Magazine Beach

On Sunday, July 21^st , 2013, Riverside Boat Club held the annual Cromwell Cup regatta, hosting athletes of all ages from 33 clubs and 7 states. The Cromwell Cup honors Seymour Cromwell, (1934-1977), a 1964 Olympian and Riverside Boat Club member, and has been run by Riverside  members on the Powerhouse Stretch of the Charles River for over 20 years.

Though the Charles River is home to numerous collegiate sprint races, as well as the famous Head of the Charles Regatta (held annually the third weekend in October), the Cromwell Cup is the only sprint-length regatta held on the Charles River for youth, club, and adult athletes. The start of the race is near the Weeks Footbridge, and the finish line is 1000m downstream, across from Magazine Beach.

Cambridge Boat Club Junior Women win Jr. Women’s 8+, Photo Credit: Igor Belakovskiy

In 2013 over 270 boats were entered to win the coveted Cromwell Cup medals—awarded to the first place finisher in each event only. Riverside Boat Club entered 54 boats, and reported victories in the Women’s Open 8+, the Men’s Open 2x, the Junior Men’s 1x, the Men’s Masters 8+, the Men’s Masters 4+, the Men’s Masters 2x,  and the Men’s Masters 1x. The final notable victory was Riverside’s Kelly Woodacre, who won the inaugural Cutler Cup in the Open Women’s 1x, named in honor of long-time Riverside Member Bob Cutler (1913-2010). 

Kelly Woodacre being presented with the Cutler Cup, Photo Credit: Igor Belakovskiy

Kelly won in a time of 4:10.50, and was presented with her medal by Chris Cutler and Nat Coolidge, Bob’s son and son-in-law, respectively. Bob Cutler rowed at Harvard (class of ’35) before joining Riverside and qualifying for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Bob returned to Riverside where he continued to row well in to his eighties.

Riverside is the host to numerous rowing programs including men’s and women’s club teams, men’s and women’s pre-elite teams, junior competitive and learn-to-row programs, as well as adult recreational and competitive programs. In addition to Riverside’s regular club members, the building hosts the Brookline High School rowing team and the Simmons College rowing team.

Link to Cromwell Cup Results: https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/results/3255_5877.pdf

Riverside Boat Club, 769 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA

Eliza van Lennep, Regatta Director

Cromwell Cup 2012. Photo by Mason D. Cox.

The Cromwell Cup Regatta, named after Riverside Boat Club [RBC] member and 1964 Olympian Seymour Cromwell, is the largest summer regatta held on the Charles River. Attracting rowers of all ages and skill levels, this regatta is run entirely by RBC volunteers. In 2010, rowers from 39 clubs and representing eight states participated. This year Riverside expects over 600 men and women, ages 16-70+, from all over New England and the Mid Atlantic. This is a 1,000-meter race from the Weeks Bridge to the banks for the Riverside Boat Club.

History: The Riverside Boat Club was founded in 1869 by printers, many of them Irish and employed at The Riverside Press. Throughout it’s 140-year history, Riverside has emerged as the most successful rowing club in New England. Despite the shift of rowing’s role in the American and worldwide sporting scene, Riverside Boat Club has retained its commitment to making rowing available to working people. Today, even as Riverside maintains it’s tradition as a member-run non-profit organization for oarsmen and women of all economic backgrounds, it has once again emerged as an energetic rowing community and a competitive force in American rowing. (From www.riversideboatclub.com.)

RBC Membership: 275, National Team Athletes: 49

Thanks to the Community Action Partner Girls who cleaned up Magazine Beach July 11th. Photo by Danielle Stehlik of the CRC.

Marilyn Wellons shares the story of Captain’s Island during Discovery Days. Photo by Nina Cohen.

Left: Thanks to the Community Action Project Girls who cleaned up Magazine Beach July 11th! Photo by Danielle Stehlik.

Right: Marilyn Wellons shares the story of Captain’s Island during Discovery Days 2013. Photo by Nina Cohen.

Join historians Nina Cohen and Marilyn Wellons for a tour of “Captain’s Island, now known as Magazine Beach,” this Sunday, July 14 from 10:30-11:30am. Meet on the terrace of the powder magazine. For information about this and other Cambridge Discovery Day events, go to: www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/walks.html.

Nina and Marilyn at last summer’s tour of Captain’s Island. 

Publication Out About Magazine Beach: History on the Charles

At our June 15^th Celebration we debuted History on the Charles: The Story of Captain’s Island and its Powder Magazine, by Nina S. Cohen and Marilyn Wellons. This fascinating history is the result of over a year of primary research and study. A limited number of paper copies are available for $5 by contacting me at cathzusy@gmail.com. The 14-page booklet is also available on-line at http://www.magazinebeach.wordpress.com. Click on History. Thanks to Nina and Marilyn for their scholarship and to Michael Schaffer, Brian Conway and Sarah Morris for their design work and editing.

