Magazine Beach

It was a gorgeous Memorial Day at Magazine Beach with families and friends from Cambridge, Quincy, Somerville, Malden and Boston all picnicking and savoring the warmth, rays and community.

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Postcard postmarked Sept. 29, 1906. Gift of Mrs. Paul R. Lawrence, Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

2013 Celebration of Magazine Beach Park

Saturday, June 15, 12-5pm (rain location: Riverside Boat Club)

Tentative Program:

12 noon–  Festive procession of children (across the field)

12-2pm–  Picnic to the bluegrass tunes of Best Ever Chicken! (behind swimming pool)

1pm–  Performance by Nancy Adams and collaborators (Powder Magazine terrace)

1-5pm, ongoing

• Interpretative art installation inspired by and about memories of Magazine Beach by artists Rob Trumbour of ArtForming and Danielle Sauvé (within Powder Magazine)
• Land markings showing the former shoreline of Captain’s Island

• “If this park could talk…” signs that highlight notable stories about the building and the park
• Learn-to-row lessons (Riverside Boat Club)

Bring your whole family! Bring a picnic! Stay tuned for updates…. Questions? Contact cathzusy@gmail.com.

ALSO, be sure to read the Cambridge Chronicle‘s 5.23 article: “Magazine Beach’s Powder House To Get a Facelift.”

Take a walk to the shores of Magazine Beach. The river herring are jumping and swimming upstream to spawn—a sign of both spring and of a cleaner, healthier Charles River. In 2011, the Charles River Watershed Association won the International Riverprize for their cleanup of the Charles. See: http://crwa.org/releases/2011/riverprize.html

Regarding the herring run: “Each spring, millions of river herring migrate into Massachusetts’ coastal water to begin their natural trek up dozens of our coastal streams and rivers. They are returning to the place of their birth, to spawn and create a new generation of river herring.” From A Guide to Viewing River Herring in Coastal Massachusetts:

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dmf/publications/river_herring_viewing_guide.pdf

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Thanks for your Cleanup, Novartis!

On May 10^th , 70 employees from Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research volunteered at Magazine Beach.  They raked leaves, picked up sticks, collected trash, and mulched and weeded the garden in front of the pool. This is the 2^nd year Novartis has done a major cleanup at the site. Fabulous.

Thanks are also due to the Charles River Conservancy for organizing the event and to DCR for the mulch and trash and compost removal.

More Good News: Grant #3 from the NEGEF!

We just learned that we received another grant from the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund. Thank you, NEGEF, for your support and mentoring!

SAVE THE DATE:  Saturday, June 15, 12-5pm, for our 2013 Celebration of Magazine Beach

This year’s event will feature a picnic, a procession of children (as butterflies and birds), music, art, performance, learn-to-row lessons, too! More about this soon.

Even More News…

Magazine Beach Booth at the 5.18 Central Square World’s Fair

A model citizen picks up trash and deposits it in one of the NEWLY PLACED trash cans in the park.

Last night the team who are just completing the Historic Structure Report for the 1818 Powder Magazine presented their findings and offered ideas for the building’s next use. To see the presentation, go to: http://www.mass.gov/dcr/news/publicmeetings/parklandspast.htm

Big News: DCR reported that the Historic Structure Report (HSR) will be released by the end of this month; and the roof repair design will be completed, reviewed, and ready for bid by the end of July.  So the old-granite block building at Magazine Beach Park will have a new roof by 2014 and, possibly, sooner.

DCR’s Director of Cultural Resources Patrice Kish, who is leading this project, introduced partners Charles Sullivan of the Cambridge Historical Commission and Cathie Zusy of the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association. Working together, the three groups are working to stabilize the Magazine.

The HSR provides a road map for moving forward. It documents the historical development of a building; identifies significant historical features; determines preservation priorities; and provides prioritized treatment recommendations.

