A Look at Edmunds Street 1930-1945

Edmunds Street Looks Better Today

Looking south  on Edmunds Street --2009

You could probably live in North Cambridge for years – even for a lifetime –  without ever visiting Edmunds Street.   Most people probably never heard of it, and wouldn’t know where it is.  A very small, dead-end side street off Massachusetts Avenue,  Edmunds Street was like a tiny residential  island with only four houses.  It was surrounded on all sides  by  active  business and busy commercial properties, including the Boston and Maine Railroad. All four of its houses faced Massachusetts Avenue to the east.

            Families who lived on Edmunds Street all greeted each other politely, but none seemed  very close socially.  The Callahan family lived in the first house.  The second house was occupied by two generations of the Larson family, one family on the first floor, the other on the second floor.  The younger generation had a son about my age, Jack Larson, and we were childhood friends while he lived on the street.

The third house—next door-- was occupied by the Cassidy family, who lived on the second floor.  Sometime around 1938 the Bettini family lived on the first floor.  In our house, the two generations of the Poirier  family lived on the second floor, and the Baldwin family lived on the first floor.  Some  other families lived  on Edmunds Street during the 1930s  or early 1940s, but  I can’t remember the names.

Edmunda St. Looking north - 2009

            
The view to the east faced busy Massachusetts Avenue.   All four homes on Edmunds Street faced the sights and sounds of the constant flow of traffic, including electric streetcars, on Massachusetts Avenue. A Socony-Mobil gasoline station stood on the northwest corner of the street, and in the 1930s a Sunoco gasoline station was built on the other side, the southwest corner of Edmunds Street.  Adding to the sounds of autos and trucks, you could hear the grinding whine of the electric streetcars.  Especially from the second-floor porch of each house, you could see all the traffic activity on Massachusetts Avenue.  There were no trees, no foliage to block your view on Edmunds Street..  The only tree I can remember on the street was a big cherry tree in back of our house, and even that one was blown over in one of the hurricanes--possibly the great hurricane of 1938.

Electric Streetcars had a spring-loaded arm with a wheel at the end that  reached up to  contact  the high-voltage wires that were suspended  openly,  about 15 to 20 feet above the roadway on Massachusetts Avenue..  These wires would often make a clicking sound as streetcars traveled back and forth from the end of the line at Arlington to the subway station at Harvard Square.    All four houses had a porch on the first floor and another on the second floor. We lived upstairs on the second and third floors, so we enjoyed the view from the open porch on the second-floor.

South side--2d floor large  kitchen window

Looking out our second-floor kitchen window toward the south we saw the Clark coal yard, and on the other side of it, the Boston and Main Railroad tracks.  The railroad tracks may have been about 150 feet from the house, close enough to hear the roar of the steam engine and feel the house shake when a long freight train came by.   The six-foot wooden fence that encircled the Clark Coal Company closed off the end of Edmunds Street.   Looking out across the railroad tracks we could see the old, three-story brick building that once was the Catholic “French school” attended by my father.  Next to it was the old, wooden “French church” as it was called in North Cambridge.  Both of these old buildings had been sold to local  businesses when the new Catholic church and school buildings were built at Rindge Avenue.

The view from the second-floor dining room window, facing north, was the side of the Cassidy family’s house.  Houses were built fairly close together on Edmunds

Street, with about 10 feet of space between them.

Looking westward,   the view was from the back bedroom on the third floor.  This was our Grandfather’s bedroom while he lived with us.  From there you could look down over the Metropolitan Ice Company’s plant covering around a half acre.  You could see the office building and the large, wooden barn-like buildings built along the railroad tracks.  They held old electric ice delivery trucks – retired years ago -- and equipment.  Ice delivery trucks were coming in and out of their plant during business hours. 

It was a cool place to work.  On the west side of  the Metropolitan Ice plant there was a large refrigerated warehouse-like freezing plant that produced large  “bars” of ice overnight, and pre-scored them for cutting with an ice pick.  One of the marvels of the day was a drive-up, coin-operated ice-dispensing unit where you could get a 15-pound block of ice or a bag of crushed ice.   

In those years, many homes had iceboxes.  Few had electric refrigerators until around the 1940s, I believe.  Our family bought its first refrigerator around 1940 when my sisters both had jobs and could help our parents buy it.  Later on, during my first year of high school, I worked as a part-time helper on an ice delivery truck—Crystal Ice-- that served a good part of North Cambridge.  

The ice truck was  a 1938 Dodge one-ton, dual,  flat bed with a red cab and solid sides, designed so that a heavy canvas could slide over the ice on board to shield it from the sun and dust.    It also had a fuel oil tank installed behind the cab, and was equipped with a metered pump and long hose reel.  This enabled the owner to deliver heating oil to  families along the route during the winter.  The business owner printed square cards, with large numbers on all four edges.  The customers would place the card in a window with the desired number at the top,  signifying a delivery needed for  a  25-pound, 50-pound or 100-pound block of ice  to be placed in  their icebox.  Some customers lived on the third floor, and that was a workout with a heavy block of ice.

There was a big, old cherry tree in the back yard between our house and the Metropolitan Ice Company.  It was blown over by one of the hurricanes.  In those summer seasons when it was still standing, the foliage blocked  most of the view of the commercial scene below.

There was another industrial building nearby.  Cottage Park Avenue was another tiny dead-end street off Massachusetts Avenue, the next street north of Edmunds Street.  Cottage Park Avenue curved around until it reached the entrance of the Metropolitan Ice Company.  Adjacent to the Ice company was another industrial site,  The Emerson Respirator Company.  This three-story brick building could be seen from our house, too.   

            Although Edmunds Street ended  at that time at the coal company fence,  local young people  had -- for years – walked through  the back yard of our house as a short cut  to cross the railroad tracks and get to Harvey Street on the other side.  They would pass through a hole in the short section of wooden railroad fence.  It was only about 20 feet wide, closing a gap between the coal company and Metropolitan Ice Company’s sheds next to the tracks.  Somehow, there always seemed to be one board missing.  So we were resigned  to  not knowing  who may come walking through our back yard from one day to the next.  In the years of the Great Depression, we didn’t complain about small stuff, because we were thankful for the roof over our heads and the food on our table.  We still feel that way today.

I believe this may explain how Edmunds Street was truly a tiny residential island, its four houses almost surrounded by business and commercial property and activities including the Boston and Maine Railroad.  .  This was the neighborhood setting I lived in for 17 years.  I really loved to get a change of scenery now and then when the family went on “Sunday drives” through the farms and countryside or to the Atlantic beaches.  As a child, I really looked forward to these drives, especially because there was usually a stop along the way for a treat -- a big ice cream cone or some delicious fried clams. These were the good family memories that I still treasure.

I admired the great family  neighborhoods surrounding me in North Cambridge where kids had a lot of other kids on the same block to play with.  I visited friends who lived in other neighborhoods.  I  played stick ball with a broom stick and an old tennis ball on Harvey Street.  Occasionally I could join in a spontaneous baseball game at Rindge Park.  So in spite of living  isolated in a kind of  small island,  I nevertheless experienced the good family neighborhoods  that were typical of North Cambridge in those years.