The Messenger

3

Kendall Square

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, IS THE FLAT NORTHERN bank of the Charles River, facing Boston to the south. Its prominence in American letters and science is belied by its size: just seven square miles and home to about 118,000 people.¹ It’s shaped something like a high-heeled shoe. The stem of the shoe, to the southwest, is mostly Cambridge Cemetery and a small part of Mount Auburn Cemetery. The rest of the city is thirteen neighborhoods. Some have directional names, like West Cambridge and North Cambridge, both found near the heel. Others’ names point to once-present features, like Strawberry Hill. A couple of the neighborhoods have economical, dismissive names: Neighborhood Nine in the middle, for example. And at the front sole, ...