East Cambridge is a neighborhood of
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
. East Cambridge is bounded by the
Charles River
The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...
and the
Charlestown neighborhood of Boston on the east, the
Somerville
Somerville may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Somerville, Victoria, a town
**Somerville railway station
* Somerville, Western Australia, a suburb of Kalgoorlie, Australia
New Zealand
* Somerville, New Zealand, a suburb of Manukau City, New Zea ...
border on the north, Broadway and Main Street on the south, and the
railroad tracks
Railway track ( and UIC terminology) or railroad track (), also known as permanent way () or "P way" ( and Indian English), is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers (railroad ties in American E ...
on the west.
Most of the streets form a grid aligned with Cambridge Street, which was laid out to directly connect what is now the
Charles River Dam Bridge
The Charles River Dam Bridge, officially the Craigie Bridge, also called Craigie's Bridge or the Canal Bridge, is a six-lane bascule bridge across the Charles River in the West End neighborhood of Boston. The bridge, maintained by the Massach ...
with what in 1809 was the heart of Cambridge,
Harvard Square
Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...
. The northern part of the grid is a roughly six by eight block residential area. Cambridge Street itself is retail commercial, along with
Monsignor O'Brien Highway, the Twin Cities Plaza
strip mall
A strip mall, strip center, strip plaza or simply plaza is a type of shopping mall, shopping center common in North America and Australia where the stores are arranged in a row, with a footpath in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a ...
, and the enclosed
Cambridgeside Galleria.
Lechmere Square
Lechmere Square ( ) is located at the intersection of Cambridge Street and First Street in East Cambridge , Massachusetts. It was originally named for the Colonial-era landowner Richard Lechmere, a Loyalist who returned to England at the beginni ...
is the transportation hub for the northern side. The southern half of the grid is largely office and laboratory space for hundreds of
dot-com companies
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that conducts most of its businesses on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level dom ...
, research labs and
startups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...
associated with
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
,
biotechnology
Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...
firms including
Genzyme
Genzyme (also known as Genzyme Transgenics Corp or GTC Biotherapeutics) was an American biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From its acquisition in 2011 to 2022 Genzyme operated as a fully owned subsidiary of Sanofi. In 2010, ...
,
Biogen
Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. Biogen ope ...
and
Moderna Moderna, Inc. ( ) is an American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines. These vaccines use a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to carry inst ...
, the
Athenaeum Press Building, light industry, an
NRG Energy
NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Northern States Power Company (NSP), which became Xcel Energy, but became independent in 2000. NRG Energy is involved in energ ...
power station (formerly Mirant Kendall), and various small businesses. This half of the neighborhood is generally identified with
Kendall Square
Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The square itself is at the intersection of the Main Street and Broadway. It also refers to the broad business district east of Portland Street, northwest of the Charl ...
. Along the waterfront are several hotels and taller apartment buildings.
History and development
East Cambridge was originally an island at high tide, surrounded by marshland.
The
Millers River
The Millers River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 river in northern Massachusetts, originating in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, Ashburnham and joining ...
, called Willis Creek in colonial times, passed just to the north. The shoreline is shown as
Lechmere's Point on Revolutionary War maps, and was the landing point for British troops en route to the
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 were the first major military actions of the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot militias from America's Thirteen Co ...
.
The investors who constructed
Craigie's Bridge
The Charles River Dam Bridge, officially the Craigie Bridge, also called Craigie's Bridge or the Canal Bridge, is a six-lane bascule bridge across the Charles River in the West End neighborhood of Boston. The bridge, maintained by the Massach ...
encouraged the creation of the grid (which originally only extended to Charles and Sixth). By 1844, the island was connected to destinations on the mainland via a small number of roads: Harvard via Cambridge Street, what is now Kendall Square via Third Street (then Court Street), and two roads to Charlestown/Medford (Gore and Monsignor O'Brien Highway – formerly Bridge Street; this was before Somerville split from Charlestown).
The area became host to the
Middlesex County courthouse designed by
Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch (August 8, 1763 – April 15, 1844) was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first American-born professional architect to practice.Baltzell, Edward Digby. ''Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia''. Tra ...
; industries like soap, furniture, and the Boston Porcelain and Glass Company; merchants; lawyers; and residences from factory worker cottages to the upscale "Quality Row" and "Millionaire's
Row".
Freight service between neighboring Charlestown and Lowell opened on the
Middlesex Canal
The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile (44-kilometer) barge canal connecting the Merrimack River with the port of Boston. When operational it was 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, and 3 feet (0.9 m) deep, with 20 locks, each 80 feet (24 m) long and between 10 ...
around 1802, while the
Middlesex Turnpike connected Broadway with points north around 1810. The
Boston and Lowell Railroad
The Boston and Lowell Railroad was a railroad that operated in Massachusetts in the United States. It was one of the first railroads in North America and the first major one in the state. The line later operated as part of the Boston and Maine R ...
began parallel freight service in 1835.
The
Fitchburg Railroad
The Fitchburg Railroad is a former railroad company, which built a railroad line across northern Massachusetts, United States, leading to and through the Hoosac Tunnel. The Fitchburg was leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1900. The main l ...
opened on the north side of the neighborhood in 1843, while the
Grand Junction Railroad
The Grand Junction Railroad was an long railroad in the Boston, Massachusetts, area, connecting the railroads heading west and north from Boston. The western portion between Beacon Park Yard in Boston and the Inner Belt District in Somervill ...
