There’s no question that the Hyatt Regency is a visual and architectural landmark in Cambridge. On its 50th birthday, we should celebrate its significance to landmark labor struggles, too.
Opened to coincide with the 1976 bicentennial, Graham Gund’s “brick ziggurat” won immediate praise from Boston Globe architecture critic (and Cambridge resident) Robert Campbell, who hailed it as a “real asset to Boston.” It also delivered hundreds of jobs to Cambridge residents after a two-year struggle by the Riverside-Cambridgeport Community Corporation won a landmark agreement from Gund and Hyatt.
Their fight was part of a larger movement in Greater Boston. From the organizers who kept the “inner belt” from bisecting Cambridge to innumerable neighborhood battles for fair housing, activists channeled our region’s long history to demand a place in its future. The jobs Gund agreed to served Cambridge for a generation.
Then, in 2009, Hyatt fired all its housekeepers and outsourced their jobs. Workers and their allies fought back furiously. The city council drew up anti-outsourcing orders, and students, politicians, and unionized hotel workers launched boycotts. In 2014, they won another landmark victory: a million-dollar settlement for the “Hyatt 100.”
Today, Hyatt Regency workers are demanding a fair process to join a union. As in years past, they’ve launched a boycott and won support from local leaders. The hotel’s new owners, private equity firm KSL, may celebrate the property’s unique architecture, but they clearly have no sense of its history.
Cambridge’s “ziggurat” will surely merit a petition for official landmark status soon. When the Cambridge Historical Commission reviews it, they should take account of generations of workers’ struggles on this site. We’re celebrating another big birthday this year, after all; one that demands we document righteous stories of collective action.
Nick Juravich
Associate Professor of History and Labor Studies
University of Massachusetts Boston
A stronger
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