Magazine Beach

Today’s Earth Day Cleanup postponed due to Friday’s lockdown–If you haven’t already, please sign up TODAY for the Saturday, April 27th, 9-12noon, Earth Day Cleanup. This year, Starbucks is partnering with us at Magazine Beach and it’s likely that they’ll sponsor us per volunteer. So your volunteering will help us twice: once with the park cleanup and a second time with a possible corporate donation.

Signing up is a 2-step process. Please persevere. We need you!

1. Register as a community volunteer at: community.starbucks.com.

2. Register for the event, itself: http://community.starbucks.com/groups/charles-river-earth-day-cleanup-at-magazine-beach

Meet us in front of the Riverside Boat Club on Saturday morning. The Charles River Conservancy will provide gloves, tools and assignments. Hoping for a beautiful, sunny day…

This is where and when it all started. The CNA organized its first cleanup of Magazine Beach with partners the CRC and RBC in November 2010! We’ve come a long way since then.

Earth Day Cleanup–Please remember to sign up TODAY for the Saturday, April 20th, 9-12noon, Earth Day Cleanup. This year, Starbucks is partnering with us at Magazine Beach and it’s likely that they’ll sponsor us per volunteer. So your volunteering will help us twice: once with the park cleanup and a second time with a possible corporate donation.

Signing up is a 2-step process. Please persevere. We need you!

1. Register as a community volunteer at: community.starbucks.com.

2. Register for the event, itself: http://community.starbucks.com/groups/charles-river-earth-day-cleanup-at-magazine-beach

Meet us in front of the Riverside Boat Club on Saturday morning. The Charles River Conservancy will provide gloves, tools and assignments. So far 15 people have volunteered to assist. We’ll need at least 5 more to qualify for Starbucks funds, so PLEASE sign-up today.

HSR Presentation and Powder Magazine Open House–Coming soon: May dates for a public meeting presentation of the Historic Structure Report for our 1818 Powder Magazine, and an open house for it, too.

Small Powder Magazine Exhibit at the Cambridge Public Library–A key to the powder magazine and the historic photo, “The Old Magazine,” will both be on view on the 2^nd floor of the Main Library until April 15. Check it out! See CPL Archivist Alyssa Pacy’s blog posts about it here and here, too.

Donations, Please–Many thanks to all who have contributed to the stabilization of this historic structure. About 100 neighbors have donated so far. We’ve raised almost $10,000 that we’re hoping DCR will match 2:1. If you haven’t made your tax-deductible contribution yet, please do. Send a check made out to “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Inc.” (note: for powder magazine stabilization) to: CNA Treasurer Jay Shetterly at 127 Magazine St., Cambridge, MA 02139.

We Need Contributions of Talent, Too–We are grateful for the outpouring of support to revitalize Magazine Beach. How can you help? We need assistance with grant writing, social media, graphic design, photography, editing, etc. Please let me know: Cathie Zusy, CNA Board Member, cathzusy@gmail.com or 617-868-0489.

Don’t forget to Like us on Facebook!– www.facebook.com/magazinebeach

That’s it for now….

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Thank you to the seventy or so who joined us Sunday evening at Decia Goodwin and Brian Conway’s for a very upbeat fundraiser featuring DCR’s Director of Cultural Resources, Patrice Kish; The Cambridge Historical Commission’s Ex. Director Charles Sullivan; Cambridge’s Director of Community Planning, Stuart Dash; and historic building expert Bill Finch, who’s working on the historic structure report for the powder magazine.  The presenters shared a rendering of the powder magazine as we think it was originally and of what it could be come next. Sullivan also shared a newly discovered image of the 1818 powder magazine—without roof—found in the Cambridge Historical Society collection. Let us stabilize the building and fix the roof before the structure is reduced to a ruin once more!

The Old Magazine, 1890s
Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Society, Old Cambridge Photographic Club Collection

Recent CRLS graduate Augie Cummings debuted his five-minute film, “Magazine Beach,” starring Cambridge historians Marilyn Wellons and Nina Cohen and landscape architect Bertha Pantoja. The film, just below, presents the history of Magazine Beach and it possibilities. Thank you to the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund for funding this project.

What a lovely gathering of community around a cause—to make improvements to our local park. We’re starting first with the powder magazine. Sullivan has said it is the oldest and possibly the most significant building on the Charles River Basin.

It’s not too late to make a donation. Send checks to CNA Board Member Olivia Fiske at 131 Magazine St., #2, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Photographs of the party by Mason D. Cox.

Save these dates:

PARTY! Sunday, March 24, 5-7pm

Decia Goodwin and Brian Conway (175 Chestnut St.) will host a fundraiser to restore the historic powder magazine at Magazine Beach: the first step to revitalizing the park. Join us for wine, hors d’oeuvres and good conversation along with updates on the historic structure report and the debut of Cambridgeport’s own Augie Cummings’ film “Magazine Beach.” $35 per person. Make checks out to the “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, Inc.,” noting: “for powder magazine restoration.”  Mail them to CNA Board Member Olivia Fiske at 131 Magazine St., Cambridge, MA 02139.

