This weekend was magical at the park–with many picnickers, swimmers and dancers. Next Bachata dance class: Sunday, August 25, 6-8pm. FREE, courtesy of Magazine Beach Partners!
This coming week, Mass Audubon will host preschool story time, summer night paddling, nature detectives, an animal & ice cream social and, on Friday, August 2, a Pan in the Park Jamboree! This festival will feature Afro-Caribbean steel drumming, food and crafts. For more info, click here or here. Remember, the pool is open through August 18. Swim there while you can…
Update: DCR says declared the heat wave is officially over! Mag. Beach pool will close at 6:45pm tonight, Thursday. It’s open 11:15am-6:45pm, daily.
Because of the high heat, DCR will keep the Magazine Beach Pool open for an extra hour tonight: Tuesday, July 17. It will close at 7:45pm! And the spraydeck will be open until 9pm! The park is an amazing place to retreat to on hot summer days. With its river breeze and old shade trees, it’s 10 degrees cooler. And we’ve just set out many more red Adirondack chairs…
Thanks to the Charles River Conservancy and 2seventy bio, who did a big cleanup of the park today, painting out graffiti, pulling out invasives, and picking up trash. Tomorrow, Youth Enrichment Services (Y.E.S.) will be at the park, as well. This will make all the difference.
Over the past week, Magazine Beach Partners has organized two history walks of the park: one for Walk Boston and another one, with Grace McCabe of DCR and historian Nina Cohen, about the Powder Magazine. It’s hot, but not too hot for history!
So many great programs are happening at Mass Audubon’s Nature Center. Coming soon: Nature Detectives, Riverside Naturalists, Bird Walks, Sound Bowl Vibe Meditations and Summer Paddling. Go here or here for more info.
Update: DCR has extended pool hours during the heat wave! The pool will now be open until 7:45pm. For how long, we don’t know…
The FREE Olympic-sized swimming pool is open and will be open daily, 11:15-6:45pm, through August 18. The spraydeck is open 8am-8pm daily. Come cool off at the park! DCR won’t be hosting swim lessons, alas, but the pool is hosting lap swimming from 11:15-12:15pm, Monday-Friday.
Now that it’s summer, Mass Audubon’s drop-in Nature Center will be open Monday-Friday, 3-7pm and weekends 12-7pm. For a list of (mostly free) summer programs, go here.
Many thanks to the Charles River Conservancy for recent cleanups and invasive weeding at the park. It’s looking great and the red Adirondack chairs are out. Come picnic, stroll, lounge, commune, splash & exercise.
Update from DCR: Work on Phase II-2 (turning the sunken parking lot between the pool and river into a grassy beach) won’t begin until 2025 because of permitting delays. More as we know more.
Remember, it’s 10 degrees cooler at the park with the river breeze and old shade trees. Lots of people were gathering there tonight: enjoying the spraydeck, picnicking, reading and playing soccer, frisbee and football. Young kids working out, too, with their dads… It’s cool at Magazine Beach!!!!
Note: The FREE Olympic-sized pool will be open June 22-August 18, 11:15am-6:45pm, daily. Ask pool staff about swimming lessons and lap swimming!
Ruby the turtle, art, seed planting, face painting, music and a race are all at Magazine Beach today. And many are just enjoying this spectacular day.
Come check out Mass Audubon’s first 2024 Nature in the City festival (until 5pm). Or just take a walk, a run, a picnic, a read, or a pull up. Note: The pedestrian footbridge is closed. Cross over Memorial Drive at Brookline St. or at the BU Rotary.
Great turnout today in the rain for the CRC & CRWA Earth Day Cleanup with so many volunteers from Cambridge Running Club, Davidson College, Riverside Boat Club, the University of Florida and neighbors, too. Thank you, all!
The park is clean and with its spring blossoms and Mass Audubon’s Nature Center open weekends, ready for visiting.
