East Cambridge Balances Growth, Stability

Inside the former American Twine Building, just one block away from the CambridgeSide Galleria in East Cambridge, a group of young computer pros are busy conducting business over the Internet.

NetMarket, a company that helps businesses distribute information and purchase goods over the Internet, moved to East Cambridge last November and located its new state of the art offices inside an abandoned factory building on Second Street.

"We plan to be here a long time," says Daniel M. Kohn, 22, the chief executive officer of NetMarket. "We're just concerned this building won't be big enough for us in a couple years."

From his office window, Kohn can see the headquarters of two main competitors--Lotus and Pilot Software.

"There's a hugely growing concentration of computer and biotech firms here [in East Cambridge]," he says. "This is the premier location in the country."

In a neighborhood barber shop on Cambridge Street, three blocks away from the city's nucleus of technological development, two longtime East Cambridge residents express ambivalence about the influx of new businesses and upscale developments.

Nick Geraigery, 81, and Rocky A. Collazzo, 78, who gather at the Courthouse Barber Shop "every day," say they feel a tension between newcomers to the area and life-long residents.

"What you've got moving here are the Yuppies," says Geraigery, a retired MIT maintenance employee. "They're all in their own little world. They look down on the neighborhood people."

John A. Maddalo, the shop's owner, nods his head as he listens to Geraigery and Collazzo discuss the local politics of their neighborhood.

"This is still a working-class, family neighborhood," says Maddalo, whose family has operated the tiny barber shop across the street from the Middlesex County Court-house since 1945. "It's beginning to change, though."

'The Detroit of the East'

Until the mid-1960s, East Cambridge was sustained by an abundance of factory jobs that pumped millions of dollars into the local economy, says Erika S. Bruner, assistant director of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

"East Cambridge is the main reason this city was called ' the Detroit of the East,"' Bruner says.

The area is home primarily to Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and Portuguese-Americans. Immigrants were attracted by the abundance of high paying factory jobs, Bruner says.

"We probably have the largest Portuguese community in the country," says Jose D. Freitas, who immigrated from Portugal in 1946.

The loss of manufacturing jobs contributed to a period of neighborhood decline marked by high unemployment and building vacancy rates, residents say.

"Without the influx of factory jobs, when [parents] died, their kids moved out," Maddalo says.

"Just walking to Lechmere train station, You could see it was becoming a creepy, desolate area," says Jeannie Straim, director of economic development for Cambridge Community Development.

In 1978, Cambridge officials authored a plan which targeted $150 million in federal, state and private grants to help revitalize the local economy.

The plan, which devoted funds to restore Lechmere Canal, build a 16-acre park along the canal, widen the main streets and construct or repair over 1000 housing units, served as a major catalyst for new development, Straim says.

Renovations of abandoned factories have created more than 3.9 million square feet of office space since 1980. City records show that only 7.4 percent of available space is vacant, making East Cambridge the most attractive commercial area in the city, Straim says.

The 1990 opening of the CambridgeSide Galleria and the construction of three large condominium projects--Thomas Graves Landing, River Court and the Esplanade--have provided additional retail and residential space, she says.

"There is a lot of spin off from MIT," Bruner adds." [The area] is attractive to upstart businesses and established businesses."

Tale of Two Cities

East Cambridge stretches from the Charles River to the Warren Street railroad tracks and is bounded by Broadway Street and the Cambridge-Somerville line.

The area's office and industrial space is anchored at One Kendall Square and winds its way along Edwin Land Boulevard and Third Streets. Most new commercial development rests between First Street and the river, leaving the balance of the neighborhood for residential dwellings.

"There are really two neighborhoods in East Cambridge: the traditional residential areas and the emerging luxury areas on the outskirts," Brockman says.

Many say there is little interaction between long time East Cambridge residents and the newer residents living in the upscale developments, which cost at least twice the price of most residential homes in the area.

"There are lots of entrenched older families here," says Melissa Glick, assistant director of the Cambridge Multicultural Center on Second Street ."They don't like change; they tend to stick with their old ways of life."

Glick says only a handful of locals come out to watch the dozens of annual performances given at the Multicultural Center, which has operated at the historic Bulfinch Square courthouse complex since 1986.

"I think the old-timers resent a lot of the growth," says Harold B. Richards, owner of Alisa's Restaurant, a sandwich shop on the corner of Spring and Second Streets. "Most of my customers come from the businesses or the construction sites."

Residents of the older sections of East Cambridge say they enjoy the fact that they know one another personally. This continuity, they say, has come to symbolize the neighborhood.

After ducking into a laundromat to exchange greetings in Portuguese with another neighborhood resident, Freitas says East Cambridge is one of the city's most stable neighborhoods.

"Neighbor knows neighbor," Freitas says. "There are many families who have been here for generations."

Many residents live in the same houses where they were born, and they are committed to preserving their neighborhood's homey character, Collazzo says.

"Lots of these families have been coming here since I was a kid," says Robert J. Salines, 38, the owner of Pugliese's Bar and Restaurant, which bills itself as "East Cambridge's oldest family-owned bar."

Containing the Growth

East Cambridge leaders say they are attempting to strike a balance between growth--which they predict will spread throughout the old neighborhood if left unchecked--and the preservation of long standing community bonds.

Richard J. Vendetti, President of the East Cambridge Planning Team, says his homeowner's coalition is working to contain the encroachment of new developments upon older sections of the neighborhood.

"Growth is one thing," Vendetti says. "Alienation, congestion gestion and sprawl are another."

Vendetti says the planning team advocates several proposals for the future: rezoning Kendall Square for lowdensity residential use, capping the height of buildings and limiting upscale developments to the Kendall Square, McGrath Highway and Charles Riverfront areas.

"We worry about overdevelopment. It's like the Great Wall of China when you look out across the river," Vendetti says.

The planning team is currently working to thwart the construction of a 26,000 square-foot massage parlor along McGrath Highway, he says.

At their last meeting, the group voted unanimously to recommend that the city council reject the request.

"That's exactly the kind of stuff we don't want," Geraigery says.

Geraigery and other citizens say they fear the end of rent control may pave the way for massive changes in East Cambridge by encouraging developers to build more expensive condominium projects.

But Carlos M. Alves, owner of Christine's Restaurant on First Street, remains optimistic that developers, city officials and residents will cooperate to promote their neighborhood's best interests.

"People who work here fall in love with the neighborhood," Alves says. "But the people will band together and do what's best."

"East Cambridge is not about the big malls and the slick companies," he says. "It's about working families, and we can't let people forget that."

This article is the second in an occasional series of profiles of Cambridge's 13 neighborhoods.