1. 2 Mt. Auburn in the context of the latest Harvard empire building.
A. General.
B. Banks / Cowperthwaite development.
C. The Western Avenue / Memorial Drive portion.
D. Summary, impact on 2 Mount Auburn Street.
2. 10 Mount Auburn Street.
A. A responsible victory.
B. The Cambridge Machine’s Immediate Counter.
C. The Cambridge Machine changes the zoning one year later.
3. Corporal Burns Playground.
4. The East Harvard Square (Natalie Ward) Petition.
5. Guffey Park.
6. The La Trémouille petition.
7. The Cambridge Public Library and High School.
8. Summary.
The following is an abbreviated report on my activities in the area of 2 Mount Auburn Street.
1. 2 Mt. Auburn in the context of the latest Harvard empire building.
A. General.
The elderly housing property Harvard University is selling is 2 Mount Auburn Street.
2 Mt. Auburn, as the bird flies, is only a few blocks from the Charles River.
B. Banks / Cowperthwaite development.
2 Mt. Auburn, is one block from one of two of Harvard’s biggest recent developments, construction of Harvard related student and faculty housing of one sort or another over a stretch of about two solid blocks (if you do not count one dead end street). The furthest part of the project going south from 2 Mt. Auburn Street is on Cowperthwaite Street.
That building is less a small block from the Charles River, between the 2d full sized bridge west of the BU Bridge (the Western Avenue bridge) and the third full sized bridge west of the BU Bridge, the Anderson Bridge. The Anderson Bridge connects Harvard Square and Harvard Business School. A few feet from Cowperthwaite Street is a pedestrian bridge physically connecting the B School to Cambridge and Harvard University proper.
The Cowperthwaite Street building is also a very large building, legalized by yet another con game. The Cambridge Machine took control of neighbors who were trying to protect their neighborhood. These poor folks were told that the only way to write a zoning petition is to join in meeting after meeting with the developer and with other enemies of the neighborhood interests. The “required procedures” were made up on the fly in an outrageous abuse of well meaning people.
The resulting zoning petition was written by the Cambridge Development Department with the unexplained fine print which is altogether too normal in such petitions. The zoning which resulted was called the “Neighborhood Petition.” It was so irresponsible that Harvard University, the targeted developer could not swallow it. Harvard wrote a less irresponsible petition and presented it.
The Cowperthwaite Street building contains massive amounts of underground parking, rather clearly intended to include sufficient parking to make conversion of 2 Mt. Auburn from elderly to university affiliate.
The first block south of Mt. Auburn Street contains new Harvard affiliate housing, vaguely neighborhood scale properties, in reality about 50% larger than they should be, but people got conned.
C. The Western Avenue / Memorial Drive portion.
The second part of the recent development is about three blocks to the east of Cowperthaite Street.
A modern building only a few feet from Memorial Drive and a short block west of Western Avenue is most visible part of the related second grouping of the developments. And, within a block of Western Avenue and within the same distance from Memorial Drive and the Charles River are more buildings which are part of this massive project.
Games and dirty tricks were played by the Cambridge Machine to deliver to Harvard these related developments.
D. Summary, impact on 2 Mount Auburn Street.
Fine print stuck in the zoning ordinance during the mid 00's changed Harvard’s parking requirements to allow use of the massive garage under the Cowperthwaite building to support Harvard related people being moved into 2 Mt. Auburn Street. That language put Harvard in a position, as it has in other examples of “protected” housing, to move its people into 2 Mt. Auburn Street as residents moved out.
2. 10 Mount Auburn Street.
A. A responsible victory.
I saved the historical building at the corner of Mt. Auburn Street and Banks Street which is the eastern boundary of the Cowperthwaite - Mt. Auburn properties, 10 Mt. Auburn, two buildings west of 2 Mt. Auburn.
Harvard wanted a modern building on the 10 Mt. Auburn Street corner. I forced the continuation of an historical building on the corner and, perhaps, forced Harvard into building that new affiliate housing in the block nearest Mt. Auburn Street so that it resembled this residential part of Cambridge, even though it was about 50% larger than it should be..