(later
Boston and Albany Railroad
The Boston and Albany Railroad was a railroad connecting Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York, later becoming part of the New York Central Railroad system, Conrail, and CSX Transportation. The mainline is currently used by CSX for freight a ...
) was constructed on the west side in 1847. A B&A rail yard north of Binney and Portland fed freight tracks which ran down neighborhood streets (some of which can still be seen) to industrial customers from Rogers and Potter Streets. (The curve of the yard can still be seen on an industrial building on Fulkerson Street, formerly Ninth.)
The quirky
Meigs Elevated Railway
The Meigs Elevated Railway was an experimental but unsuccessful 19th-century elevated steam-powered urban rapid transit system, often described as a monorail but technically pre-electric third rail. It was invented in the United States by Josiah ...
, a steam-powered monorail, ran as a demonstration project in the late 1800s. "East Cambridge Begins at The Tracks", a controversial slogan in the early 20th century, challenged neighborhood honor between the residents of East Cambridge and
Wellington-Harrington
Wellington-Harrington, also known as Area 3, is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Overlapping with Inman Square and Kendall Square, it is bounded by Hampshire Street and Broadway on the southwest, the Grand Junction railroad tracks o ...
.
Considerable landfill expanded the street grid to nearly its modern configuration by the 1920s, connecting with the surrounding neighborhoods but leaving the
Lechmere Canal and part of the
Broad Canal
Broad Canal is a short canal in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, previously larger and part of the now-vanished canal system that made Cambridge an active seaport.
The canal began in 1806 when Henry Hill, Rufus Davenport, and others laid out a can ...
.
The Miller's River has since been completely filled, except for a small remnant under the I-93 Charlestown interchange.
From 1895 to 1940, there was a wide public park between Commercial Street and the Charles River. Designed by
Charles Eliot, it was called The Front; part of it was sold for private development in 1950. Another riverside park was eliminated by the
Museum of Science
A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...
, which opened on the Charles River Dam Bridge in 1951. Around 1956–57, additional ramps, referred to as the Cambridge Viaduct, were installed to double the capacity of Memorial Drive under the Longfellow Bridge. The ramps split the road into two carriageways, westbound using the original First Street underpass, and eastbound using the new viaduct. The new configuration prevents safe pedestrian access to a stairway to the Longfellow Bridge, requiring a longer path of travel than by following the original seawall.
The high-rise Middlesex Jail was constructed in 1971 on top of the former Cambridge Superior Courthouse.
The 1978 East Cambridge Riverfront Plan
resulted in the redirection of traffic to Commercial Street, improving a narrower strip of parkland along Cambridge Parkway for recreational use. A widened Binney Street, the riverside apartment buildings, the CambridgeSide Galleria, and the re-landscaping of the remaining Lechmere Canal with access to The Front were also enabled by this plan. The plan envisioned relocating
Lechmere Station
Lechmere station ( ) is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line (MBTA), Green Line light rail station in Lechmere Square in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is located on the east side of Massachusetts Route 28, Monsign ...
to the north side of Monsignor O'Brien Highway with a pedestrian overpass.
Since the late 1990s, East Cambridge and its neighbor
Lechmere Square
Lechmere Square ( ) is located at the intersection of Cambridge Street and First Street in East Cambridge , Massachusetts. It was originally named for the Colonial-era landowner Richard Lechmere, a Loyalist who returned to England at the beginni ...
have undergone a
gentrification
Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...
process, as old factories have been converted into condominiums and office space. The neighborhood is currently the site of most of large scale developments in Cambridge, including
North Point
North Point is a mixed-use urban area in the Eastern District, Hong Kong, Eastern District of Hong Kong. Located in the northeastern part of Hong Kong Island, the area is named after a cape between Causeway Bay and Tsat Tsz Mui that projects ...
, which plans over a dozen residential towers. In 2011, several new restaurants opened in the Kendall Square area. The relocation of Lechmere station was made part of a land swap arrangement to be paid for by the NorthPoint developers, but later became part of the
Green Line Extension
The Green Line Extension (GLX) was a construction project to extend the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line (MBTA), Green Line light rail system northwest into Somerville, Massachusetts, Somerville and Medford, Massac ...
. The new station opened on March 21, 2022.
Demographics

There are predominantly
Irish and
Portuguese natives, with a mix of
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
* Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...
and
Italians
Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...
along with professionals who work in Boston and Kendall Square. It is predominantly a middle-class neighborhood, with over 96% of residents working in
white collar
White collar may refer to:
* White-collar worker, a professional who performs office-based or similar service-based jobs, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor
* White-collar boxing
* White-collar crime
The term ...
industries.
Per American Community Survey, in 2019 East Cambridge had a population of 12,254 residents living in 5,816 households. The average household income was $140,245. 64% of them were United States born citizens, while 12.64% were citizens from abroad. 23.25% of residents were not United States citizens.
Since 2005, the average household income has risen and real estate values have increased significantly. The boom in Kendall Square area has brought a lot of development and modernization to the area.
Notable residents
Dorothea Lynde Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the poor mentally ill. By her vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, she helped create the first gener ...
became an advocate for the humane treatment of the insane during the
Antebellum era
The ''Antebellum'' South era (from ) was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practi ...
, during which time she volunteered as a Sunday school teacher in East Cambridge.
References
{{Coord, 42, 22, 00, N, 71, 04, 48, W, type:city_region:US-MA, display=title
Neighborhoods in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Portuguese neighborhoods in the United States