Cambridge Common Park

Great park! This particular visit it seems part of the park was under construction, unsure how long it has been going on or when it will be finished. The walk from Porter station to Harvard Sq takes you near this park, it is always my choice to detour through. On this visit there wasn’t many people hanging around, the weather was chilly and with the construction going on it seemed empty. Looked very clean and peaceful

Except for the hippies’ littering the park and their unruly dogs barking, it’s a nice place to take your dinner or Berryline froyo and watch people play.

This park is a memorial to the first meeting George Washington and his soldiers, though I do believe there is a memorial to Irish famine victims as well.
The park is usually pretty full with frisbee playing students, children, and their parents. I suggest you head over to the old cemetery across the way. One could spend hours there reading about our nations forbearers. Fascinating stuff.

A nice spot in the heart of Cambridge, but not all that safe at night, and you sometimes have to dodge softballs, frisbees, and dogs during the summer. I tend to use it as more of a cut-​through than anything while heading from/​to Harvard Square or taking walks around the Longy School area, Avon Hill, and Huron Village. It’s not really the type of park where you want to have a relaxing picnic, but it’s not so bad in small doses.

Seeing that I live on the other side of the earth (read: JP), I usually only come out to Cambridge for kickball on Sundays. Nonetheless, I am not going to judge the park based on what it is compared to my neck of the woods, but rather highlight the fact that given the area it is a very nice play to relax and get your ballin’ on.
It has a playground for the littles, ball fields for the adults, plenty of open space to lounge about reading, or what have you, and benches if hanging out on the grass is not your deal. I’ve never seen a shady cat roam through here which can only mean that I am the shady one, or that the public safety has been secured by frequent patrols. I know in the summer an ice cream truck frequents the playground area and on more than one occasion I’ve had to fight off a few brats for my place in line, but at the end of the day if they don’t tell a 155lb kid to get off the slide, then I am happy!

The new playground is amazing! I cannot believe that I am the first to Unilocal about how modern and cool it is. I love the handicap accessible merry-​go-​round, and the water tables seem fascinating to many kids. This may be more for the preschool set than for toddlers. Tried and true playground equipment is redone with a twist. Great concept and execution!

Cambridge Common is the wonderful green space to hang out in around Harvard, much more preferred than Harvard Yard. In summer you will always find some kind of gathering or team sport going on. I’ve seen hula hoop troops, Morris dancers, softball, kickball, frisbee, etc. In the winter the sidewalks are actually shoveled. The year-​round lights in the trees are a pretty sight in the evening.

This park was home to my rained out softball game Friday night, but I’ve also been here before, for mud football. I took pictures and didn’t play because I don’t like mud and the mud aversion overweight the desire to play.
There is a nice amount of space here, for lots of groups to play without overlapping. The only problem (I’m not counting Harvard next door) is that it gets muddy really super easily. So think twice if it’s been raining alot lately.

Hey Harvard students — you like learning, right?
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How To Throw A Frisbee
1. Point your shoulder towards your target.
2. Use the hand you write with. Put your middle, ring, and pinky finger on the inside rim. Put your index finger on the area where the Frisbee begins to curve. Put your thumb comfortably on the top.
3. Wind your arm in and then wind out. Let go right before your arm is fully extended.
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Yes, it’s that fucking simple you fisbtards!

The fact that this is my regular route to and from the T makes me happy. I could walk down Garden Street, but I prefer to take the route through Cambridge common and do a little people watching…
Kids running around on the playground, people walking their pooches, soccer leagues, picnics, lovebirds smooching under the trees.
It’s a beautiful little park, when the leaves in the summer are full and green, when they are changing color in the fall or when the entire common is under a pile of fresh white snow. And hats off to the city of Cambridge for actually having the walks shoveled properly when said snow comes to town!

Convenient and home to my kickball league, so it’s been the site of some fun times. However, the fields are occasionally double booked and are not the best maintained playing surfaces. But I’ll take any green space in the middle of the city.

I saw a couple get married underneath the statue in the fall of 2006, just the two of them and their officiant (who was wearing a fabulous, wide-​rimmed hat, I might add). College kids regularly play frisbee here, and one of the Cambridge Adult Kickball leagues uses the Common’s field for their games. It’s a great little green space right in the heart of Harvard Square.

This park was the site of General Washington’s first meeting with his troops during the Revolutionary War.
It’s pretty big, and green. It’s a park, you can do a lot of stuff in it. You can sit, you can play frisbee. I like to play wiffle ball. To each his own though right?
It has a softball field. During the summer, people dressed in turqouis t-​shirts battle people in orange t-​shirts in kickball. It sounds fun but when you see it, it’s actually kind of lame.
There is a playground. It’s pretty active during the day, with kids and such. At night it’s empty and you can drunkenly play on it, not that I have…
Christmas lights burn eternally in the trees at the center of the park. It looks pretty. But I’m sure that socially conscious Cambridge is aware that this is wasteful and that they burn ethanol or old fast food grease or hydrogen or it’s probably run by solar power, because Al Gore tells us that the earth is melting. Actually no, it’s hypocritical, it runs on electricity. But it looks nice.
There’s a really abyssmal Irish famine memorial. And man, I’m Irish. and I still think it’s abyssmal.
Hobos chill here. It adds flavor.