Cambridge: Fresh Pond
Cambridge: Fresh Pond
Only a few minutes walk from where we are staying is Fresh Pond, an oasis of trees and water in this city.
When Carol and I were first married we lived for a year and a half on the other side of Fresh Pond. I often saw it while driving on nearby streets, but for some reason we never walked there. We did last Saturday, and I have returned since.
The prettiest part of Boston is not the harbor, but the Charles River near MIT and Harvard, where you see cupolas on older buildings rising about trees, and, in season, crews and individuals rowing shells. Near the locks through which the Charles enters Boston harbor, the river is wide enough for small sailboats to sail between bridges. But the walkway there is usually crowded, and on either side of the river you are near noisy traffic of Memorial Drive on the Cambridge side and Storrow Drive on the Boston side.
Heavily used streets run near Fresh Pond, too, but the trees there block them from sight and muffle their sounds. Surrounded by trees and wild flowers, you feel as though you are in a forest far from any city, not in the midst of four million other people.
The pond itself is not accessible, being a part of Cambridge’s water supply and protected by a high chain link fence. There is a 2.25 mile long walking and biking path around it, popular with joggers and dog owners who can let their pets off the leash to run free.
Two hundred years ago, Frederic Tudor had the idea of shipping ice from New England’s winter frozen ponds to the Caribbean. After experimenting with various insulating materials, including coal dust, he settled on sawdust, and managed eventually to ship ice all the way to Calcutta, India, a voyage that took four months and during which a cargo of 180 tons of ice was reduced to 100 tons, still enough to make it an extremely profitable venture. Fresh Pond was one of his main sources of ice. Thoreau’s Walden Pond was another. After watching men saw blocks of ice, Thoreau wrote: ‘The sweltering inhabitants of Charlestown and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well . . . The pure Walden water is mixed with the sacred water of the Ganges.’
Boston is the most European of American cities, which is charming in some ways, and distressing in others. Buildings, streets, people are forced together in ways that developed without plan or reason, resulting in friction and aggression. Boston is a tough city. Fresh Pond a tranquil and charming escape.
----------
Thursday, July 16, 2009