David Chesler's Harvard Square page

Please let me know if there are any problems, bad links, images that don't show, etc.

You're here for four years,
I'm here for life,
Harvard is here forever.
- attributed to Dean Henry Rosovsky, circa 1980

No man can step into the same river twice,
for the second time it is not the same river,
and he is not the same man.
Heraclitus

I suppose all who have ever spent time in and around Harvard have a vision of what Harvard Square looks like. I suppose many of us suppose that it was always as it was when we first saw it, and that this is its ideal state.

I recently attended a reading in the Adams House Pool Theatre by Sean Desmond of his Adams Fall. He describes a Harvard as he knew it in the early 1990s. It's different today, and it is different in my own ideal state, in which state that space was not a theatre, but a functioning clothing-optional indoor pool.

As an undergraduate, and from time to time since, I took pictures of the business facades around Harvard Square, documenting the changes. These pictures are the result.

I have a lot less to show regarding the changes within the University's property. That is, I'm sure, well documented elsewhere. Canaday Hall was built when I first arrived (in fact, I lived in it.) Allston Burr Lecture Hall gave way to the Sackler Museum soon after. WHRB moved its studios from the basement of Sanders Theatre to Harvard Street, and its transmitter from Holyoke Center to the suburbs. Recently Memorial Hall gots its tower back. If anybody knows a URL for that, or for the commercial changes, please let me know.

Cronin's was long gone when I first got here; Holyoke Center was already built.

This page is still almost Completely under construction.

But I've got a bunch of pictures, taken since 1978, showing Harvard Square then-and-now over the years. Some show the Red Line extension construction. I've got Ta Chien before it burned down, 1 Brattle Square (Cherry Webb & Touraine, before it was Cherry & Webb, before it was HMV, before it was out of business), The Tasty, Discount Records, bunch more.

Here are some "Now" pictures.

Harvard Square, 1999
This is THE corner of Harvard Square, long-time site of The Tasty, after the Cambridge Savings Bank rebuilt the building on that corner.

Briggs and Briggs music store occupied the ground floor of this Final Club building for as long as I'd known Harvard Square, but it was vacant when I went by Fall, 1999.

Apparently it moved towards Porter Square, and closed May 17, 2000.

This is a "before" -- I think I've heard rumors that Harvard is taking over the building which contains the Harvard Provision Company at ground level and Skewers restaurant in the basement.

Harvard Square subway construction under Pit, 1984

The Harvard Square subway stop, under construction, under what is now "The Pit", June, 1984.
This picture is two photographs stitched together. The fuzzy white lines in the foreground are the chicken-wire fence surrounding the construction site and through which the photograph was taken.
And here is The Coop taken at the same time:
The Coop, 1984

Ta Chien restaurant, Mt. Auburn Street in Brattle Square, after a fire in 1988.

Shops at 99 Mt. Auburn Street, now.

Armenian Church site, 100 Mt. Auburn St., 1999

Formerly the Armenian Church was here, across from 99 Mt. Auburn Street, between Brattle Square and formerly Boylston Street (JFK Street).

Porter Square Shopping Center

Porter Square Shopping Center, circa 1994.
Popeye's Chicken as discussed in ne.food on Usenet, August, 2000.
Also visible is a frame store, City Video, possibly a photo store, the new bike racks, Tags Hardware, CVS, Star Market, and Decelle.

For scannists

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