Late last month, Chinese citizens took up a creative means of protest over the nation’s strict “zero-COVID” policy. In a place with little tolerance for large public demonstrations, protesters have been holding up blank pieces of paper. Their ingenuity inspired a local artist Yolanda He Yang to stage a public art demonstration to subtly communicate their dissent.
Yang was born and raised in mainland China and watching the protests from afar gave her a visceral feeling. Every piece of skin and muscle in her body was jittery upon viewing images from home. And when asked about the protests, she often felt like she couldn’t speak. “That’s when I realized that reading all of this news from my home was affecting me in a very intense way,” Yang explained.
The World’s Only Curious George Store opens in Harvard Square in April 2012. (Photo: Ron R. via Yelp)
Curious George’s long history in Cambridge came to a close quietly during the Covid pandemic, when a potentially reimagined, relocated store lost its licensing and closed its virtual doors.
“Today we say goodbye to The Curious George Store forever,” owner Astra Titus wrote April 28, 2021, on the store website and via social media. “I cannot quantify the grief that’s consumed me this past year as I have struggled to hold onto and breathe life into this entity that I love with every cell in my body.”
News about the store’s reprieve from closing during Harvard Square construction and an expected bricks-and-mortar move to Central Square were widely reported; coming at the height of Covid, this bad news wasn’t reported at all.
The site at John F. Kennedy and Brattle streets no longer features H.A. and Margret Reyes’ drawing of a precocious monkey and their book series’ iconic yellow and red; it’s been replaced by a quick-service Starbucks and its equally recognizable green-and-white mermaid logo.
The Starbucks that has replaced the bookstore at JFK and Brattle streets in Harvard Square. (Photo: Marc Levy)
What happened was explained by final owner Astra Titus by phone Nov. 24 from upstate New York.
The original store, Curious George Goes to WordsWorth, closed in 2011; Adam and Jamie Hirsch reopened The World’s Only Curious George Store at the same prominent 1 JFK St. address a year later.
When Equity One bought that and surrounding properties to build The Collection at Harvard Square, it looked like construction and an inevitable rent increase would mean another end to the iconic store. But Regency Centers took over the site, changing the name of the project to The Abbot, and there was new hope.
Curious George could stay at The Abbot under a long-term lease “favorable” to all, even keeping a ground-floor entrance somewhere else in the building, said Sam Stiebel, vice president of investments for Regency, in November 2017. “Given that one of our priorities for this project is maintaining a dynamic and interesting retail mix in Harvard Square, we knew it was imperative to find a way to maintain Curious George as a tenant,” Stiebel said.
The former bookstore space under construction in August 2020. (Photo: Marc Levy)
At the end of the initial two-year, construction-era lease, though, the Hirsches were barely breaking even, according to Titus, a consultant who took over operations in 2018 and eventually bought the store in May 2019.
Though she had no experience running a bookstore, she had an advisory board filled with people who did, she told Publishers Weekly.
Harsh truths
The end of the short-term, lower-cost lease meant she was “more or less effectively evicted” from the building as of June 30, 2019, Titus said. “It became three times what the rent originally was.”
She also felt blindsided with new information about the store apart from the rent costs. “I was not made aware of certain knowledge that the previous owners had,” she said, declined to be more specific.
A Regency Centers spokesperson said Tuesday that the company sees it differently. The company “worked side-by-side” with the store from 2017 to “even after Curious George’s ownership changed hands,” said Eric Davidson, senior manager of communications, emailing from Jacksonville, Florida offices. “Ultimately, we couldn’t reach a mutual agreement on the structure of a new lease … We parted on good terms, and sincerely wished them the best of luck with their future endeavors.”
“Coming up to market rents was discussed at some point, as the original Curious George lease had rent that was below market, but it was not the only reason a new deal wasn’t struck,” Davidson said. He declined to elaborate.
Leaving Harvard Square
After the rent went back to market price, Titus looked away from Harvard Square — 1.2 miles away to Central Square, where she imagined turning the store into a community space with interactive elements, with a focus less about toys than about learning and creativity.
“Although people really cared about the Curious George store, [Harvard Square] was all big-box. There weren’t business owners really to support me,” Titus said. That led to a change in thinking to “the building of the Black community and the focus on small business in Central Square.”
