Harvard Square

The walled enclosure of Harvard Yard is adjacent, with Harvard University, Harvard Extension School, Harvard Art Museums, Semitic Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and Museum of Natural History just short walks away.

Other institutions in the general neighborhood include the Cambridge Public Library, Lesley University, the Longy School of Music, the Episcopal Divinity School, the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, American Repertory Theater, the Cooper-Frost-Austin House, the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House, and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

The high pedestrian traffic makes Harvard Square a gathering place for street musicians and buskers, who must obtain a permit from the Cambridge Arts Council. Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, who attended nearby Tufts University, is known to have played here during her college years. Amanda Palmer, of the Dresden Dolls, regularly performed here as a "living statue".[4]^: 145 Another frequent performer over the years has been indie rock guitarist Mary Lou Lord. A small bronze statue of "Doo Doo" (a puppet created by Igor Fokin) sits at the corner of Brattle and Eliot streets, in honor of Fokin and all the street performers.[5] The Flying Karamazov Brothers also performed regularly in Brattle Square.[6]

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. Most of the bus lines serving the area from the north and west run through a tunnel adjacent to the subway tunnel. Originally built for streetcars (which last ran in 1958) and still used by trackless trolleys as well as ordinary buses, the tunnel lessens bus traffic in central Harvard Square, and lets buses cross the Square without encountering automobile traffic. The tunnel also allows covered access between the subway and the buses.

At the center of the Square is the old Harvard Square Subway Kiosk, which held a newsstand Out of Town News until its close in 2020. A public motion art installation, Lumen Eclipse, shows monthly exhibitions of local, national, and international artists.

The offices of Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe, home of the radio show Car Talk

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

Chess players in Harvard Square

In the southwest of the neighborhood, on Mount Auburn St, stands the Igor Fokin Memorial.[7] This memorial, created by sculptor Konstantin Simun, pays tribute not only to the late puppeteer, but to all street performers that are an integral part of the square.

A number of public squares dot the surrounding streets, notably Brattle Square and Winthrop Square,[note 1] hosting a wide variety of street performers throughout the year. Brattle Street itself is home to the Brattle Theater (a non-profit arthouse theater) and the American Repertory Theater. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, one block further down JFK Street, is on the bank of the Charles River. Cambridge Common is two blocks north.

The Square attracts activists for unconventional political factions and has its share of panhandlers. Although Tom Magliozzi derided it as "the bum capital of the world", it is a popular site to people-watch, having many benches, terraces, and sidewalk restaurants and cafes dedicated for that purpose.

Harvard Square from above, 1921

Discussions of how the Square has changed in recent years usually center on the gentrification of the Harvard Square neighborhood and Cambridge in general. The Square also used to be a neighborhood shopping center, including a grocery store (Sages) and a Woolworth's five and ten. Although a hardware store (Dickson Hardware at 26 Brattle Street) survived until 2021 amid chain drug stores and bank branches, the Square is mainly a regional rather than neighborhood shopping destination, serving students and commuters.

In 1981 and 1987 the Harvard Square Theater was converted into a multiplex cinema; it later became part of the Loews Cineplex Entertainment chain and then closed on July 8, 2012.[8] 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, and the Wursthaus, a German restaurant with an extensive beer menu—closed to make way for national chains. Elsie's Lunch, a long-popular deli, has also closed; what remained of its small corner storefront space facing Lowell House on Mount Auburn Street is now occupied by an ATM. Another long-time restaurant, the 64-year-old Leo's Place, closed in December 2013 when the landlord of the property terminated their lease. [9]

The student co-op, the Harvard/MIT Cooperative Society ("The Coop", founded in 1882) is now managed by Barnes & Noble, though it is still overseen by a board elected by its membership of Harvard and MIT students and staff. Schoenhof's Foreign Books is owned by the French Éditions Gallimard. Major bookstores Paperback Booksmith, Reading International, and Barilari Books had closed by the end of the 1990s.[10] WordsWorth Books at 30 Brattle Street closed in 2004, after 29 years as a fixture in the Square.[11] In the same year, the famous Grolier Poetry Bookshop announced that it would be sold (although it survived under new management). Globe Corner Bookstore converted to an exclusively online business, serving its last walk-in customer on July 4, 2011.

Harvard Square

Following national trends, the former Harvard Trust Company has been absorbed into the national Bank of America through a series of mergers. Several establishments remain as longstanding, locally-run businesses with unique styles. Examples include Leavitt & Peirce tobacconists (est. 1883), Laflamme Barber Shop (est. 1898), Harvard Book Store (est. 1932), Cardullo's Gourmet Shoppe (est. 1950), Charlie's Kitchen (est. 1951), the Brattle Theater (est. 1953), the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant (est. 1954), Club Passim (est. 1958), Café Pamplona (est. 1959), Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage (est. 1960), Million Year Picnic comics (est. 1970), Algiers Coffee House (est. 1970), and Grendel's Den (est. 1971).