Venue:

MIT Media Lab
75 Amherst Street
Cambridge, MA 02139 US
https://www.media.mit.edu/about/building

Map:

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MIT Media Lab:

photo: "E-14" Maki and Associates

Directions:

Directions to the MIT Media Laboratory

The Media Lab is at 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, 1 minute walk from the Kendall Square Red Line T (metro system), and about a block from Legal Seafoods.

Car

MIT has several public parking options. See the MIT visitor parking site for details on price and locations.

Subway

Boston's light-rail system is known as "The T," and goes to much of Boston and Cambridge. Here is a map of the routes. Single use or multi-trip tickets can be purchased at any station with cash or card.

If you are coming from Boston, take the Red Line "outbound" to Kendall Square / MIT.

If you are coming from Cambridge, take the Red Line "inbound" to Kendall Square / MIT.

Once you are here, exit to the surface and find yourself on Main Street in the heart of Kendall Square. Walk one block west (away from the River) on Main Street. Make a left on Ames Street. Walk one block down Ames, and find the Media Lab on your left.

From Logan Airport:
- take a taxi. About 15 minutes and $20.
- take the T: take Logan shuttle bus to MBTA blue line T station, then take the
blue line to the green line to the red line to Kendall Square. 45 minutes, $0.85
- you insist on driving?
Take Sumner Tunnel -- keep left, up ramp R to Expressway (Rte 3/Rte 93 North).
Take 2nd exit ("Storrow Drive"), stay in left lane
L on first ramp ("All Trucks, Government Center")
First R over Longfellow Bridge into Cambridge.
At second light (Marriott hotel on the left) turn L onto Ames Street.
The Media Lab is on your left about a block and a half down
(look for a pedestrian crosswalk, and a big wedge-shaped building).

From the West (Mass Pike):

Exit 18a ("Allston/Cambridge") (about 3 miles east of I-93).
Follow signs to Cambridge. (Pass Guest Quarters Hotel on your right.)
Go straight over the bridge into Cambridge (River Street)
R on Memorial Drive. (Charles River will be on your right.)
Stay in left lane, go up overpass at Boston University (B.U.) Bridge
Go under next bridge (Massachusetts Avenue)
Take 2nd jughandle L ("Kendall Square") onto Wadsworth St
L on Amherst Street, 3 blocks,
R on Ames Street.
The Media Lab is second building on right.

Parking:
- Can't find a space near the Lab? You may try the Marriott hotel (Kendall Square) garage.

Some Useful Tips:
   Media lab directions guidelines

Recommendations

While you are in Cambridge...
(credit: Recommendations from CFS-Media Lab)

MUSEUMS
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

100 Northern Avenue, Boston waterfront, 617 478-3100
http://www.icaboston.org/
Housed in a new and dramatic building on Boston's waterfront, the ICA aims to present the most significant national and international contemporary art to Boston audiences.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

280 The Fenway, Boston, 617 566-1401
http://www.gardnermuseum.org/
Isabella Stewart Gardner first welcomed visitors to her museum on New Year's Day, 1903. Today, three floors of galleries surround a garden courtyard blooming with life in all seasons. Gardner's house was modeled after a Venetian palazzo, and is filled with spectacular paintings, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, and decorative arts from cultures spanning thirty centuries.

Mapparium

Mass Ave., Boston
http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/exhibits/mapparium
At the Mary Baker Eddy library, The Mapparium’s three-dimensional perspective of the world of 1935 is enhanced by A World of Ideas, an original presentation that features a rich orchestration of words, music, and LED lights to illustrate how ideas have traversed time and geography and changed the world.

MIT Museum

Building N51, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 617 253-5927
http://web.mit.edu/museum/

Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)

Avenue of the Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, 617 267-9300
http://mfa.org/

Museum of Science

1 Science Park, Boston, 617 723-2500
http://www.mos.org/

Sightseeing
MIT CAMPUS
The 154-acre campus stretches more than a mile along the Charles River. The Institute's central group of interconnecting buildings—sporting the domes and columns you may associate with MIT—was designed in 1916 by architect W. Welles Bosworth (Class of 1889). He chose an open, flowing, flexible floor plan to encourage easy communication and intellectual exchange among schools and departments. As MIT grew, it carried forward this idea of openness and linkage, so that now nearly all buildings are connected, allowing access among them without ever stepping outside (an especially welcome feature in winter).