“Education is a key to attacking inequalities,” said Titus, who is Black. Her approach to the store was as “the means to which people can find this place of belonging and not feel like they can’t go to college or they can’t read because they’re in a disadvantaged situation.”
Spaces under consideration in Central Square included new retail square footage at the base of the Watermark Central tower where Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street meet and at the 907 Main boutique hotel, said Michael Monestime, executive director of the Central Square Business Improvement District at the time.
A risky ”labor of love”
Shoppers crowd the Curious George store in May 2015. (Photo: Samuel G. via Yelp)
But it’s not that Harvard Square was unwelcoming to Titus, said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, in a Dec. 2 call.
“The whole idea was lovely, but it was not sustainable,” Jillson said. “I said to [Titus], don’t walk away from this deal – run away. We knew how much community support was given to Adam, who had experience in the industry and she didn’t, and he still could not make it, even in a prime location.”
Jillson, who has watched over business in the square since 2006, knew that Curious George was crowded with customers who would “walk in, look around, take a photo and order the same thing on Amazon for less money without the inconvenience of walking around with a bag.” Unlike Amazon, the Hirsches were setting rates not just to pay the rent but to give employees a living wage.
“It’s my job to bring in commerce, but also to help them be successful,” said Jillson, who watched Internet competition remove bookstore after bookstore from the square over the years. She knew that what Titus was buying from the Hirsches in addition to the Curious George name was the store’s debt – and a struggle. “It was such a mistake. I knew this would never be successful. She didn’t have to do it, but it was a labor of love.”
Losing licensing
Curious George dolls for sale at the Harvard Square store in August 2017. (Photo: Todd M. via Yelp)
Titus’ plan to move to Central Square meant leaving the home of not just the Curious George store for almost 20 years, but the home of the series’ authors, H.A. and Margret Rey. German-born Jews, the couple met in Brazil, fled Paris before Nazi occupation with the Curious George manuscript and eventually settled in a home near the square in the 1960s.
The move didn’t pan out, as Covid arrived early in 2020. A drop in revenue meant the store missed hitting the dollar amount needed to retain the license; NBCUniversal, Curious George’s license holders, declined to let her renew for use of the name and iconography, Titus said. The store’s license was the only ever granted for Curious George imagery, and that deal was made when publisher Houghton Mifflin owned the rights.
“It is so close-fisted – like [NBCUniversal] will not let anyone touch that imagery,” Titus said. “I wasn’t able to pay the licensing fee and I wasn’t bringing them any revenue, and so it was an opportune time for them just to finally close the door on it.”
It was the most heartbreaking part, Titus said, because it is difficult and expensive to get a new license instead of inheriting one.
In the end
Astra Titus with a family member in an Aug. 19, 2019, post from the World’s Only Curious George Store page on Facebook.
Letting go of the store was hard, she said, but the licensing issues made it certain that the fight was over. She wrote her note to the community and put the failed business venture behind her.
Her interest had never been in the commerce. Upon starting work with the Hirsches, she immediately felt the connection between the character of Curious George – the store and the monkey – and learning.
“Curious George showed us in the best way possible that you can belong anywhere, and that it’s okay if you make mistakes and it’s okay if you’re naughty or whatever,” she said, “because in the end, you’re still loved and you’re still worth everything to someone.”
18 poems are displayed in store fronts and public spaces in the Square.
Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, in partnership with the Harvard Square Business Association and Mass Poetry, has announced the 3rd Annual Harvard Square Poetry Stroll.
On view from December 10th until January 1st, this year’s self-guided outdoor stroll highlights local poets with a focus on finding hope in trying times.
One of the poems, written by 15 year old Cambridge Rindge and Latin sophomore Justice Brooks, “Cataclysm of Snowfall” closes with the reflection “you, and I are one.” Think of a time when you felt deeply connected to something, someone, or some idea. Then, write a poem or create a piece of art reflecting on that connection or create something in reaction to any of the eighteen featured poems! If you’re feeling bold, email it to wmanley@harvardsquare.com or share it on social media using #HSQPoetry2022. We might share it in a gallery on this page!
With the winter season comes everything festive, from music and food to decorations and lights. Ringing in the cold months ahead, holiday markets in Cambridge and Boston allow local businesses to sell their products and shoppers to come together in holiday spirit. Explore the festivities on display and the talented entrepreneurs behind them at some of the best local markets this season.