See photos below. Any thoughts about what Liam’s mystery object is or what purpose it served? He found it along the shoreline. It is by far the most beautiful object we’ve found on a river cleanup. Update: Friend and sailor Jamie Frankel has identified it as a cowl/air scoop, part of a boat. (Thanks, Jamie!) What is that, you might ask. Google says:
Some of the heat from these exhaust gases will transfer to the engine bay. A cowl vent, however, will help to reduce heat buildup. It will allow fresh air to enter the engine bay, thus protecting the engine bay from excessively hot temperatures.
Take note: Mass Audubon’s first 2024 Nature in the City Festival is NEXT Saturday, April 27, 12-5pm. Learn more about this program and others at the park here.
With the longer, warmer days, the foliage will soon be bursting out at the park. Already dogs are rolling in the grass and people are out reading, playing soccer, cycling, running and using the outdoor gym.
This Saturday Mass Audubon will host a Woodcock Walk 6:30-8pm, for adults and kids, ages 10 and up. FREE. And parents, they’ll be hosting a paid program, 4 sessions of Afternoons Outside: River Ramblers for 6-10 year olds, starting this Wednesday, 3.20. To register and see more information go here.
Update on Phase II-2:
DCR now says that construction (turning the sunken parking lot between the pool and the river into a grassy beach) will begin in September. In the meantime, Magazine Beach Partners is pushing for more trees and native wildflowers. We have lost so many trees over the past year due to severe weather!
In 2023, Magazine Beach Partners was so grateful to DCR for
a new pool and exercise area at the park!
preparing to send Phase II-2 out to bid and working to eliminate the invasive Japanese knotweed along the shoreline in preparation, and
most recently, removing the many fallen limbs and branches.
In 2024, we look forward to
Phase II-2 construction beginning (turning the sunken parking lot between the pool and the river into a grassy beach and adding a dock and outlook)
planting more trees
adding more stones at the canoe/kayak launch, and
posting our interpretive markers!
We are well aware that Magazine Beach is 17 acres of the State’s portfolio of almost 500,000 acres. We’re thrilled for their attention at the park. It is a living tapestry.
We are also so grateful to Mass Audubon and the Charles River Conservancy for their partnership. Go here, to learn about Mass Audubon’s upcoming programs: Wildlife Tracking (1.13) Bird Walk (1.20), and Nature Detectives (1.25). And. thank you, the CRC, for organizing 12 clean ups at the park in 2023! Finally, thanks to all of you who volunteered at the park (picking up trash and putting so many sticks in piles!) or donated to Magazine Beach Partners and our partners!
Working together, we get things done! Look for our annual report here by early February. See photos of late December storm damage below.
Last Saturday, artist Zhonghe (Elena) Li unveiled her “The Dragon that Inhabits the Charles River,” a 9-meter-long paper cut dragon at Mass Audubon’s nature center. The artwork is in the shape of the lower Charles river and includes people and and living things in and along the river. For more info and better images go here or here.
In ancient Chinese mythology dragons inhabit major rivers. According to Li’s website, they also symbolize water, weather and the power of the Tao (nature). This hand-cut artwork was mostly funded by a grant from Cambridge Arts and supported by Mass Audubon, the Mass Cultural Council and the Foundry.
Tomorrow is the last day of the season for the Nature Center. However, Mass Audubon has MANY programs planned through the spring, including: bird watching, preschool nature detectives, wildlife tracking and tree ID. And when snow falls, they’ll be adding programs: snowshoeing, wildlife tracking and snow shelter building. Check here or here for listings.
Many thanks to the this year’s Powder Magazine Nature Center Site Manager Mateo Schwartz-Torres, to Mass Audubon’s Cambridge Community Education Coordinator Paul Kelley, and to all the naturalists.
Mateo, storyteller Yumi & PaulNaturalist Rob Riman
It was a perfect day for Mass Audubon’s last 2023 Nature in the City Festival. There was live music, scary Halloween decorations, nature and art activities, and a corn snake.
More great programs are just ahead: A River Dragon Art Showcase, Community Open Mic, Nature Detectives and a Sound Bowl Vibe Session. For more info, click here.
Many were hanging out at the park and just soaking in the last warm rays of summer (in late October!). And there was a wedding. Congrats to the happy couple!
Also this past week: The Morse School Marathon, with hundreds of energetic kids running around the park, many times…
Magazine Beach 