Archives: Media Room

Nobody in Harvard Square will ever forget the April afternoon that Dennis Coveney and his fiancée, Kelly, tied the knot in the pouring rain on a Brattle Street sidewalk, an event like none other.

This September, the Harvard Square Business Association is sponsoring a month-long celebration of Harvard Square’s artistic and cultural heritage called “Revival Month”.”Harvard Square used to be a place where people used to come together [and] play music, and it was such a wonderful celebration of folk music and tradition,” said Denise Jillson, Executive Director of the HSBA.

The World’s Only Curious George Store in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass., may also hold the distinction of hosting the world’s first children’s specialty store cash mob last Saturday, or at least the first one in New England. The event was the brainchild of Kellie Celia, marketing communications manager, publishing of Walden Pond Press at Walden Pond Media, in tandem with store manager Broche Fabian.

It’s a lament heard year after year: “What happened to the eclectic Harvard Square of old and how did come to resemble a suburban shopping mall?”

Matt Miller shapes his schedule around the area’s public transportation infrastructure.  He said his system for getting around was nearly perfect, but the influx of bicycle sharing in Cambridge completed it.  Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline and Boston are participating in a “Rolling Launch Party” Wednesday to celebrate the expansion of the Hubway Bicycle Share system.

The building that housed the five-screen Loews movie theater in Harvard Square changed hands just four days after it screened its last film.

After 28 years and an estimated 2,100 screenings, the AMC Loews Harvard Square 5 in Cambridge, Mass., hosted its last showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Saturday, according to The Boston Globe. That ended one of the longest movie theater runs in history. The film, which stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry, became a cult phenomenon in New York after its release in 1975 at the Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village, where midnight screenings ran until the theater closed in the fall of 2001. The traditional Saturday-night screening at the Harvard Square AMC began in 1984 and encouraged audience members to dress in costumes while reciting lines along with the film. It also included a “shadowing” performance by the theater troupe Full Body Cast. AMC announced that it had sold the theater in June and that it would close permanently on Sunday.

Casablanca, the landmark Harvard Square restaurant that for more than four decades has been a home away from home for a Bohemian assortment of professors, artists, writers, and various other regulars and reprobates, is closing. Sari Abul-Jubein, who began working at Casablanca in 1971 as a part-time waiter only to buy the place five years later, announced Friday that the doors of the venerable restaurant will close at the end of August. “Owning a restaurant in Harvard Square is sort of like being a university professor,” he said. “I’ve been working with younger people for all these years and loving it. But it’s also madness, and I am ready to move on.” Abul-Jubein said he’ll be spending a lot of time at his other Cambridge eatery, Casbah, which will be re-named the Fat Man Café and feature a barbecue concept. But drop by Casablanca in the coming weeks because Abul-Jubein is planning a victory lap of sorts with a special menu and other surprises.