Magazine Beach was an island? People swam in the Charles River? That granite-block building stored gunpowder for ships in Boston Harbor? All of these questions and more will be answered to the tune of Cambridge’s finest Best Ever Chicken (bluegrass band), kite flying and races for children, learn-to-row lessons and art at Magazine Beach Park Saturday, June 15, 12-5pm. In case of rain, the art installation in the 1818 powder magazine will still be on and the music and picnic will move into the Riverside Boat Club, just across from Starbucks (at Micro Center/Trader Joe’s Plaza), on Memorial Drive.
The Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Charles River Conservancy, the Riverside Boat Club and many others, will offer Celebration 2013 at Magazine Beach. Their goal: to bring the community together in Cambridge’s second largest park and create an awareness of its rich history and great potential: 15 acres along the Charles River. The event is a Cambridge talent show with Artforming and Danielle Sauvé using lights and sound to transform the interior of the 1818 powder magazine into a place of memories and meditation; Nancy Adams, former head of the experimental art group Mobius, leading a performance around the magazine; public artist Ross Miller, David Craft of Gallery 263 and Lars Anderas (UMass Boston graduate student) marking the shoreline of Captain’s Island; and Cambridgeport’s own If this park could talk signs… all over the park – just for the day – revealing the site’s stories. The Riverside Boat Club, home of many rowers preparing for the Olympics, will offer learn-to-row lessons.
There will be food trucks, cold lemonade, a new history of Magazine Beach, and almost everything but swimming in the Charles River. (We’re not quite ready for that.) Rain or shine, come to the park for entertainment, fun and community. It’s free! For further information, go to www.magazinebeach.wordpress.com or join us on facebook at: www.facebook.com/magazinebeach.
Partners: Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, MA Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Charles River Conservancy, the Riverside Boat Club, the Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge Historical Society, Artforming, Gallery 263 and UMass Boston
Sponsors: New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, Charles River Conservancy, Forest City & Anonymous
Magazine Beach is a DCR park in Cambridge, MA, along the Charles River.