Historical researcher Nina Cohen shared the social history of the building, including discussion of:

• The need to store gunpowder in a secure location far from settlement;
• The need for strict rules regarding its storage and transport;
• The high pay Keeper Peter Tufts received;
• The removal of powder from the Magazine in the 1860s and its becoming a ruin, thanks in part to young boys who scavenged copper nails there, contributing to the roof’s collapse;
•  The conversion of the building into a bathhouse for Magazine Beach bathers in 1899, when it was a popular river swimming beach.

Building sleuth William Finch spoke about how the building has changed over time, with variations in walls, roofs, windows and doors as the space transformed from storage facility, to ruin, bathhouse, renovated bathhouse, storage shed and maintenance shed.

Architect Steve McAlister then explained why the old granite building was significant—that it was on the National Register of Historic Places and one of the oldest and most important buildings in the Charles River Basin Historic District.

The HSR proposes that the building be renovated to its 1919 appearance, when a roof was added to the northern addition to the bathhouse to cover showers, toilets, an office, and an area for swimsuit and towel rentals. Full drawings exist for this period and it allows us to keep the addition of the building and the windows and doors, allowing light into what was once a very dark structure.

Possible uses for the building include:

• stabilizing the building as an historic feature of the park, with no use;
• using it as a DCR operations support building;
• rehabilitating it as an interpretative center;
• leasing it to a 3^rd party vendor, possibly as a concession, meeting area (for art, craft and programs), and/or rentals (for bikes and boats).

Once completed, the HSR will be posted on the DCR’s website. Paper copies of it will also be available at the Cambridge Historical Commission and at the Central Square and Main Branch of the Cambridge Public Library.

DCR’s Director of Partnerships Conrad Crawford closed the meeting, welcoming further collaboration.

DCR’s Patrice Kish, and neighbors Eric and Lauren Spengler and Marty Blatt, discuss next uses for the powder magazine.

About 50 adults, children and dogs stopped by the Powder Magazine to look inside and imagine what its next use might be on Saturday, despite the weather. Among the ideas shared for the space were:

Restaurant—seasonal—looking out onto an improved tot lot, with ice cream and cold drinks

Boathouse—kayaks, canoes, rowboats and sailboats (whatever floats!)

Community art space (performances, gallery and gardens)

Art studio

Indoor/outdoor exercise and fitness and equipment rentals for fields

Many thanks to DCR’s Patrice Kish for organizing this event and to Marilyn Wellons and Nina Cohen for being there to share the story of the building and site.

Remember to come to the Morse School (40 Granite St.) auditorium this Thursday, May 16 at 6:30pm for the presentation of the social and architectural history of the 1818 powder magazine and discussion of its next use. Learn about the rich history of the building and site and share your thoughts for it!

Note: Our open house was part of DCR’s celebration of Preservation Month. Go to www.mass.gov/dcr to read about other events being held all over the State! This year’s theme is “Stories in Stone.”

Please join us at the Powder Magazine from 12-3:30pm today, Saturday, May 11. We will be there UNTIL/IF it starts raining heavily. So come early!

Patrice Kish of DCR, historians Nina Cohen and Marilyn Wellons, and I will all be there. It will be a great opportunity to look around, learn about the building and site, and to share you ideas for the next use of the building. Also why not share your Magazine Beach memories?

Powder Magazine Open House

Saturday, May 11, 2013 12:00-3:30pm

at Magazine Beach Park (Memorial Drive, Cambridge)

As part of Preservation Month, DCR will open our 1818 Powder Magazine for touring! From the DCR brochure:

DCR’s Magazine Beach is named after the historic Powder Magazine located on the shore of the Charles River. Built in 1818 for storage of gunpowder for the Massachusetts Militia, the building was converted into a bathhouse as part of the Olmsted plan for Magazine Beach in 1899. Vacant and underutilized for many years, DCR is now partnering with the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association on a Historic Structures Report which will guide the building’s long term preservation. Local historians will be on hand to share the rich history of the Powder Magazine with visitors.

