The Cambridge, Massachusetts City Hall is the

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

for

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, located at 795 Massachusetts Avenue, and built in the

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

style. The building additionally serves as a centerpiece of the surrounding City Hall Historic District and adjacent Central Square Historic District.

History

The hall was built between 1888–1889, and was largely funded through a donation from

Frederick Hastings Rindge Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857–1905) was an American business magnate, patriarch of the illustrious and prominent Rindge family, real estate developer, philanthropist, and writer, of Los Angeles, California. He was a major benefactor to his ...

. The architects were

Longfellow, Alden & Harlow Longfellow, Alden & Harlow (later Alden & Harlow), of Boston, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,Margaret Henderson Floyd, ''Architecture after Richardson: Regionalism before Modernism--Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow in Boston and Pittsbur ...

(

Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. (August 18, 1854, Portland, Maine – February 16, 1934, Portland) was an American architect and nephew of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Biography Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. was the son of Alexan ...

, 1854–1934; Frank E. Alden, 1859–1908; and Alfred B. Harlow, 1857–1927). The building is three stories tall, with a bell tower that rises to 158 feet. Load-bearing stone walls are of Milford granite trimmed with Longmeadow brownstone. Cambridge City Hall houses offices for the city council, the city manager and several municipal departments. In addition to the main building, the city of Cambridge also houses several other departments a couple of city blocks away in the City Hall Annex, located at Broadway and Inman Street. On May 17, 2004, shortly after midnight, the first legal applications in the United States for marriage licenses for same-sex couples were issued at Cambridge City Hall. At 9:15 a.m. that day, the Cambridge City Clerk began solemnizing same-sex marriages. ''See''

same-sex marriage in Massachusetts Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts has been legally recognized since May 17, 2004, as a result of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruling in ''Goodridge v. Department of Public Health'' that it was unconstitutional under the Mass ...

References

External links

*
Official page for city of Cambridge

Datasheet at Towerclocks.org
{{Cambridge, Massachusetts Government of Cambridge, Massachusetts Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Clock towers in Massachusetts Government buildings completed in 1889 Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachusetts City and town halls on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts