North Cambridge Painters — Porter Square to Alewife

The Charlestown Branch Railroad reached the area in 1842, and the Historical Commission describes the clay beds under the Alewife marshes as Cambridge's most abundant natural resource. Brickyard owners laid out house lots in the 1840s and early 1850s for a mostly Irish workforce, and in 1855 the old Race Course between Harvey Street and Rindge Avenue was divided into 275 lots, the largest residential subdivision in the neighborhood. French-Canadian workers followed. The city's 2008 neighborhood study says clay pits and brickyards were spread through the area until the early 1900s.

The next layer came between 1885 and 1935. A Historical Commission memo calls the two-family house the dominant form in North and West Cambridge by the turn of the century and, citing the commission's Northwest Cambridge survey, puts the number built in that span at over a thousand. Standard plans and stock materials let one developer put up several at a time, so neighboring houses can share trim and porch designs.

The housing mix today is wide. Census figures for the tract along Massachusetts Avenue near 2400 Mass Ave show 67.5% of units built before 1940 and 32.1% in three- and four-unit buildings. The tract that includes 315 Rindge Avenue looks different: 31.5% of its units are in buildings of 50 or more. Rindge Avenue is also where the 22-story Rindge Towers went up in 1968 and 1970, on a clay pit filled after the brickyards closed. At about 26 residents per acre, the city ranks North Cambridge as moderately dense, with 17% of its land in open space.

Siding over siding

Historical Commission write-ups of Rindge Avenue houses describe cedar shingles over original clapboard on a c.1850 cottage and white aluminum siding added in 1962 to a front-gabled duplex. Before a repaint, it helps to know which layer you're painting and whether the wood underneath is sound.

Small cottages, low to the ground

The c.1850 Rindge Avenue workers' cottage the Historical Commission documented is 1½ stories, with a steep gable roof, small projecting dormers and a 1930 enclosed porch lined with double-hung windows. On a house of that size the walls are short, and much of the exterior work is in the gables, dormer trim and the porch's run of sash and sills.

Repeated designs on one street

Where a developer built a run of two-families from one plan, porch columns, brackets and window trim can repeat from house to house. If they do, it is easier to replace a missing piece with a matching profile copied from next door.

Flood-prone ground near Alewife

The 2021 Resilient Cambridge plan named North Cambridge among the neighborhoods most likely to be affected by flooding. Damp basements and low foundations are worth checking before painting lower clapboards or a basement room, since trapped moisture lifts paint.