Things I miss about Cambridge
Well, it’s six months now after my move to Washington, and the nation’s capitol is still a beautiful and exciting place. I’m enjoying my job, and am happy I moved. Still, there are a few things I really miss about Cambridge, MA, and New England.
It’s not so much people I miss (although I do miss my friends still up there), but rather the city itself, it’s winding streets that connect squares that are never really square. I miss the fact that there was a Bow Street, and that it intersected Arrow Street. Each square was its own little cultural world, and every street has old buildings that had crumbled somewhat and been chaotically repaired. Despite the overwhelming pompousness of the place, it has a certain grace and a sense of history. Of all the large American cities, it is the least American and the most European in its scale and design.
I miss also real coffeeshops, little holes in the wall places where the owner if usually working. 1369, Café Pampolona, Café Rustica, Café Algiers… I’m convinced there’s something about having old buildings that encourages quirky new business to form. There were always small places to rent in Boston, and the architecture encourages the quirky. DC, in contrast, has gigantic buildings that are mostly new, and the available retail space is carved into huge tracts. The only thing that really survives in such a retail market are chains: Starbucks and all the rest. This makes DC a place where it’s surprisingly hard to get a good coffee, with the exceptions of a few neighborhoods that were built more than 50 years ago. So, advice to all the folks doing smart urban growth in the DC area (and there are a lot of them)- you’ll get cooler stores when you change your zoning codes to allow little stores down allies and in basements.
It’s not so much people I miss (although I do miss my friends still up there), but rather the city itself, it’s winding streets that connect squares that are never really square. I miss the fact that there was a Bow Street, and that it intersected Arrow Street. Each square was its own little cultural world, and every street has old buildings that had crumbled somewhat and been chaotically repaired. Despite the overwhelming pompousness of the place, it has a certain grace and a sense of history. Of all the large American cities, it is the least American and the most European in its scale and design.
I miss also real coffeeshops, little holes in the wall places where the owner if usually working. 1369, Café Pampolona, Café Rustica, Café Algiers… I’m convinced there’s something about having old buildings that encourages quirky new business to form. There were always small places to rent in Boston, and the architecture encourages the quirky. DC, in contrast, has gigantic buildings that are mostly new, and the available retail space is carved into huge tracts. The only thing that really survives in such a retail market are chains: Starbucks and all the rest. This makes DC a place where it’s surprisingly hard to get a good coffee, with the exceptions of a few neighborhoods that were built more than 50 years ago. So, advice to all the folks doing smart urban growth in the DC area (and there are a lot of them)- you’ll get cooler stores when you change your zoning codes to allow little stores down allies and in basements.
