About Us
Information about the Department itself
Wayfinding
Signs have been installed to help people bike between the Minuteman Bikeway/Alewife and the Charles River Bike Paths/Harvard Square.
Washington Remembered, Washington Forgotten: Washington and Slavery (Main/Virtual)
To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies will present Washington in American Memory, a seven-part speaker series.
Explore how Americans have remembered and forgotten Washington’s involvement with slavery over the past 250 years. Three historians who work at the intersection of scholarship and public history will shed new light on our founding contradictions:
Kelli Racine Barnes, ACE Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow and historian of 18th- and 19th-century U.S. history
John Garrison Marks, author of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (forthcoming April 7, 2026) and Vice President of Research and Engagement at the American Association for State and Local History
Kyera Singleton, Executive Director of the Royall House & Slave Quarters and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tufts University Center for the Humanities
This event will conclude with a book signing by John Garrison Marks. Copies of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory will be available to purchase.
COA Lunch and Learn
Join MIT AgeLab researchers on Thursday, September 28 at the Cambridge Senior Center (806 Massachusetts Ave.) from 12 - 1 p.m. for a "Lunch and Learn" event exploring our current understanding of the evolution of the longevity economy.
Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. Park
The new Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. Park located at 71 Rogers Street in East Cambridge is now open to the public.
Great Books Book Group (Main/Virtual)
This week's selection: Shakespeare, King Lear
Reading Interests: We concentrate on Great Books in the following areas: a long novel over the summer, two sections of poetry and short stories, a book of the Bible, a Shakespeare play, an ancient and modern drama, a work of science, a smaller work of fiction, an even smaller work of fiction, and a rotating mix of politics, philosophy, and religion. Authors read in the past five years include Dickens, Keats and Yeats, O'Connor and Munro, Ecclesiastes, Sophocles and August Wilson, Darwin, Austen, Duras, The Federalist Papers, and Arendt.
How to get the print book: Copies of the reading are set aside at the Main Library. Visit the Main Library at 449 Broadway during current service hours and a staff member can help you get a copy.
How to register: Registration is required. Click the registration link below to register.
This is a hybrid event. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants 1 hour before the event.
For more information, contact Drew Griffin (dgriffin@cambridgema.gov)
Great Books Book Group (Main/Virtual)
This week's selection: Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It
Reading Interests: We concentrate on Great Books in the following areas: a long novel over the summer, two sections of poetry and short stories, a book of the Bible, a Shakespeare play, an ancient and modern drama, a work of science, a smaller work of fiction, an even smaller work of fiction, and a rotating mix of politics, philosophy, and religion. Authors read in the past five years include Dickens, Keats and Yeats, O'Connor and Munro, Ecclesiastes, Sophocles and August Wilson, Darwin, Austen, Duras, The Federalist Papers, and Arendt.
How to get the print book: Copies of the reading are set aside at the Main Library. Visit the Main Library at 449 Broadway during current service hours and a staff member can help you get a copy.
How to register: Registration is required. Click the registration link below to register.
This is a hybrid event. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants 1 hour before the event.
For more information, contact Drew Griffin (dgriffin@cambridgema.gov)