Outdoor Lighting in Cambridgeport, Middlesex County, and MA

Once part of a more expansive marshland area associated with the Charles River basin, today many of the area’s names are associated with its early history. Over time the area has become a center of municipal government for the city.

The Fig Newton cookie (named after nearby Newton, Massachusetts) was first manufactured in Cambridgeport in 1891 at the F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery.

Portions of the neighborhood would have been demolished as part of the Inner Belt highway project first planned in 1948 but canceled in 1971 after intense protests organized by community activists, and following Gov. Francis Sargent’s 1970 moratorium on highway construction inside Route 128. The original plan called for the Interstate to parallel Brookline Street to the Boston University Bridge, although at least one other alignment was also considered.