Sign up NOW for the Earth Day Cleanup, Saturday, April 20, 9am-12noon

The 14th annual Earth Day Cleanup is less than a month away. To register, click here. This year, Starbucks is partnering with us at Magazine Beach. It’s likely that they’ll sponsor us per volunteer, so by participating, you will be helping us twice: once with the cleanup and a second time with a possible corporate donation. Thank you, you, and thank you, Starbucks!

Public Meeting to Present Historic Structure Report for the Powder Magazine and to Discuss Potential Reuse Options, TBD, in late April or early May

The Historic Structure Report is being finalized and DCR will be scheduling a meeting in late April or early May to present findings to the community and to discuss potential reuse options. Stay tuned!

Last Monday, as a “park expert,” I presented our project to 5^th graders in Sarah Baszto’s class at the Cambridgeport School. As part of an expeditionary learning project, the students are studying the nearby Sennott Park (on Broadway, next to the Area IV Youth Center), an 1811 cemetery that was later transformed into a park by the Olmsteds. The students were eager to hear about our park and many of them knew it well. I talked with them about how we have used history to inform our efforts; gathered input via surveys and interviews; and created exhibits, a blog and a Facebook page to generate interest. I also spoke with them about how now we’re raising funds to make park improvements.

Over the next weeks the students will be preparing projects and reports. It’ll be fun to see where they take Sennott Park!

Here are some of the student takeaways from my visit:

– History is fun!

– It is fun working with a trained professional.

– Parks are cool.

– It was fun learning from her.

– She was very nice to volunteer here and at Magazine Beach.

– You can always find ways to help more!

– She has a great passion for what she does.

– I think it’s great to be able to have a connection with a park.

– The talk was interesting.

– It was fun to learn history with her.

– The Magazine Beach project is a lot like ours.

– It’s fun learning the history of Magazine Beach.

Students in Cherie Miot Abbanat’s (11.027) City–to-City class at MIT are hard at work producing much needed products to further our efforts. Paula and Rene have already made a difference, adding a DONATE  button to our blog. (Give it a try!) In the coming weeks they will be creating a Facebook page for Magazine Beach and linking it to kindred organizations. Vanessa and Emma will be developing a five-year strategic plan and budget for the spin-off Magazine Beach group. And Lawrence and Chrystal are updating our tired 2011 historical exhibits. We will debut these at our upcoming, March 24^th fundraiser—more about that very soon.

We are very thankful to Cherie for sharing her students and their talents. After a few weeks in Cambridgeport, they’ll be off to New Orleans where they’ll be working on more long-term projects, among them: developing a Creative Business District, proposing a public transport system that services the New Orleans airport, assessing community health projects, and reviewing city budgets.

Watch for our new look!

Emma and Vanessa consider our longterm goals and objectives.

Join us this Wednesday, January 30th, to see and discuss Phase II plans for Magazine Beach. DCR’s Rick Corsi will present Crosby, Schlessinger and Smallridge’s proposed landscape designs.  Architect and neighbor Max Moore will share ideas for plan updates. (The plans were drawn before the pedestrian footbridge was replaced and the powder magazine made, once more, the focal point for the park.)

The meeting is at 7pm in the Community Room at Woodrow Wilson Court (81 Magazine Street; enter meeting space on Fairmont Street). This will be the 2nd agenda item, after a quick election of officers, at our Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association meeting. Forest City will present new proposals for Central Square afterwards. See you there!

Update: At the meeting, architect and neighbor Max Moore presented these possible modifications to the 2007 CSS Plan. They have not been sanctioned! Links to them follow for your review.

Conceptual “talking point” options to update existing plans at Magazine Beach

• Visual
• Text list

Also, Save the Date! Earth Day Cleanup of the Charles River: Saturday, April 20^th, 9-12noon. To register, click here. This year, Starbucks is partnering with us at Magazine Beach. It’s likely that they’ll sponsor us per volunteer, so please sign up now. Your volunteering will help us twice: once with the cleanup and a second time with a possible corporate donation. 

Triumvirate Environmental of Somerville filled two dumpsters with the contents of the powder magazine last week, readying it for study and its next use. All that was kept was a slab with signatures from long ago noting so eloquently “Placed here by men moved by enduring memories of former associations.” What function will the space serve next?

1)   powder magazine —1818

2)   bathhouse for Magazine Beach swimmers—1899

3)   utility shed for parks department—1954

4)   ????????—2014?

Please help us to raise $100,000 to shore up the magazine’s rotting sheathing boards and rafters and to re-slate the roof.

Do it for history.

Do it as a lover of nature.

Do it for community.

This is the first step towards making Magazine Beach a spectacular Cambridge destination. Donate today by writing a check to the “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association,” noting that it is for the Magazine Beach Project. Send it to our CNA Treasurer at:

Jay Shetterly/CNA, 127 Magazine St., Cambridge, MA 02139

All gifts are tax deductible. 100% of your donation will go to powder magazine stabilization.

Below see a short video about the history of the powder magazine and our efforts there. (Thank you Michael Schaffer!) Also, check out articles about the project in the Boston Globe and Cambridge Chronicle. More questions? Contact me, CNA Board Member Cathie Zusy, at cathzusy@gmail.com or call (617) 868-0489.