Harvard Street Historic District

Harvard Street, at the summit of Dana Hill in Mid-Cambridge, is lined with large nineteenth-century houses built for Boston businessmen moving to the suburbs. The district covers about two acres between Ellery and Hancock Streets. Its houses date from 1850 to 1897 and show a sequence of styles: a wide-pilastered Greek Revival mansion at 335, a brick Italianate double house at 341-43, a Bracketed-Italianate house at 336, a pattern-book Gothic house at 338, a Mansard house at 342-44, and Colonial Revival houses at 337 and 340 designed by James P. Kelley and Arthur Vinal. The street was laid out as a direct route from Old Cambridge to Boston, over the objections of Judge Francis Dana, and by 1896 it was among the city's handsomest streets. Apartment buildings arrived in the 1920s and 1960s, yet the street retains much of its original appearance. The boundaries were drawn to include the large residences that once distinguished it.