Passing Comment

Heads bob up and down as a steady stream of pedestrians trods Cambridge's sidewalks. These people do not merely walk--they flow--and give the city its energy and vitality. But a few of them paused this week to reflect on Cambridge's birthday. "Everybody relates to each, other--everything's going on here. It's a much better place than Boston," says Stacy Holcombe, who has lived in Cambridge for 12 years.

"In Boston, a white can't talk to a Black--it just isn't the thing to do. Here, everybody connects," adds Holcombe, daughter of the late Sherman Holcombe, a Harvard dining hall worker's chief shop steward.

But for Dave Bailey, who has lived in Cambridge all his life, not everything is rosy for natives. "Harvard and MIT are buying up the whole city. In 30 years, at the rate it's going, Cambridge will be exclusively a university town."

But, Bailey says, Cambridge is still a good home. "The people here aren't transients, like in Boston. You have foundations--roots--and the neighborhoods get built up."

Sixty-eight-year-old Francis Boucher has also lived in Cambridge all here life. So did here mother. And her grandmother. "I'm very satisfied with Cambridge. The people are friendly, courteous and helpful, and I don't need a car to go anywhere I want," she says.

Ken Sorrenti says he sells pot for a living and thinks he does a good business. "It's much cheaper to live here than in Boston," Sorrenti says--before inquiring if anyone would like some "herbs."

The self-proclaimed "Squire of Harvard Square," who identified himself only as Hugo, says "Cambridge is a nice place to live--if you're a Harvard student. Ancient Rome was a better city."

But the majority of people randomly questioned on the streets of Cambridge could say only "It's great. I love it." That alone is testimony to a city where people can't sit still, and where a 350th birthday is but one roadsign on a path of perpetual motion.