History Cambridge interviewed four people in 2009 about their experiences as children in Cambridge. We wanted to document their experiences and use the opportunity of looking back at one’s childhood to draw out memories of Cambridge in a different time and reflect on how the city has changed. The people selected had grown up, at least partially, in East Cambridge. The questions were written, interviews conducted and the tapes transcribed by Michelle Freitas as a part of an internship with the Cambridge Historical Society (now History Cambridge).
These oral histories illustrate the rich family and community histories of the East Cambridge neighborhood. As History Cambridge begins its year of exploring East Cambridge, staff looks back at these interviews, now more than 15 years old, and wonders whether a similar group of people interviewed today would have the same memories of growing up in the neighborhood. How do your stories compare to the accounts shared here? Email us to share your memories, and check out our East Cambridge History Hub for resources on the neighborhood’s history.
Dan Percoco was born at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge in 1942. His parents were born in Cambridge, and his grandparents came from Italy:
What did the neighborhood look like when you were growing up?
It doesn’t look like it does now, because it certainly feels like I moved to another location. Across the street [from the O’Connell branch library] was a grammar school and a high school, and there was a parochial school, the Sacred Heart School. In those days we did not take a bus to school, we walked. All the schools were zoned. Because I lived at 118 Thorndike St., I was zoned to go to the Putnam School, which is now an elderly home. Then the people on this block [of the O’Connell library] were zoned for the Thorndike School, which is now called the Kennedy/Longfellow School. Across the street was the Sacred Heart School, where I went for religious study. When I was growing up we used to have grades K-8. Because I went to the Putnam School, on Thursdays in the morning all the boys would go to the Thorndike School where we would take woodworking. All the girls would go to the Thorndike school and take cooking. Then in the afternoon we would go from the public school to the parochial school for religious education. We didn’t have Sunday school like today.
Would you describe East Cambridge as a unique place to grow up in?
Yes, very unique. It’s changed a lot but there are a lot of remnants still left. What I mean by remnants is that there are still people like myself around the neighborhood. We’re still here. I can name a lot of the families that have lived here all their lives.
How do you think East Cambridge is different from other parts of Cambridge?
It’s more of a community. There is more of a closeness. People might move out of East Cambridge but always come back to do things. I think the people of East Cambridge are special. When I go to church on Sundays, I still see people I knew as a kid. They don’t live in Cambridge anymore – they bring their children back here to go to this church. I think they always come back because of the people of East Cambridge.
Candy Maddalo’s grandparents moved from Palermo, Sicily, to East Cambridge. Her father was the first generation here; he worked in the Court House Barbershop from 1951 until he passed away in 2002:
What did the neighborhood look like when you were young?
It was a factory town. We had canals and just tons of factories. It didn’t look like it does today. We only had Lechmere Sales and a liquor store down the street and no mall. When I was a kid, people would refer to this area as “Tobacco Road”; I never really knew what that is supposed to mean. No one wanted to live on this side of the tracks from Ninth Street to First Street. It was not considered a wealthy or well-to-do area when I was growing up. I think it mostly had to do with the factories.
Did the neighborhood have a strong sense of community? Did you feel you were part of a specific group in the neighborhood? I mean, was East Cambridge different from other parts of Cambridge?
Yes it was. From Ninth Street to First, it was a world of its own, and if you went beyond that it seemed strange. People were very friendly. You could go anywhere. If you felt uncomfortable you could go to someone’s house. Everybody knew you. When I was growing up I remember it being a heavy Italian and Irish area. I remember when someone found out I was not Irish; they wouldn’t let me play with their children anymore, because I was Italian. My parents didn’t care who we hung out with or who we played with as long as they were nice people. As we got older a lot of Portuguese people came in. They were on Charles and Hurley streets. That wasn’t so bad. My parents didn’t care about that, but other people did. They wanted the Irish to stay with the Irish and the Italians to stay with the Italians. Kids don’t care. If someone wanted to play with you, then you were willing to play. I do remember that family wouldn’t let me play with their daughter.
Do you have anecdotes about anything unusual that happened in the neighborhood?
