A Mystery Lingers Over Huron Avenue

By Michael Kenney, 2013 Cambridge’s streets have histories and stories, just as the city itself does. And among those stories, Huron Avenue is one of the richest – and one with a bit of mystery. There are three main sources for these histories. The detailed records compiled by Lewis M. Hastings, the city engineer from…

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A Close-up of Huron Avenue

We always say, Everyone is a history ambassador. “A Close-up of Huron Avenue” shows just how true that is, no matter how old—or young—you are. Around 1980, Fayerweather Street School students, ages eight to eleven, conducted a five-month study of their neighborhood. At that time, the school was located at 74R Fayerweather Street (it moved…

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The History of 74 Rear Fayerweather Street, Cambridge

By Heli Meltsner, 2007 In the six decades after 1852 the use of this property changed utterly: an unused field became a garage, elementary school and finally a private residence. When William G. Stearns bought forty acres of the Ruggles-Fayerweather estate he hired the prolific local surveyor Alexander Wadsworth to lay out a residential subdivision.…

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Memories of the Huron Village

By Susan S. Poverman, April 2007 My family moved to Fayerweather Street in 1937 and, having no garage, arranged to keep our car in the Fayerweather Garage, which was on the property that became the Fayerweather Street School and is now the home of the Lander family. Someone picked up our car every evening and…

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The Huron Avenue Area: Development of a Streetcar Suburb

By Charles M. Sullivan, 2007 Huron Avenue is one of the newest neighborhoods in Cambridge, but it is intimately connected with one of the oldest. It is the sole example of the classic 19th century streetcar suburb in Cambridge, and owes its existence to another neighborhood’s rejection of that mode of transportation. The development of…

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Self-Guided Tour: Huron Village’s Modern Houses

Although Huron Village is dominated by houses dating from after the Civil War to the first quarter of the twentieth century, it is actually well furnished with what are still called “modern houses.” We say “Modern,” although the four following examples were built nearly a half century to three quarters of a century ago. Three were built as the architect’s own house or for his parents, a time-tested method of introducing a difficult new style into a neighborhood.

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