whighlander
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2006
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Mike, you're preaching to the choir. I love East Cambridge and have really fond memories of it growing up. My uncle Joe Santos had a restaurant for decades at the NW corner of 7th and Cambridge Street, and I lived in the early 1950s at the SW corner of Fulkerson and Otis Street, and east of there a block or two before that. East Cambridge was the epitome of what an urban neighborhood should be: vibrant, diverse, a mix of small stores, houses, row houses, apartments, restaurants, bars, churches, schools; everything within walking distance, even a light rail line nearby at Lechmere. I remember the Catholic procession for Mary parading by our apartment in May, with all the dollar bills attached to the float, the old Italian and Portuguese men sitting with their incredibly shiny shoes on the benches along Cambridge Street where the public library is now, the Clydesdale horses coming up the street by our house from the Budweiser brewery to the south, the old carts pulled by horses selling various things, the stores and shops along Cambridge Street, and the small corner stores on my street. So many wonderful memories, I could go on and on. It will always be the best place I've ever lived in.
Charlie, Mike -- this should be reserved for residents and sometime-residents of East Cambridge -- it can kind of be our private "speak-easy" site
Baltic Bakery -- South side of Cambridge St. almost at 6th
Antranig Pasha -- SW corner of Cambridge & 6th
my father's sister and later my cousin owned a structure which amalgamated a couple of 3deckers [20 years apart in vintage] into one building on block of 6th between Cambridge and Otis
my summer nights while I was an MIT undergrad were spent in that house on 6th -- one night I was awakened by a fire across the street -- so close that the curtains in my room got smoked if not singed -- that's the downside of dense urban living
My only criticism of Mike's nostalgia trip -- in addition to the Liths and the Baltic Bakery [best rye bread I ever bought in the US] there was a substantial Polska contingent in East Cambridge as well:
a Polish funeral home on Cambridge St
St. Hedwig Church [founded in 1909] on Otis St [destroyed by the 1938 Hurricane and rebuilt in 1940 -- finally turned off in 1995 and now its been converted into some fancy condos] -- just down Otis Street from the much larger Irish parish of Sacred Heart on the corner of 6th
and a parish school part on Otis and part on Charles with a peak enrollment of 717 in 1927
and the Polish American Club [officially Polish American Citizens Association 747 Cambridge St, -- just west of the Grand Junction tracks near Cardinal Medeiros St]
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