Historic places in Cambridge

10 historic buildings, sites and memorials in Cambridge.

Ranked with the travel guide's picks and well-known places first.

Eat
Aleppo Palace
Located in a tiny "castle", this inexpensive Middle-Eastern restaurant serves up delicious shawarma, kebab, and their namesake falafel.
Mon-Sat 11AM-11PM, Sun 11AM-7PMSandwiches $5-9, platters $7-10
See
Harvard Art Museums
This collection of museums includes three once separate entities. The Fogg Museum, known for western art from the Middle Ages to the present, with particular strengths in Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century French art. The Busch-Reisinger Museum, which is devoted to promoting the informed enjoyment and critical understanding of the arts of Central and Northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the German-speaking countries. Finally, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum holds a superb collection of ancient, Islamic, Asian, and later Indian art.
10AM-5PM daily$15, seniors $13, students $10, under 18 free
See
Harvard Museum of Natural History
Drawing from the University's vast natural history collections, the HMNH displays the famous Blaschka 'Glass Flowers' collection, dinosaurs (the world's only mounted long Kronosaurus), minerals, meteorites, gemstones (a amethyst geode), and hundreds of 'stuffed' animals and birds. Fun for the whole family. It's an 8-minute walk across the historic Harvard Yard from Harvard Square (Red Line MBTA). Lectures & educational programs for all ages.
9AM-5PM daily$12, student/senior $10, under 18 $8
See
Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
formerly Semitic Museum
See a collection of over 40,000 artifacts from the Near East across multiple ancient civilizations.
Sun-Fri 11AM-4PMFree
See
Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Longfellow National Historic Site
Washington made his headquarters here during the siege of Boston from July 1775 through April 1776. From 1837 until 1882, it was the home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow while he taught at Harvard. The site's collections deal mainly with Longfellow, but there are some Washington letters as well.
See
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Yes, it's a cemetery. It just happens to be the first landscaped cemetery and in fact the first large-scale designed landscape in the U.S. The tower provides visitors with a breathtaking panoramic view of the cities of Boston and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding countryside to the north. The fact that it's the final resting place of some of the area's most influential figures (Sumner, Gardner, Eddy, and Longfellow) cements its status as a National Historic Landmark.
Free
See
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
One of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology, it houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.
9AM-5PM daily$12, students/seniors $10, under 18 $8
See
Putnam Gallery
The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
Representing a broad range of scientific studies, this museum holds over 20,000 unique instruments dating from 1400 to present day.
Sun-Fri 11AM-4PMFree
See
Washington Elm
On July 3, 1775, George Washington officially took command of the Continental Army at ceremonies taking place beneath this Elm tree, which stood at the edge of the training grounds used by the troops. While this tale may be a myth, clearly the tree has remained a symbol of patriotism in Cambridge for generations. The tree finally succumbed to old age and disease in 1923, and today a small bronze plaque marks this historical spot.
24 hours dailyFree
See Not mapped
African American Heritage Trail
Twenty historic plaques across the city honor notable African Americans who were abolitionists, authors, educators, and office holders in Cambridge from 1840 to 1940.
24 hours dailyFree

Listings from the Wikivoyage guide to Cambridge (CC BY-SA 4.0).