Cambridge Arts’ Holiday Market
The Cambridge Arts’ Holiday Market, located right in the Smith Campus Center in Harvard Square, features a variety of art vendors selling hand crafted artwork, jewelry, clothing, and more. Featuring live music and a large selection of local vendors, the market will run from December 8 to December 10, from 11 AM to 6 PM each day.
The Market was home to all sorts of business owners selling their products, from artwork to accessories to calendars. Rakel Papke Seixes’s festive stand showcased various Christmas gifts, tote bags, and humorous drawstring backpacks from her business “By Papke.”
Across the room, Laura Quincy Jones was selling greeting cards with watercolor and ink illustrations that she designs. Jones, whose business is named after herself, has participated with the Cambridge Arts Council in open studios for almost twenty years. One of her favorite parts of the Market is meeting people who are interested in art. “Of course, it is important to support your work, but it is really nice to communicate with buyers,” she said.
Daisy Hebb from Green Blossom Painting, who joined the Cambridge Arts’ Market last year, echoed that she also likes selling at fairs because of the interpersonal interactions. She sells calendars which celebrate nature, and she said she loves speaking to people about their relationships with nature at the market. But the engagement with people extends beyond the selling stage. “These calendars are collaborations between myself, the artist, and scientists, like native bee specialists, a professor of entomology, and an herbalist specialist,” Hebb shared.
Lloyd Williams of Boston Custom Cards sells acrylics on canvas, along with holiday notecards. He said conversations with shoppers at markets help guide him on what kind of products people are interested in. “I do a lot of landscapes and cityscapes of Boston, so I figured out that people in Boston like a lot of Boston-related artwork,” Williams explained. The Cambridge Arts’ Market was just one of a few holiday shows he attends every year. Find him on Instagram @varsudan999.
Snowport
Nestled in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood, Snowport features over 120 local small businesses, food, a tree market, and other essentials. In its second year, this widely popular holiday market transforms Seaport into the perfect destination for holiday shopping or a photo-op.
Simply Placed, owned by Sydney Ortega and located in Beverley, Massachusetts, specializes in home decor, and sells Christmas decorations at the market. “This is our first time here in Boston,” Nancy Foster explained, an employee of Simply Placed. Foster said the holiday market gives Simply Placed good exposure, considering they also sell online, allowing them to expand their customer base. “All of our business cards are gone. People are always asking about us.”
Katie Gogishvili, who sells handmade jewelry in her company MOTTIVE inc., also appreciated the opportunity to gain exposure for her business. She explained she wanted to sell at Snowport because it allows for small businesses such as hers to get attention and recognition. “This is a perfect place for people to find me. Everyday, there are new people who I get to know, and they get to know my brand.” Markets like this help businesses grow, Katie said. “It is important to keep my jewelry in the community.”
While some business owners only had one stand, others ran multiple. The Happy Cactus is just one of several businesses that owner Tucker Gaccione has at Snowport. Donald, an employee at The Happy Cactus, explained they specialize in gift items, such as 1000-piece vintage puzzle sets and butterflies that were sourced ethically from Peru and other South American countries. “The items are beautiful,” Donald said. He said the appeal of markets like this are the foot traffic, explaining he loves seeing customers reacting to the items on sale. “There’s nothing else that could put a smile on my face. We could do online sales, but we lose that people-aspect.”
Yamacu Gift Shop sells African-based products, such as spices, teas, shea butter, snacks, and more. Khalifa, who works for his aunt, explained that his aunt wanted to sell at Snowport due to its popularity. “There are a lot of people [who go to Snowport], so it is a great way to make money.” Khalifa explained that these markets help Yamacu grow, and though it is a lot of work, “being at this kind of market gives exposure, allowing more people to see and try your business. In the long run, it is good for the business.”
Boston Women’s Holiday Market, Brighton
The Boston Women’s Market, co-founded by owners Cara and Africa, is a market made to help support women-owned businesses. The Holiday Market, which runs at a variety of locations on various days, from The Speedway in Brighton and The Station on Boylston Street, features local women-owned businesses selling jewelry, pastries, art, clothing, and more.
Rachel Kashdan sells cupcakes, gingerbread kits, and hand-designed cards in her business “batter+bloom.” Kashdan spoke positively of the Boston Women’s Market. “The organizers, Cara and Africa, are great to work with,” Kashdan stated. “Everyone who sells at the markets are really creative and great people to be around, especially during the holidays.” Kashdan has a lot of fun getting to interact with the community through selling at the market, getting to know people she hasn’t met before, and seeing them enjoy her work, as she is “proud of what she makes.”
