The Walden Street Cattle Pass, also referred to as the cow path,Walden Street Bridge, Cambridge Department of Public Works is a historic site adjacent to the MBTA Commuter Rail Fitchburg Line right-of-way, under the Walden Street Bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The site, a tunnel for moving cattle between the railroad and the nearby stockyards of the 19th century, was built in 1857. The cattle yards were closed in 1868Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Northwest Cambridge, 1977, , Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Mass., p. 42 or "about 1871","Cambridge Cattle Market", in Cambridge Historical Commission-North Cambridge Stabilization Committee report, 2002 but the cattle trade continued; "until the 1920s, cows were unloaded here and driven down Massachusetts Avenue, through Harvard Square, and across the river to the Brighton Abattoir".
Restoration (re-pointing) of the tunnel's brickwork was carried out during the 2007–08 replacement of the second-generation bridge dating from 1914. The third-generation bridge opened for traffic in December 2008. The Cambridge City Council discussed creation of a vantage point for viewing the tunnel, ca. 2008, but no action was taken.
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Gallery
External links Artists' rendition of reconstructed bridge