On Tuesday April 17, Ph.D student Chris Maio, Associate Professor Allen Gontz, and I (all from UMass Boston) conducted a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of Magazine Beach, under the supervision of Department of Conservation and Recreation archaeologist Ellen Berkland. We crisscrossed the park with the GPR equipment, creating a digital record of the layers of sediment that make up the park. 

We hope that studying the data from this survey will help us see what the area may have looked like before it was made into a park, when much of the area of Magazine Beach and the soccer and baseball fields was probably tidal mudflat. We have not yet analyzed the data, but it is clear from initial examination that the area has changed significantly due to human actions, and it will be interesting to map the park as it was a few hundred years ago, before these changes took place.

-Lars Anderas, masters student in Environmental Science at UMass Boston

Meet in front of the Riverside Boat Club. Goodies, drinks, work gloves,
t-shirts (for those who signed up for them), and garbage bags will all be there.

Organized by the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Riverside Boat Club, Charles River Conservancy and the Charles River Watershed Association

Photos from last June’s cleanup

We’re rethinking Magazine Beach and we need your ideas. Since the City of Cambridge purchased the area between the BU bridge and Riverside Boat Club in 1890s, the people of Cambridge have seen the park as a fabulous opportunity: 15 acres of open-space along the Charles River. Today it is only second in size to Danehy Park.

Working with residents and local businesses, we now hope to improve Magazine Beach. Please share your ideas by responding to this survey. Answers please by April 30th! (New deadline!)
Cathie Zusy, Board Member, Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association
Conrad Crawford, Director of Partnerships, Department of Conservation & Recreation

Yet few remain today. According to Tom Kolterjahn, a profusion of powder houses and powder magazines were built between 1800 and the 1820s to keep communities secure. Today powder houses survive in Beverly, Newburyport, and Amesbury, MA; Portsmouth, NH; and Fort McClary, and Hallowell, ME. There are also two older, 18^th-century powder houses in Somerville and Marblehead, MA. These structures come in many shapes and sizes.

Last month, a group of us met with Kolterjahn, a resident of Newburyport, who has helped to research and restore the 1822 powder house there. This small circular building on Godfrey’s Hill was built to store gun powder for the local militia. This was Newburyport’s third powder house. One had been located closer to the downtown district, until the town decided that public safety would be better served by a powder house on the town’s outskirts.

Stay tuned for further updates regarding the Cambridgeport powder magazine.  Marilyn Wellons and Nina Cohen are currently researching our building, which was erected along the Charles River—also far from settlement—in 1818.

All photographs, except the one of our powder magazine, are courtesy of Kolterjahn. Thank you Tom!

It seems like there’s always more to do in our parks!  The Charles River Conservancy was joined by 18 MIT students for a cleanup at Magazine Beach this past Saturday, Dec. 12th.  They raked dozens of bags of leaves, filling up an entire dumpster!  Students picked up trash and also fixed the tops of three picnic tables that were damaged and gave them a fresh coat of paint.  We want to say thank you to all the volunteers and organizations that help keep Magazine Beach accessible for everyone, especially Riverside Boat Club and Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association!

Danielle Stehlik
Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator
The Charles River Conservancy
4 Brattle St
Cambridge, MA 02138dms@thecharles.org
(617) 300-8173

www.thecharles.org

Over the past months, third grade art students at the Morse School in Cambridge have visited Magazine Beach, studied how designers represent park designs, and crafted colorful depictions of this currently derelict green space.

Aimee Kerr’s students have imagined community gardens, flowerbeds, skate parks, dog parks, tree houses, basketball and tennis courts, helicopter rides, a real beach with water slides, and lots of activity in and on the water: boating, swimming and fishing, too.

Many students have converted the 1818 Powder House into a café—one drawing pictures an All You Can Eat Café—serving all flavors of ice cream and hot chocolate, too. And they’ve added curving paths to the landscape and an outdoor movie theater behind the current pool.

Come see and admire these drawings, on view at Central Square’s at Bank of America, Cambridge Savings Bank and Toscanini’s, December 13-January 2, and help us to imagine a new, revitalized Magazine Beach. To share your own brilliant ideas for Cambridge’s second largest park, fill out this survey.

Thank you to Aimee Kerr and her amazing students for providing the artwork and to our local bankers and Tocanini’s for exhibiting it. This exhibit is organized by the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, which is partnering with the Department of Recreation and Conservation, Charles River Conservancy, and Riverside Boat Club to make Magazine Beach a place we want to go!

About fifty volunteers assisted at the Magazine Beach Cleanup on Sunday. Volunteers picked up trash, raked leaves, cut back brush, dug up trees and bushes growing into the Powder House and terrace foundations, and planted bulbs. The area has been transformed. The Cleanup was organized by the Charles River Conservancy, Riverside Boat Club and the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association.  Among those that participated were members of the Boston Rotaract Club and Harvard LASPAU.

