Gallery
Videos
Buy A Gift Card

Could an abandoned train tunnel below Harvard Square be revived for events? Some say it’s worth a look

May 28, 2025

An abandoned tunnel, pictured here in 2021, below Harvard Square was used by MBTA until the Red Line was extended in the 1980s.
An abandoned tunnel, pictured here in 2021, below Harvard Square was used by MBTA until the Red Line was extended in the 1980s. Forty years later, some civic leaders want to explore turning it into an events and entertainment venue. (Courtesy of Denise Jillson)

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR’s daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. 

Pop in your headphones and listen to our critics’ roundup of the best local music released this month. But first, let’s get through the news:

Tunnel vision: With limited opportunities to build up or out, some civic leaders in Harvard Square are looking to build down. Earlier this month, the Cambridge City Council advanced a plan to study the possibility of creating an entertainment venue in an MBTA tunnel that’s been abandoned for 40 years. While the idea sounds outlandish, “it would be equally sort of insane not to take a look at what the potential is,” Denise Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, told WBUR’s Amy Sokolow. “It could be an important asset to Harvard Square that’s been sitting fallow.”

  • Where is it? The tunnel dates back to the T’s pre-Red Line extension days, when trains terminated and turned around at Harvard Square. According to Jillson, who’s been in the tunnel herself, it runs underground from Brattle Square to the Harvard Kennedy School: “ If you are on Elliot Street in front of like the Harvard Square Hotel or Charlie’s Kitchen, the tunnel would be directly under your feet.”
  • Zoom in: Jillson says the tunnel has 22-foot-high arched ceilings, good acoustics and is relatively “pristine.” They’re hoping to get an engineering firm to test its structural integrity, air quality and other logistics. “You could envision a conference in the morning, a TED Talk in the afternoon and a concert in the evening,” she said. (Click here to see their renderings of what it could look like.)
  • Zoom out: It wouldn’t be the first abandoned subterranean space to be revived as an events space. Jillson’s group takes inspiration from other cities, like Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Underground and London’s Bankside Vaults.
  • The catch: While City Council approved $72,000 in funding to put out a request for proposals, Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang is leery about the costs of the feasibility study itself (not to mention any renovations). As Cambridge Day reported last week, Huang estimates an engineering firm could charge up to $1 million, and “who would fund that is unanswered.”
  • What’s next: Jillson predicts it’s “easily” a five-to-six-year project. Her group plans to spend the coming year working with the MBTA, which still owns the tunnel, on an agreement to access the space for the potential study.