Willis & Bell sells handmade clothing and other handmade items. “It would be a great burge of different types of people getting to see all of my items,” Amy, the owner of Willis & Bell said, when asked why she wanted to sell at the market.
Dani, the owner of Best Friend Supplies co., sells dog accessories, including bandanas, bows, and leash sleeves, an “advocacy tool that helps owners advocate for the space for their dog. Dani wanted to sell at the Boston Women’s Market because of the people. “We have a really nice community here. Sometimes as small-business owners, you feel isolated in the way you are alone and making everything,” Dani said. “When you come here, you are amongst a lot of other women who get it. You feel supported, and the markets themselves are very uplifting spaces where you can meet a lot of new people.”
Julia of Celia Jane Designs, named after her daughter, makes handmade jewelry. Julia agreed that the Boston Women’s Market offers a supportive environment for sellers. “This is my third one. [The owners] are great about creating a unique environment for shoppers,” she said. “I am in some stores around the area, but this is the best way to meet and see people.”
New book, Harvard Square: A Love Story, explores why many believe local Main Street markets are not what they used to be
Using the case of Harvard Square, Turco explores the role of street-level markets in our daily lives, why we fall in love with them, and why we so often struggle with changes in them. Located in Cambridge, MA, directly adjacent to Harvard University, “the Square”—as it is affectionately called by locals—has for years served as a commercial center to residents and students in the area. Harvard Square: A Love Story dives deeply into the history of this one beloved marketplace, revealing, in the process, the complicated love affair Americans everywhere have long had with their own downtowns.
Turco’s initial impetus for the project was personal. She came to know and love the Harvard Square marketplace as a young girl, visiting her grandfather at his work as a Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority bus driver whose route took him through the Square each day, and having breakfast there with her father every Sunday morning. She went on to attend Harvard University, from which she earned a BA in economics, an MBA, and PhD in sociology. Years later, having moved back to Harvard Square, she began to worry that the vibrant marketplace she recalled from her youth wasn’t what it used to be, and she set out to understand why. Turco’s historical research soon unearthed a surprising finding, however: For hundreds of years, it seemed, one generation after another had lamented that Harvard Square “wasn’t what it used to be.
“At that point, I realized I had an even bigger puzzle to tackle,” Turco says. “I had to understand why Harvard Square had always been not what it used to be—and what that meant, more generally, about our relationship with markets and market change.”
With an eye for forensic detail, Turco conducts “autopsies” of dearly departed Harvard Square businesses to reveal the variety of market forces constantly creating change at the street level. She also dives into the most heated moments in Harvard Square’s history to investigate why certain changes have provoked extreme public outrage and why others have not.
Turco continually invites readers to shift their vantage point so as to see things from the often-contrasting perspectives of residents, activists, business owners, and landlords, all of whom forge their own deep attachments to the marketplace. Readers meet compelling characters, past and present, such as the early 20th century businessmen who bonded over scotch and cigars to found the Harvard Square Business Association; a feisty, frugal landlady who became one of the Square’s most powerful property owners by the mid-1900s; a local neighborhood group calling itself the Harvard Square Defense Fund that fought real estate developers throughout the 1980s and ’90s; and a local businesswoman who in recent decades strove to keep her shop afloat through personal tragedy, the rise of Amazon, and a globalizing property market that sent her rent soaring.
Harvard Square: A Love Story transcends existing economic and sociological theories to offer a powerful new lens for understanding markets—one that exposes the myriad (often hidden) ways in which our markets lend our lives stability and instability, security and insecurity. The book ultimately argues that our relationship with the markets in our lives is so complicated—and can provoke so much love and outrage—because, at its heart, it is about our relationship with ourselves and one another, how we come together and how we come apart.
Starting with the 17th century open-air market that sat atop the sloping hill off the banks of the Charles River and carrying readers up through the height of the pandemic, Turco reveals what a central, and centrally important, social institution street-level markets have always been in American life. The book concludes by raising a set of tough questions we must ask ourselves in our particular historical moment of streaming content, delivery on demand, and zoom meetings: What relationship do we want to have with our street-level markets going forward?