MIT welcomes visitors to campus, and there's a lot to see. Or visit MIT on Tech TV. A few highlights of MIT near the Media Lab Complex include:

The "Secret" Garden right across from Kendall Hotel on top of the parking garage;
The interactive displays of the Corridor Lab;
The List Visual Arts Center (our neighbor in the Wiesner Building);
The Ray and Maria Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry.
BEACON HILL/BOSTON COMMON/PUBLIC GARDEN
For a long but lovely walk, cross the Charles River at the Longfellow Bridge and wander through Beacon Hill, home to the Massachusetts State House, fun shops and restaurants along Charles Street, and gorgeous cobblestone streets lined with historic houses. Across from the State House is Boston Common, one of the oldest public parks in the United States; the Common is adjacent to the Public Garden, home to the famous Swan Boats, what is possibly the world's smallest suspension bridge, and beautiful statuary and plantings.

BOSTON HARBOR CRUISES
One Long Wharf, Boston 617 227-4321 or 1-877-SEE-WHALE (733-9425)
http://www.bostonharborcruises.com/
Whale watches, harbor cruises, fast ferry to Provincetown (the very tip of Cape Cod).

COPLEY SQUARE
Historic Copley Square is home to the Boston Public Library, the John Hancock Tower, and Trinity Church.

DUCK BOAT TOURS
617 267-DUCK (3825)
http://www.bostonducktours.com/
leaving from:
Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston 617 723-2500
Prudential Center, 53 Huntington Avenue, Boston 617 236-3100
New England Aquarium, 1 Central Wharf, Boston 617 973-5200
An 80 minute (abbreviated 55-minute tour from the Aquarium) fun-filled and informative tour of Boston and by land and water. Each WWII-style amphibious landing vehicle is manned by a conDUCKtor who will narrate your tour of the city. A fun and unique way to see the city. Be prepared to quack.

FARMERS MARKETS, CAMBRIDGE
Seasonal. Various locations and dates.

FREEDOM TRAIL
http://www.thefreedomtrail.org
The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile red-brick walking trail that leads you to 16 nationally significant historic sites, every one an authentic American treasure. The Freedom Trail is a unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a ship, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond.

INMAN SQUARE, CAMBRIDGE
http://www.inmansquare.com
About a 15-minute walk from the Media Lab, Inman Square is chock-full of great restaurants and fun shopping. The 1369 has awesome coffee in all its various forms; the Druid is an honest-to-goodness Irish pub with perhaps the best pint of Guinness in town; a practically endless beer selection at Bukowski’s; fabulous ice cream at Christina’s; excellent, authentic Indian food at Punjabi Dhaba; and super-fresh seafood and raw bar at the East Coast Grill.

NORTH END / FANEUIL HALL
Haymarket or Government Center T Stops, Boston
To get the flavor of Boston when you have limited time, try the North End, Boston’s “Little Italy.” Stroll Hanover Street, meander the side streets, smell old-fashioned home cooking and cheeses, and eat wherever the spirit takes you. If time, the Faneuil Hall Marketplace is a five-minute walk with shops, lots of finger foods, and oodles of history.

Boston is the largest city in New England and is considered the economic and cultural center of the region. The area encompasses many significant locations in American history and culture, including the Freedom Trail, the site of the Boston Tea Party, the USS Constitution, and the site of the Salem witch trials. Boston is known as a global educational center with more than 100 colleges and universities located in the greater Boston area, and more than 250,000 students attending college in Boston and Cambridge alone.

Across the river from Boston, Cambridge is home to over 100,000 people living in a unique and multicultural community just outside of Boston. Cambridge is bursting with cafes, bookstores and boutiques offering an intellectual yet funky feel to the city. Cambridge is home to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, defining this city as the academic heart of the country. Cambridge isn't only about books and brainiacs though. It has a little of everything including a thriving music scene, artsy cinemas and theaters, many interesting galleries and museums and fabulous dining with a collection of great restaurants.

MIT has a history of leading the world in technology, displayed by over 50 Nobel Prize winners as current faculty or former alumni. The MIT Media Lab comprises rigorous research and graduate degree programs, where traditional disciplines get checked at the door. Future-obsessed product designers, nanotechnologists, data-visualization experts, industry researchers, and pioneers of computer interfaces work side by side to tirelessly invent—and reinvent—how humans experience, and can be aided by, technology.