The actual forum was the Rent Control Board. The Rent Control Board found one Rent Controlled unit in this three story historical double three family. The Rent Control Board prohibited destruction of this unit in accordance with provisions of the “Removal Ordinance” which was designed to protect rent controlled units.
B. The Cambridge Machine’s Immediate Counter.
The Cambridge Machine created its own “neighborhood association” over the 10 Mount Auburn project. The architect who created the “neighborhood association” has since become clearly one of the core members of The Cambridge Machine.
He immediately put the 10 Mount Auburn project to a vote in his hand created “neighborhood association”. Harvard’s project lost.
So the architect redrew the boundaries of his “neighborhood association”. One he had his “neighborhood association“ gerrymandered to his perfection, he won the revote.
C. The Cambridge Machine changes the zoning one year later.
The Cambridge Machine, the year after I saved 10 Mount Auburn achieved the first of its long series of very destructive upzonings which they lied were providing greater protections. All the outrages were written by the Cambridge Development Department with members or front organizations of The Cambridge Machine fronting for the City of Cambridge. In this instance, the “Harvard Square Defense Fund” did the dirty work.
The upzoning killed yard requirements at the whim of Cambridge’s City Manager appointees, the Planning Board, The Cambridge Machine gave Harvard its desired monster building attached to 10 Mount Auburn Street. The Cambridge Machine also destroyed a grouping of three historical buildings between the North Side of Mt. Auburn Street and the south side of Arrow Street, the small street to the north.
The monster building that wound up on the north side of Mount Auburn was publicly lied to be a theater. The reality is that half of the first floor has a bar with a dance floor and seating on two sides left and right of the dance floor. Across from the bar is a stage so insignificant that it is necessary to go around the partition which separates the bar / dance / stage area from the area behind the petition to get back stage. You have to walk on the dance floor in the process. Dressing rooms were non existent when I played this small cabaret. The performers changed behind a collection of drapes.
3. Corporal Burns Playground.
Two blocks south of the Cowperthwaite project is a heavily treed playground which extends from Banks Street to the Charles River / Memorial Drive. This is Corporal Burns Playground. It is heavily used by long time residents of the neighborhood gaining access by various routes.
Harvard had once before tried to destroy this playground for its benefit. It tried again using the usual fake affordable housing con. As with 2 Mount Auburn, it promised to build affordable housing which would be protected for a period and then, as with 2 Mount Auburn, the needy could be thrown out and Harvard move in.
The actual organization against the destruction consisted of long time residents, working class type people. The Cambridge Machine, of course, fought for the destruction, sniffing that the working class types were biased against the poor.
I was the only “upper” type of person talking against this outrage. I probably swung the vote in Cambridge City Council because The Cambridge Machine’s total argument amounted to the Cambridge Machine’s bullying the little guy, and class baiting. My opposition proved that class baiting a lie.
4. The East Harvard Square (Natalie Ward) Petition.
A zoning change initiated by a group I advised resulted in the block containing 2 Mt. Auburn Street and the historical building being rezoned like the adjacent neighborhood instead of like Harvard Square proper.
We also downzoned a significant part of the area impacted to a residential zoning best described by looking at the Inn at Harvard. That zoning ran from Harvard Street or a midline below Harvard Street and Mass. Ave. on the north. It was bounded on the east by the residential Remington Street. On the south it was bounded by Arrow Street. Several lots between Arrow and Mt. Auburn wound up with office zoning at a density comparable to the residential.
This is the zoning change which forced the Inn at Harvard in East Harvard Square on Harvard as it is instead of 72% larger and built to the lot line, as Harvard wanted.
An L shape collection of properties a block from Harvard Square proper was rezoned like the neighborhood to protect Harvard fraternities which fit the residential density. The bulk of this is behind Holyoke Center, Harvard’s very much oversized administration building. Harvard calls their fraternities “houses”.
The deal we had reached protected all the side streets between Holyoke Center and almost to the Inn at Harvard by undoing the Cambridge Machine’s upzoning. We protected residential uses and ground floor open space in apposition to the Machine’s beloved retail and destruction of open space and first floor housing.
