Harriet Jacobs is one of America’s most important abolitionists. Her 1861 autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” stands alongside the works of Frederick Douglass as a foundational text of freedom.
In the late 19th century, Jacobs lived in Cambridge at 17 Story St. for several years, where she and her daughter ran a boarding house that welcomed Harvard students and faculty.
Cambridge should be proud of this history. We must honor Jacobs. Preserving her legacy is not in question; the challenge is how to best do so.
The Jacobs House is poorly maintained and has been used only intermittently over the years as administrative space.
According to a memo submitted on behalf of the city’s historic preservation staff to the Cambridge Historical Commission, “From the 1960s until 2020, when the current owners acquired the property, the building received only minimal maintenance and appeared to be in danger of demolition by neglect.” Delaying the project now before city boards will not save the house; it will leave it exposed to time and uncertainty, without the resources needed to stabilize and restore it.
The developer has proposed “relocating the Harriet Jacobs House from the back of the site to sit prominently at the front corner of Mount Auburn and Story streets.” The site would house a new “eight-story hotel and residence building, which will have approximately 67 hotel keys as well as approximately 50 residential units. The Harriet Jacobs House will serve as the hotel lobby and will connect to a small cafe.”
The proposal does three things at once: It restores and preserves the house and relocates it to a prominent, visible position on the site, where it can be regularly accessible to the public. It adds 50 much-needed homes, including affordable units, in the midst of Cambridge’s housing crisis, which is pushing longtime residents and young families out of the city. And it finances preservation through hotel revenue, following an adaptive-reuse model that has saved countless historic buildings nationwide.
This is not preservation versus profit. It is preservation through investment versus continued deterioration.
While some worry that moving the house may diminish its integrity, preservation professionals have emphasized the opposite: Keeping it where it sits today would bury it behind new frontage in the proposed development and all but hide it from public life.
Over years of design iterations, city preservation staff have urged architects to bring the house forward so it can be seen, cared for and used. Cambridge Historical Commission chair Chandra Harrington made the same case. “I think this project is great,” Harrington said at the commission’s last meeting. “They’re honoring the house and the history by preserving it and placing it right up in front of the property. These people have the money and want to put it in now. If we pass by them, who knows who’s going to come up and do this?”
The Jacobs House sits within the Harvard Square Conservation District. The Historical Commission has full jurisdiction over its relocation, alteration and restoration, and can condition approvals to ensure preservation standards are met. According to the memo, a separate landmarking process “may not be necessary” if the project is eligible for a certificate of appropriateness as designed or as modified. Launching an additional, duplicative landmarking process would consume scarce staff resources without adding meaningful protection, since the commission is already empowered to review the scale and design of the new construction.
At the same time, Cambridge’s housing crisis is undeniable. Rents are among the highest in the nation, and too many people – our grown children, teachers, health care workers, recent graduates, young families and new residents seeking sanctuary from cruel and xenophobic laws — are being priced out. Adding 50 units, 20 percent of them affordable, is not a luxury, but a responsibility.
Jacobs’ life and legacy embody dignity, security and justice. Expanding access to safe, affordable homes in Cambridge carries that same moral weight today.
The best way to honor Jacobs is not by allowing her home to languish with makeshift repairs, as some have suggested, but by securing its future while advancing Cambridge’s values of dignity, inclusion and shelter.
E. Denise Simmons, mayor
Marc McGovern, vice mayor
Sumbul Siddiqui, city councillor
Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, city councillor
The writers are elected officials in Cambridge.
A stronger
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It’s unfortunate that the councilors, which represent 1 short of a majority vote, are seemingly only willing to ask kindly of an entity that exists only under laws that the council itself control. I strongly suspect that the council has the votes to do something about this.
Thank you to these elected officials for their thoughtful arguments and support of a plan that both preserves the Jacobs house and addresses the housing crisis.
For over 60 years, the house has fallen into disrepair. It’s telling that many opponents, now invoking “preservation,” were silent until housing was proposed.
This is exactly the kind of project Cambridge should be championing. It restores and tells the story of an important (and neglected) historic home and story and adds housing where it’s urgently needed. The city needs more adaptive reuse and values-driven development like this.
Thank you to the mayor, vice mayor, and councilors for laying this out so clearly. The support speaks volumes: not just our authors here, but also the Harriet Jacobs Legacy Committee, the Harvard Square Business Association, and the Cambridge Historical Commission. It’s rare for a project gets this kind of alignment.
The project doesn’t erase her history, it’s honors it by making it visible, restored, active, and public. The hotel provides public access, helps with the housing crisis, and tells a story that needs to be told in Cambridge. Not every real estate development can hit all three. I really hope the community can all see this for what it is: preservation, housing, and storytelling come together.
Very persuasive. I stood on that corner and thought how much better it would be if the house were brought forward.
That said, the hotel/housing structure is pretty big. It would be good if it could be reduced some.
Anyone crying “preservation” isn’t fooling anyone. The Jacobs house is falling apart. This project will fix it, move it to a place of honor, open it to the public, and add badly needed housing, including affordable units. Exactly what Cambridge needs.
As others have noted, it is funny how the opponents never cared about “preservation” until housing was on the table. That says it all.
I hope the Historical Commission will listen to these councilors’ thoughtful comments laying out the win-win nature of this project for both preservation and housing, rather than to people abusing the landmarking process to engage in obstructionism (most of the landmarking study petition signers are immediate neighbors, color me skeptical that historical interest in Harriet Jacob just happens to be so narrowly concentrated geographically…)
@baustinspooner, agreed on the relocation to the corner being a huge improvement, both giving the Jacobs house pride of place and creating a more pleasant streetscape compared to the ugly parking lot at that corner today. I don’t think the tower size is out of scale though, it’s of similar height to the kitty-corner building (124 Mt Auburn) as well as set back pretty far from the street due the house being placed in front of it.