefly as a young Harvard professor where the same ones where Washington had slept during his months here.
1 comment:
This is a very nice report, and picture on the tour.
It was first found by the General Manager of The Harvard Coop, then by me, the tour guide, and then it has been shared with many others.
Anyone wishing to know more about this, or the tour, can Email me at: cambadva01@yahoo.com for further information.
Sincerely,
Vincent
Vincent Lawrence Dixon
President
Senior Tour Guide
Cambridge Advantage Tours
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