Magazine Beach

About 200 turned out at the park Tuesday night for a gorgeous evening of fun, fresh air, community, and, of course, music. Great full moon, too. Photos mostly by Bimal Nepal.

Make Music Boston is an international celebration of music. 800 cities, including Cambridge, participated yesterday!

Porch-i-oke leading a silly, delightful sing-a-long

A music lover with his dog

Envision Cambridge gathering feedback

Genevieve Holmes of Make Music Boston and our social media guru Chris Ward and friend

Slainte, playing great Irish tunes and more

Harmonica jam!

Best Ever Chicken+ playing not just bluegrass

Lots of kids, whizzing by, enjoying an evening at the park

Picnickers enjoying the longest day of the year!!!! And the music….

Noteflight introducing their musical composition software

Attention, all: Saturday Morning Yoga, with legendary Carol Faulkner, begins this Saturday, June 25th at 9am. Bring your yoga matt, and strap and block, if you’ve got them. Meet under the trees, near the pedestrian footbridge. Donations are welcome. AND, the pool opens this Saturday at 11am!

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See you at the park tonight–Tuesday, 5-8pm. Bring a hat and some water and relax into the longest day of the year at Magazine Beach!

Our 2016 Summer Program series kicks off next Tuesday night! Make Music Boston, a city-wide music festival, comes to Magazine Beach June 21, 5-8pm. (Raindate: Thursday, June 23). Best Ever Chicken will play bluegrass; Slainte, Irish music; and Porch-i-oke, groovy sing-a-long pop tunes from Lady Gaga to Johnny Cash.

Bring your harmonica and ukulele and play in mass jams with other musicians. Bring your instrument and a chair! Don’t have a harmonica? Come anyway and we’ll provide them. Noteflight will also share their composition software. It’s all FREE, FREE, FREE.

Foodtrucks! Port-o-potties. What more could you ask for? For more information, go to our Events page.

Saturday Morning Yoga starts June 25 @ 9am. The pool opens that day @ 11am. And Stories & Song begins  June 27 @ 10am. See you at the Beach!

The FREE swimming pool doesn’t open until Saturday, June 25th, but there’s a cool breeze along the river beckoning YOU…. All of these folks, and more, were relaxing at the park on Thursday.

I realize that I’m a little obsessed, but EVERY DAY the magazine is looking a little different. It is well worth a visit.

Clapboarding is up. Some windows are in. Metal doors are on. And sewage pipes are in, too.

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Over 100 Novartis volunteers were at the park yesterday cleaning brush, raking leaves, removing vines, gathering twigs, weeding gardens, picking up trash and painting picnic tables and benches. THANK YOU SO MUCH. And thanks to the Charles River Conservancy, for coordinating the event. Magazine Beach was one of 32 sites included in Novartis’ Community Partnership Day–about 2,700 employees helped out around the Cambridge and Boston.

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Remember, Powder Magazine Open House Saturday!

DCR’s Peter Seweryn will be there, May 14, 10-12 noon, to talk about the work going on. Things are happening and fast. Check it out! And enjoy the park while it’s looking so good. Tomorrow will be in the 70ies and sunny!

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Historic summit of DCR, Rep. Jay Livingstone, Senator-elect Joe Boncore, Taha Jennings of the City of Cambridge & the Magazine Beach Comm. at the Riverside Boat Club.

This morning we were lucky enough to have DCR’s Commissioner Leo Roy walk Magazine Beach, tour the Powder Magazine, and visit the Riverside Boat Club. With him were DCR’s Patrice Kish, Rick Corsi, Kevin Allen, Peter Seweryn and Nick O’Connors, all on the team to move the park forward. Thanks to you all!

(Sorry Taha and Joe, you missed the photo op!)

The Magazine’s old granite blocks are now being prepared for repointing.

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Thousands participated in the Charles River Earth Day Cleanup up and down the basin on Saturday, including at Magazine Beach. Many thanks to Bunker Hill Community College, Ray Street Alumni, the Riverside Boat Club and neighborhood volunteers for pitching in–picking up trash and sticks at the park. Among our finds: styrofoam cups, fishing lures, bottles and bottle caps, needles, a laptop and even an empty cremation urn (with ashes sprinkled along the beach). The latter was a first for the cleanup.

It was a gorgeous day and it felt good to working together with a common purpose: readying the park for long summer days of picnicking and swimming at the pool. The pool opens June 25th. Yoga returns to then, too!

Thank you, volunteers! Thank you, organizers: the Charles River Watershed Association and the Charles River Conservancy!

Many thanks to Cambridge aerating, adding 80 tons of sand topdressing, and then seeding the playing fields at the park this week. DPW’s Acting Superintendent of Parks & Forestry Dave Webster reported that he hopes to aerate it with solid tines every 6-8 weeks thereafter. Cambridge will aerate, topdress and seed in the fall, too, with the hopes of bringing up the fields to a much higher level.

Soccer players, if you want to see better fields at Magazine Beach, please try to stay off them for the next weeks.

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Central Cambridge Youth Baseball 2016 Season Begins!

Parents of girls and boys, ages 4-12, look for games at Magazine Beach from now to mid-June. The Nationals & Cardinals play Thursday (28) at 5:30pm; the Red Sox & Blue Jays, Friday (29) at 5:30pm; and the Nationals & Pirates, Saturday (30) at 12noon. For the full schedule and information about joining, go to: http://www.centralcambridge.org/home.

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Remember: Earth Day Cleanup is THIS SATURDAY, April 30th, 9-12noon. See you at the parking crescent at the foot of Magazine Street for work gloves, bags, water & brownies!