Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Brattle Street
42 Brattle Street, whose Loyalist owner William Brattle gave the street his name
West endMt. Auburn Street
East endMassachusetts Avenue

Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War,[1] is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store,[2] and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived (though at different times), as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. [3] Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America."[4] "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."[5]

  1. ^ ""Discovery Days" Highlights Cambridge History". Cambridge Community Television. Retrieved 2011-01-17. Known before the Revolution broke out as the "King's Highway" and "Tory Row," Brattle Street was the main thoroughfare for Cambridge's richest and most elegant neighborhood.
  2. ^ Pilar Viladas (2010-09-29). "One-Stop Living". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-01-17. In 1953, the architect Benjamin Thompson (1918-2002) opened a store called Design Research on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts
  3. ^ "Though Dwelling in a Land of Freedom". National Park Service.
  4. ^ Samuel Atkins Eliot (1913). A history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913. Cambridge Tribune. p. 75. Tory Row.
  5. ^ Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Old Cambridge, 1973 ISBN 0-262-53014-7, Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 55-67