Views of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Two Years in Massachusetts


From Two Years Overlooking MIT, 2013-2015

From 2013 to 2015 I split my time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Chicago. Rather than work on a major project in the Boston area, I mainly used my time there to write my dissertation and focus other projects, including organizing and editing my work for Affordable Housing in New York and the Telescope Houses of Buffalo, New York. Even so, I did produce a small photographic series about modernist buildings, wandered around in the greatest snowfall in the city’s history, and made a little work that helped me enjoy some of the differences between New England and Midwestern cities.

The following photographs are a loose assortment from those mini-projects. The above image pulls from the dozens of photographs I made from the apartment window. MIT’s Briggs Field commands the foreground, with the rest of the campus, the Charles River, and Boston beyond.

Walking Home
Walking home through the Allston neighborhood

Peabody Terrace, Frame Buildings
Josep Lluís Sert’s Peabody Terrace in context

Ice Cream Hanging Out on the Charles River
Forth of July along the Charles River

Simmons Hall in the Snow

Cambridge Street After the Blizzard

Where All the Snow Goes
Cambridge in the snow

Shell Oil Company
The landmarked [pdf] Shell Oil Company “Spectacular” sign in Cambridge

St Augustine's African Orthodox Pro-Cathedral Diptych
St Augustine’s African Orthodox Pro-Cathedral in Cambridge. The denomination was founded in Chicago in 1921 and has an intriguing history, including links to Marcus Garvey.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
In the fall, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus rolls into the Boston area and sides in Cambridge tracks.

Covered Car, Boston Skyline
A view of the Boston skyline from across the harbor in Jeffries Point

What Cheer? at Honk Fest
Providence-based What Cheer? in a Honk Fest parking garage

One Light

Residential Building First United Mkt
Three photographs from a small project on Cambridgeport, a low-density Cambridge neighborhood that’s being rapidly densified

Boston's Government Service Center at Dusk
Boston’s Government Service Center at dusk

Sarrinen's MIT Chapel Two Plus Two
Eero Sarrinen’s MIT Chapel and a peculiar Allston residential building

Addition Abomination
Perhaps the brashest (and ugliest) building addition I’ve ever seen

North End Park, Boston Skyline
A view of the Boston’s layered skyline from North End Park