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If you want to feel good about the American family, don’t walk but run to Magazine Beach where you’ll find the Greenes, of course, and the Smiths, Jarvis, Mitchell, Simonis and Curtis Families—all old Cambridge families—celebrating the 4^th with a picnic and barbecue.

Nannette receives a welcoming kiss.

Shandra, of left, with family.

Birthday girl!

Three generations picnicking.

Nannette Simonis has come to Magazine Beach for over 40 years. Her daughter Shandra, age 33, has come all her life. Shandra, now of Malden, said “the 4^th is the one time everybody comes and I see the entire family—that’s why I like to be here.”

Nannette has organized the S/J/M/S & C reunion for the past 12 years. A family member was on site to mark off their spot, under the trees, at 5:30 am this morning. While the 4^th  is the main day the families gather, they’re often there other summer weekends to celebrate birthdays. Everyone brings some food. Nannette cooked her specialty, Buffalo Blasts, inspired by a Cheesecake Factory dish. Just imagine: bread  crumb and egg white covered wontons filled with chicken, cream cheese and blue cheese, topped off with Frank’s Hot Sauce. Delicious!

Families and students from Boston and all over the world were also at Magazine Beach. Next year, the picnickers asked for porta potties, since there was a long line to get into the bathhouse, and an hour on/off swim rotation at the pool so that everyone has a chance to cool off. Other requests were more trash cans, an open wading pool and mowed grass. (DCR tried to have the wading pool open for today but couldn’t get the chemicals balanced in time.)

Any other suggestions, picnickers? If so, contact me, Cathie, at cathzusy@gmail.com. (I’m the Chair of the Magazine Beach Committee of the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association. We’re working with DCR to make Magazine Beach a nicer park.)

Happy 4^th of July!

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Cool off at Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool (719 Memorial Dr.)! It is FREE and open daily, 11am – 7pm, through August 25.

Also, you can sign up for swim lessons for children ages 6 and up at the pool NOW. Classes will start this Monday, July 8^th, with one set at 10am and another at 10:30am. Sessions will be 3 or 4 weeks long; a second set of classes will start at the end of July or early August.

The water is exceptionally refreshing and what could be better than swimming outdoors on a hot, sunny day? Tip: go early or late for a quieter swim, as the local summer camps bring happy campers between 1 & 5pm each day. There is a designated lap lane, though, open at all times.

For more information about DCR swimming pools and spray decks, click here: http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/recreational-activities/swimming-pools-wading-pools-and-spray-deck.html

Right: DCR has moved most of the graffiti from the Powder Magazine. Thank you!

Left: Updated: The wading pool was cleaned out but DCR couldn’t get the wading pool to drain properly, so it remained closed.

BIG NEWS that hasn’t hatched quite yet: DCR has proposed that if the City of Cambridge is willing to allocate $100,000 of Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to stabilize the Powder Magazine, that they would be willing to pay for the balance of the cost to fix the roof, re-point the masonry and restore the windows and doors. DCR would also bring electrical service to the building to power much needed security lighting there. The CPA Committee will meet this summer to consider funding proposals and will present recommendations to the City Council for approval in September. Cross your fingers! (In the meantime, we should hear if DCR will match the funds we’ve raised so far any day.)

Young girl swings with her dad, Ron Phelan.

Bluegrass by Best Ever Chicken!

Community at the park.

Enjoying the day. White figures cleansing the magazine in background.

A gentleman from 1812 with Kit Rawlins of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Researchers and writers Marilyn Wellons and Nina Cohen debuted their “History on the Charles.”

Learn-to-row at the Riverside Boat Club!

One of several If this park could talk… signs. This one tells how popular Magazine Beach was as a swimming destination.

Food trucks AND our soon-to-be State Rep. Jay Livingstone, both at Magazine Beach for the first time ever. History!

Danielle Suave’s “Light, No Light”

Looking through the magazine and installation to the river.

Community performance orchestrated by Nancy Adams. (See video below.)

Children’s procession

Happy to be outside and painted!

Festive procession of children

What could be more fun than riding through puddles!

A gorgeous day at the Beach. The flags mark the shoreline of Captain’s Island.