“Do we want to recommit to our dear old friend the marketplace?” Turco asks at the end. “Do we want to meet one another for coffee only in the Metaverse? Do we want the Amazon marketplace to be the only marketplace we visit? How much of our social and economic lives do we want to spend separated from one another by our screens instead of meeting in person in our town centers and neighborhood markets?”
Following his spinal cord injury, the Benson M. Abercrombie ’21 Fund was established by the Harvard Varsity Club (HVC) to assist the Abercrombie family with the significant medical and continuing care expenses they incur. Three annual community events are held to support the fund, including El Jefe’s Ben Abercrombie Day, Bowl for Ben, and 3.2 for Ben.
Though El Jefe’s has a new home at 14 Brattle St. in Harvard Square, owner John Schall’s annual Ben Abercrombie Day continues just the same when the fundraiser returns for a fifth year Dec. 6. All members of the Harvard community are invited to patronize the restaurant from 8 a.m. Dec. 6 to 4 a.m. Dec. 7, with all proceeds from the day (including gift card sales) donated to the Abercrombie Fund. To date, the El Jefe’s fundraiser has raised over $125,000.
Last month, the HVC hosted its third annual 3.2 for Ben, a fundraising event that began under the gathering restrictions of the pandemic. This year, nearly 500 participants independently ran or walked 3.2 miles, at their own time and pace. The distance was chosen to honor the jersey number 32 that Abercrombie wore for the Crimson. The HVC also hosted its third annual Bowl for Ben fundraiser on Nov. 18 in Boston’s Seaport District, on the eve of the 138th playing of The Game. More than 150 supporters turned out to celebrate the guest of honor.
In his first varsity football game in 2017, Abercrombie suffered a spinal cord injury which left him paralyzed below the neck. The economics concentrator has continued his education while battling years of medical treatment and extensive rehabilitation.
Princess Catherine of Wales visited the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University on Friday as part of her tour of Boston alongside her husband, Prince William of Wales.
The visit comes as part of a partnership between the Center on the Developing Child and the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, an organization the princess launched in June 2021. Kate was greeted at Harvard by University President Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard Graduate School of Education Dean Bridget T. Long, and Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui.
Meanwhile, the Prince met with President Joe Biden at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
The royal couple’s Boston tour culminated in a celebration of the Earthshot Prize, an award the Prince established to encourage innovation addressing climate change.
The Harvard Center on the Developing Child conducts research and development on issues of early childhood to foster effective policy-making. The Royal Foundation aims to produce research and campaigns improving children’s early years and to support underserved children around the world.
Jack P. Shonkoff, the director of the Center on the Developing Child, said in a Friday press conference that the organization aims to serve as “a resource for trusted, credible, cutting-edge science of early childhood” to inform the princess’ work.
“The reason for the visit was, first, to have a chance to meet face to face — we had not before,” he said. “It’s clear as her center, her new center, is poised to go out more publicly, she is really interested in a partnership with us and we are very interested in a partnership with her.”
Shonkoff said he was impressed by the Princess’s work to “connect the science to the lived experiences of people.”
“I was just very taken and really inspired by how serious she is about wanting to lean into an early childhood agenda,” he said.
Shonkoff also described the royals’ visit as key for drawing public attention to the center’s work.
“For me, the real home run here is giving attention to the issue,” he said.
Tobechukwu O. Nwafor ’25, one of the many Harvard students who gathered to meet the Princess on Friday, said her presence drew new attention to the work being done at the center.
“I didn’t even know that there was a Center on the Developing Child at Harvard,” he said in an interview. “So I think that even if she could even get people to look up the center, that’s an important thing.”
Crowds gathered in Harvard Square Friday to greet the Princess. Nawfor estimated more than 500 people flanked Church Street in anticipation for her arrival.
“I think it’s a once in a life-time opportunity to see a Princess — the Princess,” he said. “It was surreal.”
—Staff writer Charlotte P. Ritz-Jack can be reached at charlotte.ritz-jack@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Charritzjack.
Prince William and Kate Middleton: JFK Library and Harvard Visits
Entertainment Tonight published this video item, entitled “Prince William and Kate Middleton: JFK Library and Harvard Visits” – below is their description.
Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales visited the United States for the first time in eight years with a three-day trip to Boston.
The royal couple focused their attention on their Earthshot Prize for environmental innovators Friday night. Prince William said he was inspired by JFK’s “Moonshot” speech to create a decade of action and collaboration to combat climate change.