The person being presented to the world as an environmental saint by the fake Cambridgeport environmental group killed this last provision. He sicced a bunch of robots on my clients and bullied them into totally uncompensated concessions. The key lie: “You have made your deal with the City Council. Now you must negotiate with the Planning Board.”
And Harvard is now selling 2 Mt. Auburn Street.
5. Guffey Park.
As is normal with my zoning petitions, the Natalie Ward petition was opposed by the Cambridge City Manager’s people.
The Natalie Ward petition protected the historical triangle bounded by Massachusetts Avenue, Arrow Street, and Bow Street. That triangle is overwhelming residential with limited retail. We zoned the triangle strictly for residential use.
Less than two week after the City Council overwhelmingly passed the Natalie Ward petition, the Cambridge City Manager destroyed a tiny, humble park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Arrow Street, about a block from 2 Mt. Auburn Street. His purpose was to allow the expansion of a tiny restaurant in that end of the adjacent historical building.
Under the Natalie Ward petition which had just passed, the city council had prohibited the expansion of that restaurant.
I objected. I publicized.
The city manager was forced to apologize to the city council, with a vengeance.
The City Manager put in a replacement park which, to put it mildly, is gold plated. It currently provides ornamentation to the building containing the cabaret which was lied to be a theater building.
The park was named by the only City Councilor to oppose the Natalie Ward Petition after some friends of mine who lived near it, Mildred and Walter Guffey. They were active in the Natalie Ward Petition.
The “Guffey Park” sign has disappeared.
6. The La Trémouille petition.
This zoning petition ran westward on the south side of Massachusetts Avenue to the second building east of 2 Mount Auburn Street. On the north side of Massachusetts Avenue, it ran to the next street to the east of the square on which 2 Mount Auburn Street stands.
The square which 2 Mount Auburn Street bounds on which has Massachusetts Avenue running through it. In reality, proceeding west on Massachusetts Avenue puts you on Mt. Auburn Street. There is a street to the north from the intersection, Trowbridge Street. Between Mt. Auburn Street and Trowbridge Street is the western extension of Massachusetts Avenue, going into Harvard Square. To the south from the intersection is Putnam Avenue, which faces the eastern side of 2 Mt. Auburn Street.
One street to the south of Massachusetts Avenue ending at Putnam Avenue is Green Street. My zoning petition ran to Putnam Avenue on the north side of Green Street.
I have gone into the outrages associated with this petition in great detail elsewhere. As usual, the Cambridge Machine indulged in belligerently irresponsible behavior.
7. The Cambridge Public Library and High School.
Two blocks to the north of Massachusetts Avenue is Broadway. On the north side of Broadway is the Cambridge Public Library and High School.
Probably the first activity of the Cambridge Machine was to destroy the excellent park behind the Public Library for irresponsible High School construction. These hundred plus year old trees were so thick that sunlight could not reach the ground. There were about thirty of them. I obtained a preliminary injunction on appeal against the destruction, next to impossible. We lost the trees because the judge, as a “matter of fact” found the park not to be a park. The key point was an odd piece of outside comment in a trust decision which wiped out key points of trust law without meaningfully evaluating the issue. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed these odd outside points about ten years later. I needed that park finding to appeal the error of trust law.
The key lie in this project was that Cambridge was providing a “park” in the location where a former high school building had stood which should have been rebuilt in place. It was obvious landbanking.
The judge’s opinion bragged about all the saplings being planted in the fake park.
So the City of Cambridge did the obvious. They constructed a new library building in place of a significant part of the “park” and destroyed all those trees.
The person being flaunted as an environmental saint by the fake Cambridgeport environmental group was key in the destruction of the magnificent century old park. When Cambridge stabbed him in the back by destroying his blood money, Cambridge treated him with the disdain appropriate for such a person.
8. Summary.
When I wrote the La Trémouille Petition, I lived a block and a half north of this intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Mount Auburn Street and Putnam Avenue. I lived just off Trowbridge Street, and about half a block south of the Public Library.
I know the turf and I am deeply concerned about the future of the area and of 2 Mount Auburn Street.