Thank you to Danielle Stehlik, Christina  Antiporda, Renata von Tscharner and Lei, all from the CRC, for providing tools and leadership; to Ed Ballo and Kate Sullivan of the Riverside Boat Club for hosting the event; to Steve Sears of DCR for coordinating the trash and yard waste pick up; and to the many members of the Cambridgeport community who turned out to improve Magazine Beach.  We gathered about 30 bags of trash and 65 bags of yard waste and the park looks so much better! Check it out!

Cathie Zusy

For the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association

A Magazine Beach Clean Up!

Sunday, November 13^th, 9-12 noon

Let’s make Magazine Beach a place you want to go!

On September 12th the Cambridge City Council voted to approve the Community Preservation Act committee’s recommendations to allocate $25,000 towards a historic structure report and roof repair of the Powder House at Magazine Beach. The Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association has been advocating for this funding for the past several months. The CNA will now request a 2:1 match from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the guardians of the property. If DCR provides this there will be enough money to hire an architectural firm to study the Powder House and write a report about how best to preserve, repair, interpret and reuse the structure; and money to hire the North Bennet Street School Preservation Carpentry program to repair and reslate the roof. Work would begin on this now derelict 1818 granite structure as early as the spring of 2012.

Said CNA President Bill August, “the CNA is working towards the revitalization of Magazine Beach, Cambridge’s second largest park: fifteen green acres along the Charles River.” For further information and if you want to be put on the list for Powder House and Magazine Beach updates, contact Cathie Zusy at cathzusy@gmail.com.

Dear City Council Members,

Tonight you will be asked to approve the designation of CPA funds for various purposes. This includes dedicating $25,000 towards an historic structure report and the repair of the Powder House at Magazine Beach. I hope you will vote in favor of this appropriation. Below is my argument for it. The photos below are, however, perhaps, the strongest argument!

There is no question that repairing the roof to the 1818 granite Powder House at Magazine Beach is a good idea. It is a monumental structure that could be–if revived–the centerpiece of this 15-acre open green space along the Charles River, a heavily used, sorely needed urban park and natural refuge. The roof has been open and exposed to the elements for years. Repairing the roof will preserve the structure and an historic structure report will serve as a roadmap for future work on the building.

Why do this now? Because we have momentum. The Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association has been able to forge alliances with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Riverside Boat Club, the Charles River Conservancy, and working together, we have organized four Magazine Beach cleanups since November 14, 2010.

Appalled at the condition of the roof at the Powder House, the CNA raised $1,900 in four days!, (including $1,500 from the Cambridge Heritage Trust) to do a temporary fix of the roof in December 2010. 

In April 2011 the CNA received a grant from the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund to work with the community to revitalize Magazine Beach. A survey of users, local residents and businesses; a plan for the park; and a funding proposal will be the products of this grant.

The CNA held a community meeting about Magazine Beach in April 2011, featuring presenters from DCR and the Cambridge Historical Commission. Over fifty community members and many local and state politicians attended to show their support for improving Magazine Beach that very rainy night.

On June 10th two instructors of Preservation Carpentry at the North Bennet Street School, along with representatives of the Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge Historical Society, DCR and preservation architect David Torrey met at the Powder House to look at it inside and out and to see whether reroofing the structure might be an appropriate project for students at North Bennet Street to engage in. They are interested. North Bennet’s involvement in this project is a win win. North Bennet students would learn to stabilize a roof and reslate it for the cost, mostly of materials, greatly reducing the cost of this project WHILE ensuring top quality workmanship. (The North Bennet Street School has already worked on a number of DCR historic properties and DCR welcomes their involvement.)

In June 2011 David Torrey of Menders, Torrey & Spencer, developed a proposal to do an historic structure report of the Powder House. This proposal would review historical information relating to the Powder House, document the historic fabric of the building, and propose–with cost estimates–ways to adapt the building for a modern use. (Note: Frederick Law Olmsted converted the Powder House into a bath house in 1897.) This report would serve to guide the North Bennet Street School’s work on the Powder House and future revitalization efforts there.

The total cost for the proposed historic structure report is $23,000 and the estimated cost to repair the roof of the Powder House is $45,000. DCR has suggested that this project would qualify for a 2:1 matching grant. So the proposed CPA funding will provide essential seed money to stabilize and preserve the Powder House.

Please vote YES tonight and support the historic structure report and roof repairs for the Powder House at Magazine Beach. By partnering with our friends and neighbors, we are getting a lot of bang for our buck and work could start on the Powder House as early as the spring of 2012. Let’s fix the roof NOW!

Thank you for your consideration. I attach photos of the Powder House in its current state.

Cathie Zusy

Board Member, Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association