I remember the paranoia in the neighborhood when the Boston Strangler was around. People locked their doors. If people saw kids on the street, they would yell at you to go home and even call your parents to get you. You would be running an errand for your parents and other parents would be yelling at you to get home. I remember JFK and the whole city just about closed down. All the parents took their kids out of school and we went to church. The church was never so full in its entire life. Those were big events around here. Other than that it was everyday living except there were major fires like the pig factory.
Jean Raymond lived in the same house on Thorndike Street in Cambridge for more than 75 years. Her parents were both born in Nova Scotia.
Do you remember the neighborhood being mostly Italian or Irish?
Those were the two predominant nationalities. A few like myself were French Canadian. We had a few Polish people and Portuguese people . It was definitely mostly Italian and Irish. My mother never cooked spaghetti like my girlfriend’s mother, so she’d been told. My mother had good friends and she would always ask them how they made their spaghetti sauce. One time my girlfriend came over for dinner and we asked how it was. She said it wasn’t bad but not like her mom’s. I don’t know what the difference was. I think it was olive oil or garlic. My mother didn’t use those items. I never felt out of place. Everybody thought I looked Italian. It was a fun neighborhood, a good neighborhood. There was the Italian church St. Francis. There was a Polish church on Otis Street called St. Hedwig. There is Sacred Heart, and at that time I think it was mostly Irish. Today Sacred Heart has all different kinds of ethnicities. It’s a good community church.
Do you think East Cambridge is different from the rest of Cambridge? Do you think East Cambridge is unique?
We always heard it said that the other side of the tracks is Cambridge and this side of the tracks is East Cambridge. We used to say that we are better than they are. That goes way back to when we were kids. We would say that we’re better because we’re from East Cambridge … until someone put you in your place. I don’t think now we are aware of any distinction. As a kid growing up, there was a difference.
Is there less of a community?
That’s the biggest thing I notice. A lot of people have scattered, a lot have moved out. I know people from church, but I know less now and I have been here 75 years. I only know a few of my neighbors; we made it a point to know each other. It’s a bit sad when you’re just two doors away and you don’t really know who our neighbors are. The neighborhood has definitely changed. I do get the feeling that people are trying to become a closer-knit community. There are more children on my street than there has been for many years. I feel like more families are settling in. It’s a very expensive area though. You have to buy. There isn’t much renting, and buying is probably the only way one could come back to Cambridge.
Fred Fantini was born in Cambridge in 1949. He was a member of the Cambridge School Committee for more than 40 years before his retirement in 2023.
What do you remember about East Cambridge when you were a little kid?
East Cambridge had a lot of Polish folks at the time. I only lived there until I was 9 years old. I went to St. Hedwig School where kindergarten was the first two rows, first grade was the next two, and then the second grade was the next row. So it was all in the same classroom. It was very religious. We had two churches right there. My mother was in the choir at St. Hedwig. My uncle and aunt lived across the street and my uncle Charlie was the maintenance man at St. Hedwig. Dalton Jones, when he played for the Red Sox, married my cousin, Joanne. He lived in East Cambridge while he was on the Red Sox team. That was an experience for the neighborhood. When I moved to Mid-Cambridge for years we would take the bus and go down to St. Hedwig. We stayed really involved in the church community for a long time. East Cambridge was a close-knit neighborhood. My brother George was very close with Joe Szulewski, whose family owned the Szulewski Funeral Home. There’s a cleaners my brother Donald worked at that still exists on the corner of Sixth and Cambridge Street – must have been there about 50 years now. There was a furniture place on Cambridge Street that my father knew very well. Fred Salineri owned that. That’s where I got my furniture for my first apartment.
How has the neighborhood changed?
It became more diverse with Portuguese and Brazilian. It’s a lot more diverse than when I grew up. Cambridge has changed in a positive way. I see our school population changing. Our kindergarten enrollment this year and last year increased with more kids on paid lunch rather than free and reduced lunch. Housing prices are causing a change. I see that happening. East Cambridge is more diverse than any other part of the city. I go to Atasca, a Portuguese restaurant, and the Midwest Grill, a Brazilian restaurant. I know those people really well. You get that flavor of diversity, which I really like. I think even Brattle Street has changed – there used to be a lot of Harvard professors that lived there, but they left and now a lot of business people are coming into those neighborhoods. It’s not a faculty place like it used to be. It’s changed a lot. The neighborhoods are coming back with more kids. More families seem to be moving back.
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