Let's Go to the Beach!

With what's looking like a great weekend of weather coming up, it will be a great opportunity to head down the the Charles and see the newly reopened Magazine Beach park. The reconstruction by DCR is part of a massive, ongoing transformation of the Mag Beach area that has been underway for years (with some aspects coming under a good deal of local criticism).

At Wednesday's CNA meeting, Cathie Zusy passed along some of the park's key summer dates:

• Magazine Beach is open. The big fence is down and Cambridge Youth Soccer is already using the fields. Only the large drainage basin has a fence around it; they are still seeding this area.
• The Magazine Beach pool will be open from Saturday, June 26 to Sunday, August 29th this summer.
• There will be a meeting on the imminent rehabilitation of the Memorial Drive pedestrian bridge at Magazine Street soon, details forthcoming.

Also at the CNA meeting, some folks from CDD presented a draft report as an update on the City's effort to improve our relationship with the river and the reservation parkland. Have a look at the report here.

Image from the 2002 DCR Charles River Masterplan of an initial idea of the reconstruction.

Walk for Haiti on March 27

Not technically in Cambridgeport, but on a rainy weekend you can't help but daydream about springtime strolls on the Charles... especially those that also raise funds and awareness for an extremely worthy cause. The annual Walk for Haiti, organized by Partners in Health (PIH), is Saturday, March 27th. PIH is the Boston-based organization started by Dr. Paul Farmer (featured in Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains) that has worked for decades to bring health care to places the international community has forgotten, especially to Haiti--making this year an especially poignant year for the walk. From the website:

Now in its seventh year, the Walk has brought together students, activists, religious organizations, high schools, colleges, and others for a three-mile scenic walk around the Charles River and an afternoon of Haitian music, culture and crafts. All funds raised directly support the health initiatives of the world-renowned Dr. Paul Farmer in various sites throughout Haiti, specifically in Boucan Carré and Cange. Since its inception, the Walk has helped equip operating rooms, provide community health education and schooling (including scholarships for over 800 students), supply medicine, construct reliable shelter, improve and expand water/food programs and raise the standard of living for thousands of Haitians through PIH with nearly $250,000 in funds raised.

For more info, see the Walk's press release and website.

Image courtesy Walk for Haiti

Seriously. Come to the Annual Meeting.

From Bill August [links added]:

Agenda for February 24, 2010
Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association Annual Meeting

> Election of directors for four expiring seats on Board of Directors

Other Agenda subjects/speakers include:

1. Western Avenue Reconstruction (potentially very important to whole area), Jeff Rosenblum, Community Development Dept. discussing community interests and community input in planning process;
2. Cambridge Community Television community media services, Nilagia McCoy, CCTV 3. Elaine Thorne, Aging in Cambridge (discussion of various senior issues City is working on)
3. Charles River Long Term Vision and Plan/City representatives seek community input regarding important city planning study.
4. Open Agenda for discussion of any new or old business.

We now have formal confirmation that the location of the Wednesday, February 24, 7 p.m. Annual Meeting has been confirmed, and will be at the community room at Woodrow Wilson Court, entrance on Fairmont Street, between Magazine & Pleasant St.

To the many who have worked with the neighborhood association on so many issues that have made a difference to Cambridgeport, we thank you but urge you the Neighborhood Association needs a good turnout for Annual Meetings, and to continue to accomplish so much for the neighborhood. Only through your participation has the the neighborhood association been on the City's radar screen, enabling the neighborhood association to accomplish some good things:

• a long list of significant repairs at MDC pool;
• the petition that brought about the Dana Park upgrade;
• increased police presence on several occasions;
• close contact with police on behalf of community requests;
• successfully amending the zoning ordinance to preserve certain open spaces along the Charles River within Cport;
• incubating other community projects (earliest organizational support for GreenPort);
• providing large and audible forums when development issues come up, like Blessed Sacrament, Urban Ring and many more;
• and much more

Anyhoo, we have an Annual Meeting with elections coming up (and a great agenda), but I fear we need more attendance and participation to keep the neighborhood association vibrant and effective, so this is a longwinded reminder we once again welcome and need all your attendance at this upcoming Feb. 24, 7 p.m. and/or other community meetings.

And it's a fun way to learn a lot about so many on-going Cambridge (city of international significance) issues.

-Bill August

DOT's Western & River Bridge Proposal

As mentioned here before, there's a significant amount of reconstruction in planning for Cambridgeport infrastructure. The city (with citizen help) is scheming to reconstruct Western Avenue. At the same time, Mass DOT is planning the reconstruction of the River Street and Western Avenue bridges. Thanks to Rep. Marty Walz, we'll soon have a public meeting in Cambridgeport to hear about the DOT plans and ask questions. (The meeting details will be posted here, but interested readers can also keep an eye out for an announcement on the Mass DOT calendar.)

In the meantime, I wanted to pass along two documents to help get the neighborhood thinking about what's involved in the reconstruction. First, Livable Streets (a great org based on Sidney Street) put together a flyer with a list of topics that will be useful for the neighborhood to consider in the upcoming discussion. Second, I've inserted the presentation DOT gave on the Allston-Brighton side of the bridge earlier this month. The original can be accessed via the link below.

