Magazine Beach

The pool will also open later in the month and we may have yoga!!!!!!

Join Mass Audubon and the Plastic Tapestry Project weekends at the park. Mass Audubon has drop-in programs Sundays from 10am-4pm. There will be broader programming once the pool opens: JUNE 25! Click here for more info. 

Welcome Evan Roberts!

Evan is the new Mass Audubon Powder Magazine Site Manager. From Stowe, VT, Evan studied political science at Vassar. What excites him about a summer at Magazine Beach is “getting the opportunity to work with and learn from the surrounding community. The park is an amazing pocket of nature, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the conservation efforts and work to fulfill the peoples’ vision for the shared space.” Please stop by the Powder Magazines Sundays, for now, to say hello. Note: Paul Kelley will still be the contact for organizing events at the Powder Magazine. His contact: pkelley@massaudubon.org.

1818 Powder Magazine Granted Preservation Award!

Thank you, the Cambridge Historical Commission, for the recognition and for all your help in making this happen. The City contributed historic preservation Community Preservation Act funds to study the structure, and then to fix its roof, exterior and interior. DCR provided matching funds and more and the community chipped in, too. Together, we did it!

Hello, Little Plants!

Thank you, girl scouts, for planting flowers in the spraydeck planters on Monday. It wil be beautiful as the summer progresses. We left two buckets at the splash pad for YOU to water the plants. The flowers are counting on it!

Welcome Back, Greene and Dedmon families!

We know that it’s summer when the Greenes and Dedmons start picnicking at the park. They’ve been enjoying Magazine Beach for generations….

Yes, cool yourself at the park–which is ten degrees cooler than the rest of Cambridge with its shade trees and river breeze. There are even port-o-potties out and a basin to wash your hands. No trash cans still, though, so picnickers, bring bags for trash and carry in and carry out.

It’s particularly cool at the Powder Magazine where Mass Audubon has drop in activities from 10am-4pm today and every Sunday. Also, from 1-4pm, the Plastic Tapestry Project will be at work–with your help–preparing artwork made from hard plastics found at the park and in the community. For more info, click here.

And the park is so clean, thanks to CRLS freshmen and women who did a cleanup this morning. Thank you, CRLS students!

Quidditch, soccer, picnicking, splashing and swinging were all happening at the park this morning and the fish are jumping… It’s herring run time. Hundreds and thousands of little fish are swimming up the river. Watch them from the river’s edge.

Updates: The spray deck is open!!!!! Also, the Plastic Tapestry workshop today, Sunday, May 22, 1-4pm, will now be at the Powder Magazine (NOT at Gallery 263).

So many were at the park this first hot weekend. They were picnicking, swinging, enjoying ice cream and playing soccer, volleyball and tug of war.

Remember, Mass Audubon has the Powder Magazine open every Sunday now, 10am-4pm, and today, from 4-6pm, they have an orienteering program with Navigation Games and Cambridge Sports Union. See https://magazinebeach.org/events/.

We are awaiting word from DCR about when the spray deck and pool will open and the water fountains be turned on. More on this soon. Usually the pool opens in late June.

Enjoy our green urban oasis!

Take a seat under the big old trees this weekend and enjoy the river breeze! Picnickers, remember there are no trash cans at the park yet, so bring a bag to carry in and carry out.

7.20.22 update: Gov. Baker signed off on the earmark. We’ve got the $50k for Magazine Beach! Hurray and thank you Rep. Connolly!

Just Tweeted by Rep. Mike Connolly:

Pleased to report the House just voted to include my amendment #517 in our FY23 state budget! This will deliver $50,000 to @Magazine_Beach for continued improvements. Thank you to Rep. @JayLivingstone, @MassDCR and @CambMA for your longtime commitment to this treasured resource.

Thanks as well to Speaker @RonMariano, @RepMichlewitz and all of my colleagues for supporting this amendment. With incredible stewardship from Magazine Beach Partners, Inc. over the past decade, our city’s second-largest park has come a very long way! Excited for what comes next!

Now this earmark moves onto the Senate and then to the Governor for review. 

Cross your fingers!

Thank you, Rep. Connolly!

Thanks to the 70 volunteers who cleaned up the park on Saturday and for the Charles River Conservancy’s leadership. We focused on picking up microtrash–the bottle caps and cigarette butts left behind, that go nowhere unless someone deliberately removes them. Some of these hard plastics will be incorporated into the Plastic Tapestry Project: art that reminds us that these plastics will be with us for the next 20-500 years… Special thanks to Pack 56, My Stryde, the Cambridge Running Club and the Riverside Boat Club.

Art, Nature, History & Community at the Park!

Mass Audubon kicked off their year of programming at the park and their 5-year tenancy of the Powder Magazine with an event with community partners. To a spring and summer of fun at Magazine Beach!

Cleanup, 10am-12noon. Come down to the park from 1-4pm for Mass Audubon’s Spring Season Kick-Off with fun art, nature and history activities! FREE.

Partners include Green Cambridge, Cambridge Wildlife Arts, Magazine Beach Partners, the Charles River Conservancy, the Charles River Watershed Association, The Plastic Tapestry Project, Communities Responding to Extreme Weather, Cambridge Community Development and the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association.

