East Cambridge Historic District

East Cambridge is a compact neighborhood of about 16 acres that grew from a marsh-surrounded island into one of the Boston area's first planned communities. Developer Andrew Craigie and his Lechmere Point Corporation had surveyor Peter Tufts lay out a grid of streets and house lots in 1810, and the plan is the earliest nineteenth-century use of a rectilinear grid in the region. Growth was driven by the move of the Middlesex County courthouse, designed by Charles Bulfinch in 1814, and by early glass and later furniture industries. The district holds a courthouse complex, the Registry of Deeds, the Putnam School, a 1827 Federal church, and many workers' cottages and brick rowhouses in Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate and Mansard styles. Successive waves of immigrants filled the lots, and residential building had largely ended by 1890. The area was listed for its planning history, its role as county seat and industrial center, and its architecture.