Follen Street Historic District

Follen Street is a quiet, shaded, single-block street in Old Cambridge, cut off from through traffic and lined with seventeen single-family houses. Laid out in sections in 1836 and 1848, it grew as building activity picked up after Cambridge's first railroad station opened. Several Greek Revival houses from 1837 to 1847 show that early phase, and later houses add Italianate, Mansard, Stick Style, Romanesque Revival and Colonial Revival designs. Architects represented include Longfellow, Alden and Harlow, Peabody and Stearns, Guy Lowell, and Warren, Smith & Biscoe. The street has long been home to Harvard professors. Josiah Dwight Whitney, for whom Mount Whitney is named, rented 29 Follen Street, where astronomers Gould and Winlock also lived and set up a small observatory. The granite house at 1 Follen Street, built in 1889, has housed the Longy School of Music since 1937. Three modern houses at the east end are included so the district covers both sides of the whole street.