Tomorrow, on Wednesday, April 20, at 2pm the Cambridge Finance Committee will meet to discuss ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding proposals. The City has received $65m Federal dollars and $23m Sate and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds—a total of $88m. About $33m of this has been dispersed. These funds are/were to provide COVID-19 relief, bring back jobs, address economic fallout, and lay the foundation for a strong and equitable recovery.

Magazine Beach Partners (MBP) has requested $1.8m of these funds to improve the park, which, during COVID, provided a refuge for people to gather safely and relax outdoors. The 17-acre park became more of a safe haven for connection and personal renewal than ever before. As the City becomes more populated, green open spaces like Magazine Beach will only become more important.

MBP proposes that these funds be used to implement Phase II-2 improvements: to turn the derelict area between the swimming pool and the river and its sunken parking lot into a grassy beach and add a dock and outlook that will increase engagement with the river. (See rendering above and image of current conditions below.) DCR has shovel ready plans for this! This is an opportunity to make a permanent, positive change at the park and remove its last eyesore.

The ARPA funds will match $2.7 million that DCR is investing now and next winter in bathhouse and pool renovations. We hope that DCR can fold these improvements into the pool work and restore this half acre of parkland while the site is already disturbed.

If you have a moment, please either email the Council a quick message TODAY or TOMORROW morning, supporting that the City invest ARPA funds at Magazine Beach.

To reach all Councilors, email: council@CambridgeMA.Gov. 

Or give public testimony. Sign up now to give testimony, either virtually or in person, at Public Comment Sign Up Form – City of Cambridge, MA (cambridgema.gov).

To attend the meeting virtually, go to The Finance Committee – City of Cambridge, MA (cambridgema.gov).

To attend the meeting in person, go to the 2nd Floor Sullivan Chamber at City Hall.

If you have questions, email or call me at czusy@magazinebeach.org or 617.868.0489.

Thank you for all of your support. It would be SO WONDERFUL if ARPA funds can advance this project. 

We are actively collecting hard plastic bottle caps for Magazine Beach’s first public art project – a Plastic Tapestry that will debut in the Powder Magazine this July. Many of the plastics in the tapestry will come from community clean-ups in Magazine Beach and the Charles River parklands. 

Sadly, most of the trash we pick up at the park is plastic and it will be around for hundreds of years. This community art project, designed by Riverside artist Michelle Lougee and curated by Cambridgeport resident Cecily Miller, reminds us of our dependency on this petroleum product and of its longterm and negative impacts. In 2016, America produced 42 million metric tons of plastic—twice as much as China, and more than all of the European Union. And only 2% of it is recycled! A lot of it is ending up in our oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers 1.6 Million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas.

A grant from the Mass Cultural Council has provided seed money, but funds are still needed. Please contribute to this project by donating to our Go Fund Me campaign. Magazine Beach Partners is the fiscal sponsor for this project, so donations are tax deductible. 

Funds raised will support participation of young artists from the Cambridge Community Art Center, who will receive stipends for running workshops in their Port neighborhood and the Central Square farmers market.  Funds will also cover artist fees for additional workshops/talks, presentation of a film about plastics, supplies, and a celebration at the end – including live music! 

Come and meet Cecily and Michelle at Mass Audubon’s Open House on April 23, 1-4.  Sign up to get involved with plastic collection, cleaning and sorting, or making the tapestry here.

Project partners: the Morse School, Cambridge Community Center, Community Arts Center, Gallery 263, Mass Audubon, the Charles River Conservancy and Magazine Beach Partners

Our Senators & Representatives Walk the Park

Many thanks to State Senators Lydia Edwards and Sal DiDomenico (with redistricting, our senator in 2023) and Representatives Jay Livingstone and Michael Connolly (our rep. in 2023) for making the time to visit. Magazine Beach Partners were eager to show them the sunken parking lot between the pool and the river and share why it’s critical that the State invest in Phase II-2—turning that 1/2 acre into a grassy beach—next winter, when DCR redoes the swimming pool. The City, which has already committed $300,000 of CPA funds for this, and the community, which has donated $80,000 for this (THANK YOU!), is in if DCR is in. Please, DCR, help us to remove this last eyesore at the park and to create parkland in the process.

Thank you also to new City Councilors Paul Toner and Azeem Burhan who walked the park with us a few weeks ago. Paul’s father, and Sal’s, too, both swam in the river at Magazine Beach!

On Saturday over 60 students and their families from the Putnam Upper School picked up trash at the park and gathered hard plastics for the Plastic Tapestry Project. The park looks so much better!

It was a cold, windy day and yet the Putnam Upper School charged on and had fun doing it, too—running around, trying out the exercise equipment, eating pizza, and exploring Goose Meadow, too. We even discovered a huge (abandoned) goose egg there.

Thank you to the volunteers, and to our partners Mass Audubon and the Charles River Conservancy, for your help maintaining the park. DCR can’t do it without us!

The Pool Bathhouse is Looking a Little Different….

DCR is at work updating the bathhouse, making it universally accessible and adding bathrooms that will be accessible to park users, even when the Powder Magazine (opening later this spring!) is closed. Construction will be complete by mid June in time for the 2022 swim season.