Harvard Square

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Harvard Square, May 2000
Chess players in Harvard Square in August of 2005

Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. Adjacent to the historic heart of Harvard University, Harvard Yard, the Square (as it is called locally) functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge and the inner western suburbs of Boston. In an extended sense, the name "Harvard Square" can refer to the entire neighborhood surrounding this intersection for several blocks in each direction.

History

Although today a commercial area, the Square boasts of famous residents from earlier periods, including the colonial poet Anne Bradstreet. The high pedestrian traffic makes it a gathering place for street musicians; singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, who attended nearby Tufts University, is known to have played here during her college years.

Until 1984, the Harvard Square stop was the northern terminus of the Red Line, and it still functions as a major transfer station between subway, bus, and trackless trolley. Automobile traffic can be heavy, and parking is difficult.

Transformation

Discussions of how the Square has changed in recent years usually center on the perceived gentrification of the Harvard Square neighborhood and Cambridge in general.

Harvard Square used to have many new and used bookstores, but few are left today. It also used to be a neighborhood shopping center, with a grocery store and a Woolworth's five and ten. There does remain a small hardware store, but the Square is now more of a regional shopping center, especially for youths.

During the late 1990s, some locally run businesses with long-time shopfronts on the Square—including the unusual Tasty Diner, a tiny sandwich shop open long hours—closed to make way for national chains. Following national trends, the local Harvard Trust Company bank has been absorbed into the national Bank of America through a series of mergers. The student co-op, the Harvard Coop, is now managed by Barnes and Noble. Schoenhof's Foreign Books is owned by the French Éditions Gallimard. In 2004, it was announced that the famous Grolier Poetry Bookshop would be sold, and today even the emblematic Out of Town News is owned by the UK-based Hudson Group.

Other features

Harvard Square with the Out of Town News kiosk, May 2004

At the center of the Square is the old subway kiosk, now a newsstand, Out of Town News, stocking newspapers and magazines from around the world. A video of it appears in transitional clips used on CNN.

The office of NPR's Car Talk radio show faces the square, with a stencil in the window that reads "Dewey, Cheatham and Howe," the fictional law firm often referenced on the show.

The sunken region next to the newsstand and the subway entrance is sometimes referred to as "The Pit." Its arena-like appearance attracts skateboarders and, more generally, young, high-school aged people from surrounding neighbourhoods who are associated with countercultural movements such as the Punk, Straight edge, and Goth subcultures. They are sometimes derogatively referred to as "pit kids" or "pit rats," and the contrast between these congregants and the often older and more conservatively dressed people associated with nearby Harvard University and the businesses in the Square occasionally leads to tension. One block east of the pit, an outdoor cafe features always-busy tables for chess players, including Murray Turnbull, wih his everpresent "Play the Chessmaster" sign.

A number of other public squares dot the surrounding streets with a wide variety of street performers throughout the year, and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park stands a few steps away along the banks of the Charles river.

Stores

Restaurants

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