RiverSt WesternAve Pres 020310

Nominate Someone for the CNA Board!

The deadline for nominations to the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association Board of Directors is on Wednesday, February 10th, two weeks prior to the CNA annual meeting on the 24th. Please consider tossing your hat in the ring, or nominating a motivated neighbor!

Some of the initial, potential nominees include Leslie Greis, Cathie Zusy, Elizabeth Torrey, Drew Phelps and myself (Jeff Beam). Here are the rest of the details:

The CNA annual meeting and election for four expiring Board of Directors seats will be Feb. 24, 7 pm at usual meeting place at community room of Woodrow Wilson Court, on Fairmont St., off of Magazine St. Anyone interested in being on the Board must be nominated and seconded by Feb. 10 (14 days prior to Feb. 24). Nominations and seconds of nominations can be sent to billaugustUSA@aol.com

Also on the agenda for the annual meeting:

• A presentation on aging in Cambridge and senior citizen issues, by Elaine Thorne of Cambridge CDD
• Invited speakers regarding City planning pertaining to Charles River preservation and enhancements
• Cambridge Community TV will send a representative to discuss CCTV's community and neighborhood media services. Very important agenda item:
• Jeff Rosenblum on Western Ave reconstruction, which can mightily impact the whole look and feel of the neighborhood

Lastly, an appeal in the name of fun from Bill August: "Any ideas for fun Annual Meeting stuff, we could use it (music, food, awards--annual meetings are supposed to be fun)!"

C-port Scene: Cold Reception

After a week's respite from below-freezing temps, this morning the winter freeze returned in force. Some solace can be found in some of the beautiful sites around the neighborhood when winter strikes. Today's entry in the C-port Scene series comes from Flickr user Craig Stevens (used under Creative Commons), and captures the view from Memorial Drive across the river during a similar stretch of cold last winter. Bundle up for the below-zero wind chill out there.

Contribute your photos to the series! Upload them to Flickr and tag them "Cambridgeport," and be sure you've granted permission under Creative Commons.

ConCom Meeting on DCR Projects TONIGHT

magazine beach 3rd april 08
Originally uploaded by essygie

UPDATE: Links added for background.

Neighbor and Charles River watershed advocate Marilyn Wellons passes on information about tonight's (Monday) important Cambridge Conservation Commission hearing on the joint Cambridge-DCR projects and controversy at Magazine Beach/Memorial Drive. The hearing is at 8pm in the fourth floor conference room of 344 Broadway.

From Ms. Wellons:

Hundreds of us signed the 2008 petition to support the conservation of Magazine Beach and Captains Island as natural and historic green space—as untreated, multipurpose fields open to all. We supported Cambridge purchase of land for new sports fields away from the banks of the river, in underserved Cambridge neighborhoods; funding and proper maintenance for existing children and adult pools; restored access to the river for human activity and waterfowl of all kinds; and a natural history walk and passive information center on the history and ecology of the Charles River estuary. Now the DCR is asking the ConCom for an extension of the ConCom's Order of Conditions to allow the work to continue...

Please attend the hearing or, if that’s not possible, contact ConCom Director Jennifer Wright, at jwright@cambridgema.gov.

The Magazine Beach Transformation

Magazine Beach, Cambridge
Originally uploaded by radioflyer007

In the few years I've lived here, one of the more disappointing parts of C-port is the lack of a relationship with the Charles. Physically, the neighborhood's form is defined by the river, either by the sweeping curve of the water itself or by the street grid created by the four heavily used crossings in the Harvard, BU, River and Western bridges. For a variety of reasons, however, most of my direct experiences with the river occur either to the west and east, in front of Harvard and MIT. Our portion of the riverbank lacks a pedestrian connection (or even view) of the water. The Mag Beach park has been pretty run down and overgrown.

A variety of state and city-led projects are seeking to change that, guided by the DCR Charles River Basin Master Plan, created in 1999. The Magazine Beach portion of the document is a pretty interesting read, reaching back to the Olmsted design of 1899. Some projects, such as regrading and resodding the playfields to have more usable surfaces and drainage, began construction nearly a year ago, and are nearing completion. As is the new Riverside Park at the corner of Western and Memorial, at the former Mahoney's Garden Center site. According to the Cambridge CDD website, the park will be completely finished next spring. Helping neighbors get there is a project to repair and improve the Magazine Street pedestrian bridge over Memorial Drive.

Other projects, though long in the planning stages, are just beginning. As noted last week, the Memorial Drive Historic Parkways Preservation program's tree and vegetation removal have sparked controversy this summer. The last big project is the on-again, off-again BU Bridge restoration, a necessary project that has seen its share of bureaucratic infighting.

Once all these projects are complete, planners and state agencies hope to see constant activity at Magazine Beach, from continuous riverside paths to softball and soccer games. Some even have visions of recreational swimming returning to the Charles, a proposal not without its own problems, but one that takes the challenge of reconnecting the neighborhood to the river literally.