The Kendall Square area of Cambridge is set in what was once a salt marsh. Kendall square has been a transportation hub since late in the 1700s. This is the area that housed the West Boston Bridge. The bridge helped provide a direct route between Cambridge and Boston for the most popular form of transportation at the time, the wagon. In the early 1800s the Broad Canal was built, forming the East Boston’s sea port area.
During the industrial revolution, the area boomed and attracted myriad business interests. These interests included electric power plants, soap factories, and distilleries. Kendall Square was named after Edward Kendall, one of the owners of Kendall Boiler and Tank Company.
Biotech and information technology businesses swarmed the area during the late 1990s and the early 2000s. It is widely accepted that the businesses were attracted to the area due to its proximity to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The Kendall Square area is home to some of the area’s most popular restaurants, including Legal Seafood and Cambridge Brewing Company. It is also home to the Kendall Hotel, the first Historic Hotel in Cambridge. The hotel’s history is quite unique, having been owned by the city of Cambridge and used for receiving paving materials and fuel deliveries. The hotel was also the home of “Engine 7,” known as the “black sheep” of the Cambridge Fire Department.
Today, the area is still home to technology giants like Google, EMC Corporation, HubSpot, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Novell. Further, both Genzyme Technology (a leader in biotechnology) and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (an Internet distributed computing platform provider) both have their headquarters in Kendall Square. MIT is still the prime attraction for these technological giants. As a result of the thriving technology industry, the area continues to thrive, and it even has its own stop on the Red Line MBTA subway system.
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