East Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts

I spent 5 years at MIT only 10 blocks south of this fascinating part of Cambridge - it is the only part of Cambridge with streets laid out in a rectangular grid, with numbered streets, First through Sixth. I never knew what treasures were so close by. In the early 1800s there was a little coup in setting up government buildings in the area, well away from Harvard, beginning in 1814 with the Middlesex County Courthouse designed by Charles Bulfinch (who built U.S Capital and also figures in Quarters A in Brooklyn Navy Yard blog). Unfortunately it was constructed poor;y and the replacement structure (1848) was designed by Ammi B. Young (designed early Dartmouth College buildings) on 3rd St. On the corner of 3rd and Cambridge St. is arguably the finest neoclassical building in Massachusetts, the Registry of Deeds (1898), a gargantuan brownstone edifice, designed by Olin B. Cutter. Also pictured are New York-style brownstones on 3rd St. (known as Quality Row). Cute 3-bay firehouse also pictured on 3rd St. Last but not least is a dazzling 3-story structure clothed in the finest of vinyl siding on Gore St. (near 3rd, of course), now occupied by a future Nobel laureate, Micah Breakstone (inside joke!).