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River Portraits > Malibu on the Charles
By Allan E. Sampson
I read the January 26, 2007 edition of the Watertown Tab about swimming in the Charles River and was surprised. I didn’t think that anyone would be interested that I swam in the Charles River when I was a kid, a long, long time ago. In the same issue of the Tab someone wrote into the paper saying “it’s only a dream that anyone would swim in the Charles River again”. I don’t know how old this person is, but if his long-term memory involves recalling Gov. Weld jumping in the river, then he’s still wet behind his ears.
Getting back to my days when I swam in the Charles. I am seventy eight years young. I was born in Cambridge but raised in Watertown in the east end on Coolidge Hill Road. Today’s river is a heck of a lot cleaner than when I swam in it from the 1930’s into the 40’s. At that time all kinds of businesses, even cities and towns, dumped into the river. To name a few from west Watertown to Brighton, there was leaching from the West End dump on Pleasant Street, Etna Mills, Bemis Associates, Haartz Mason, Lewandos Cleaners, Arkless Switch, the Watertown Arsenal, the East Watertown Dump, Hood Rubber Company, Met Coal Company, the stockyards in Watertown and Brighton and the Abbattoir (slaughterhouse). There were many others, too.
I did my swimming, along with half the kids and teens from the east end, at our own little beach. We didn’t have a public beach, we made our own. It had the name of “Malibu” and was on the Cambridge/Watertown line behind the Watertown side of the Cambridge cemetery. Greenough Boulevard is now there, but at the time there was no road between Coolidge Avenue and the river. I swam there from the age of nine into my teens. Our beach was co-ed and swim suits were optional, with many days and nights of skinny dipping (called ballakie by everyone). One of the cardinal rules for swimming at Malibu was to hide your clothes, whether you had swimming trunks or not, or else the police or someone else would come along and take them. I have many memories of my young days there.
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