Artforming installation in 1818 magazine

Over 200 turned out for the 2013 Celebration of Magazine Beach on Saturday, June 15, many of whom had never spent a day in the park. Highlights were:

• A procession of children, with two big bouquets of balloons, across the fields;
• Food trucks for the first time ever! And Ice cream and drinks courtesy of Toscanini’s and Trader Joe’s;
• Bluegrass by Best Ever Chicken;
• Thirty women and girls dressed in white assembled over time around the facade of of the magazine to gently brush away loose dirt, dust, and dried vines. The event was a practical and symbolic gesture of care for the nearly two hundred year-old structure destined for restoration and a future of peaceful and joyous gatherings (organized by Nancy Adams; see Ron’s Wyman’s film below: http://vimeo.com/69414298);
• The powder magazine opened up, with an amazing view of the river and art installations using fabric, sound and light inside evoking memories and meditation by Artforming and Danielle Sauvé;
• Blue flags marking the shoreline of Captain’s Island (Ross Miller, Lars Anderas and David Craft)
• White lines marking Magazine Street as it extended once to the magazine—hence its name! (Thank you DPW!);
• Dozens learning-to-row at the Riverside Boat Club;
• A new publication about the site and powder magazine there: History on the Charles, by Nina S. Cohen and Marilyn Wellons (contact cathzusy@gmail.com for a copy: $5);
• A table with maps, information about the site and information about our efforts to stabilize the powder magazine and revitalize the park (Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Cambridge Historical Commisison and Cambridge Historical Society);
• Kite flying and races and games for children organized by CR&L students;
• If this park could talk signs… sharing stories about swimming at Magazine Beach, recent efforts to improve the water quality there, and that it could have been an Olmsted Brothers park, etc.;
• And who would have known it would be such a big hit: a huge puddle in the sunken parking lot for children to bicycle through (thank you, Mother Nature!);
• Neighbors talking to neighbors, enjoying themselves, the vistas and the breeze and imagining the possibilities of the park. The space was activated. Who would have known such a resources and refuge existed just across Memorial Drive, along the banks of the Charles River?

Thanks to the many who made this event happen, including out partners: the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation, Charles River Conservancy, Riverside Boat Club, the Cambridge Historical Commission, the Cambridge Historical Society, Gallery 263, UMass Boston and Artforming, and to our funders: the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, Charles River Conservancy, Forest City and Anonymous.

Cathie Zusy, Chair Magazine Beach Committee, Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Inc.

Blue flags will mark the shoreline of Captain’s Island–yes, until 1894 there was an island there–and white paint will mark Magazine Street as it extended, long ago, to the powder magazine. Magazine Street was, in fact, a State-maintained road on which gun powder was transported to the 1818 magazine: a secure granite-block building surrounded by a foot-wide brick wall that stored powder for the militia and private use. In the 1890s the marsh land was filled in to create the current footprint of Magazine Beach Park.

Magazine Beach park as it once was. Detail from a Plan of Cambridgeport Parish, by Peter Tufts, Jr., Surveyor and Powder Magazine Keeper, 1824. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Come to our Celebration on Saturday, June 15, 12-5pm, for a picnic to the bluegrass tunes of Best Ever Chicken; a festive procession of children and activities for them, too; learn-to-row at the Riverside Boat Club; and lots of ART. There will be a sound and light installation about memory in the magazine, a community performance that may include as many as 50 participants around the structure, and If this park could talk… signs all over the place. Food trucks, too!

Join us: It’s all free. Organized by the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Inc., DCR, Charles River Conservancy, Riverside Boat Club, Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge Historical Society, Gallery 263, and UMassBoston.

Funded by: New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, Charles River Conservancy, Forest City and Anonymous

See our gorgeous poster! Mag Bach poster.final, small. pdf

Featured in the Saturday, June 15th Celebration of Magazine Beach Park are the works of three established area artists: installations by Artforming and by Danielle Sauve, and a performance by Nancy Adams.  All three works will be within or immediately outside the 1818 Powder Magazine building and draw inspiration from and interpret it’s history and influence on this point along the Charles River and in the larger arena. Below are their descriptions.

n-Gon  –  Artforming –  (installation, in the Powder Magazine main space, noon-5pm)

A site specific collaboration between Rob Trumbour and Aaron Willette of Artforming and composer and musician Jon Sakata that explores an ephemeral mapping of the memory and the latent potential of place through sonic archaeologies and evolving spatial compositions.  (www.artforming.org)

Light – No Light  (As I read the stones)  –  Danielle Sauve  –  (installation, in the Powder Magazine north addition, noon-5pm)

The installation focuses on idea of palimpsest inscribed in the material quality of the building.  Porosity, layering and absorption of (hi)stories, becomes the topic of my installation.  Light – No Light aims to illuminate and cast shadows at this turning point in the history of the Magazine. (www.daniellesauve.net)

Unsubscribe  –  Community performance organized by Nancy Adams  –  (outside the Powder Magazine building, 1pm) 

Women and girls from throughout the community will gather quietly around the facade of the former gunpowder magazine gently restoring and reclaiming the site. (Nancy was the co-director of the Boston-based alternative art center Mobius.)

See our gorgeous poster! Mag Bach poster.final, small. pdf

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The pool won’t open until Saturday, June 29th, but there’s a cool breeze along the Charles…