Cambridge Audio Walking Tour

Highlights

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  In 1916 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology left Boston's Back Bay for this campus in Cambridge. Founded in 1861 to advance "useful knowledge", MIT was the vision of William Barton Rogers, who sought to accelerate American industrialization through scientific knowledge.

• Harvard Law School

  Since 1817 Harvard Law School has operated without interruption, the oldest such school in the United States, here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, HLS is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United States, though its founding is also traced to the establishment of a “law department” at Harvard in 1819.

• MIT Media Lab

  Building E15, the Wiesner Building designed by Pei on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, houses the MIT Media Lab, founded in 1985. Founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner, the Media Lab grew out of the Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture and Planning.

• 
  Mount Auburn Cemetery

  Mount Auburn Cemetery was dedicated in 1831. Here, on grounds dedicated in 1831, you encounter the nation’s first rural or garden cemetery: 174 acres (70 ha) of rolling landscaped terrain set with classical monuments.

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  Stata Center

  Opened on March 16, 2004, the Ray and Maria Stata Center is also called Building 32. This 430,000-square-foot academic complex, with a 290,000-square-foot underground garage, was designed by architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and opened for initial occupancy on March 16, 2004.

All 30 stops

• Harvard Square (Harvard Square)

  Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street converge here in a triangular plaza that gives you the pulse of Cambridge.

• Harvard Yard (Cambridge)

  Notice the 22.4-acre grassy expanse that has grown since Harvard College's first parcel was purchased in 1637.

• John Harvard statue (Cambridge)

  Picture Daniel Chester French, working in bronze in 1884, imagining a face for John Harvard with no likeness to guide him.

• Widener Library (Cambridge)

  Picture 3.5 million books held within the centerpiece of the Harvard Library system, built as a memorial after the Titanic's sinking.

• Sever Hall (Harvard Yard)

  About 1.3 million bricks make up Sever Hall, H. H. Richardson's academic building in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Massachusetts Hall (Cambridge)

  Look at Massachusetts Hall, older than any building at Harvard College, the first institution of higher learning in the British colonies in America and second…

• Memorial Hall (Harvard University)

  Harvard's Civil War dead are honored by Memorial Hall, the High Victorian Gothic building just north of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge)

  Picture three museums united here at the Harvard Art Museums, part of Harvard University.

• Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Harvard University campus)

  Look at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology on Divinity Avenue, founded through George Peabody's 1866 gift to Harvard's Cambridge campus.

• Harvard Museum of Natural History (Cambridge)

  Created in 1998 as the public face of three research museums, the Harvard Museum of Natural History fills the University Museum Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Cambridge)

  Radcliffe College lives on as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1999.

• Schlesinger Library (Cambridge)

  Andrew Carnegie gave Radcliffe College $73,900 in 1905 for the building that now houses the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women…

• American Repertory Theater (Harvard)

  A Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and a Jujamcyn Award all came to the American Repertory Theater, the not-for-profit company housed in the Loeb Drama…

• Harvard Law School (Cambridge)

  Since 1817 Harvard Law School has operated without interruption, the oldest such school in the United States, here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (Brattle Street)

  George Washington ran the Siege of Boston from the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Cambridge Common (Harvard Square)

  Gallows Hill was once the name for the northern portion of Cambridge Common, the public park near Harvard Square that has been common land since…

• Elmwood (Cambridge)

  John Nutting built Elmwood about 1767 for Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver, and the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House still centers a National Historic Landmark District in Cambridge.

• Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge)

  Mount Auburn Cemetery was dedicated in 1831.

• Cambridge, Massachusetts City Hall (City Hall Historic District)

  Milford granite and Longmeadow brownstone give Cambridge City Hall at 795 Massachusetts Avenue its Richardsonian Romanesque weight, under a bell tower rising 158 feet above…

• Memorial Drive (Cambridge)

  Construction began in 1897 on Memorial Drive, the 3.9-mile parkway that runs along the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Anderson Memorial Bridge (Harvard Square)

  Larz Anderson built this bridge in memory of his father, and since 1915 Anderson Memorial Bridge has carried traffic from Allston into Cambridge.

• Harvard Bridge (Cambridge)

  Boston and Cambridge built the Harvard Bridge jointly between 1887 and 1891, after years of disagreement.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge)

  In 1916 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology left Boston's Back Bay for this campus in Cambridge.

• Kresge Auditorium (MIT)

  Eero Saarinen designed Kresge Auditorium, MIT Building W16, at 48 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge.

• MIT Chapel (MIT Campus)

  Just 50 feet across and 30 feet high, the MIT Chapel is a windowless brick cylinder on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge…

• Stata Center (Cambridge)

  Opened on March 16, 2004, the Ray and Maria Stata Center is also called Building 32.

• Green Building (MIT Campus)

  Reinforced concrete rises 18 floors and 277 feet in the Cecil and Ida Green Building, Building 54, home of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and…

• Infinite Corridor (Cambridge)

  Twice a year, in mid-November and late January, sunlight pours the full 251-meter length of the Infinite Corridor through the main buildings of the Massachusetts…

• MIT Media Lab (Cambridge)

  Building E15, the Wiesner Building designed by Pei on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, houses the MIT Media Lab, founded in 1985.

• Broad Canal (East Cambridge)

  Broad Canal is a short surviving slice of the canal system Henry Hill and Rufus Davenport laid out in 1806, when Cambridge was an active…

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