Also: As one of the state’s oldest and most active preservation organizations, DCR is steward to 12,000 years of human history, nearly a half million acres of land, and 2,000 cultural resources including 100+ National Register-listed properties and 8 National Historic Landmarks. Visit our website to see the complete DCR Preservation Month program http://www.mass.gov/dcr/.

_________

Public Meeting on Draft Historic Structure Report for the Powder Magazine

at Magazine Beach

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 6:30 – 8:00pm

in the Morse School Auditorium (40 Granite Street, Cambridge)

At this public meeting, DCR, the City of Cambridge Historical Commission, and the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association will present, and solicit public input on, a Draft Historic Structures Report for the Powder Magazine at Magazine Beach in Cambridge.  This report will guide future capital improvements and reuse of the structure.

If you have questions about the public meeting, please call 617-626-4974 or email DCR.Updates@state.ma.us.

Cathie Zusy, Dick Garver, Senator Anthony Petruccelli, and Marge Amster at Magazine Beach today. Renata von Tscharner of the Charles River Conservancy also joined us.

We had a great meeting with Senator Anthony Petruccelli at Magazine Beach today. It was sunny and warm and many had gathered at the park to celebrate the day. We walked the grounds and talked about the history of the site and its great potential. Why not have a beautiful fifteen-acre park along the Charles River in Cambridge?

Next week we will meet with DCR’s Commissioner Edward Lambert, Jr., Mayor Henrietta Davis, and our Deputy City Manager Richard Rossi in Senator Petruccelli’s office. To figure out: how to actualize this green resource. Certainly, we can do it if we work together. Below are photos of the park today, with a focus on flaws—all very correctible!

Thank you to Sen. Petruccelli, Comm. Lambert, Deputy City Manager Rossi, and Mayor Davis for making improvements at Magazine Beach a priority.

Sunken pavement that could be a great lawn.

A dead play structure.

A broken wading pool.

An historically significant building with holes in the roof and lots of graffiti.

A wall of vegetation that blocks all visual access to the river. (I took this photo last week before the cleanup. Thank goodness for the cleanup. The biggest complaint about Magazine Beach is the trash that is everywhere. Since there are no trash cans out at the park, it is already refilling with litter.)

Trees that need pruning.

Picnic tables and benches in need of repair.

Area 4 Junior Youth Empowerment Program ready for action.

There was great energy at the Earth Day Magazine Beach Cleanup yesterday, with over 60 volunteers at work making the place look much better. Thanks to the Area 4 Junior Youth Empowerment Program, the Riverside Boat Club, the Charles River Conservancy, the CRLS students, the many neighborhood folks, and Starbucks volunteers who assisted. Thanks are also due to DCR for whisking the trash away and for fixing several of the benches in the park!

Starbucks, thanks for sponsoring the cleanup and providing the hot coffee, t-shirts, and Starbucks Community Volunteers. Thanks also to the Charles River Watershed Association, who organize the overall, whole Charles River, Earth Day Cleanup. Our event was part of the larger one, which draws thousands of volunteers each April to clean up the riverbanks.

Along with liquor bottles, broken glass, cans, bottle caps and cigarette butts, we found a lot of strange things, including:  a man’s formal black shoe, a trench coat, a frying pan, a big bike lock, a corded telephone, hubcaps, headphones, VHS cassettes, and the plate from dumbbell…

We couldn’t have had a more beautiful day!

Youth empowerment in action!

Carl, one of Magazine Beach’s regulars, cleans up around the powder magazine.

Hibih and Sophia from CRL in the bush. Lots of trash there…

DCR at work fixing benches.

All the way from Dorchester, this group helped us last year, too!

Andy and David and but one of our trash mounds.

Some guys will go to extra lengths to remove litter.

Brian Campbell triumphant.

Cambridgeport neighbor Brian Campbell trash proud.

Over 60 volunteered. Thanks to Starbucks for sponsoring our event.

Niles and fellow rower from the Riverside Boat Club, also triumphant.

CNA Board Member Olivia Fiske and DCR’s Director of Partnerhips Conrad Crawford, both at the park, pitching in.