Archives: Media Room

Harvard Book Store, which had been for sale since last spring, was sold yesterday to a married couple from Wellesley who say they intend to change very little about the place.

Tomorrow, every corner of France will burst with joy to celebrate the anniversary of Bastille Day, the 1789 storming of the notorious prison at the beginning of the French Revolution. Today, as it has for the last six years, Holyoke Street in Cambridge will turn into a French village for those who cannot go home for the anniversary or for …

Everyone is entitled to be an architectural critic, especially of one’s own environment. Since I studied and worked at Harvard for almost half a century, this is theI have a list of its buildings that I believe should be taken down immediately. If not sooner. They despoil both the skyscape and the landscape, most of them brutally fulfilling the threat inherent in their style, i.e., the “brutish” style.

A lot of people never thought they would see a final sale at the venerable F.B. Hubley Auction Galleries. It did conduct its last sale, however, and the June 4 auction marked the end of an era. It also denoted the end of antiques row, a several-block area in the shadow of Harvard Square that was once filled with dealers and auctioneers.

Saturday was “Make Music Cambridge!”, an outdoor music festival type event in which performers are interspersed on the streets around Harvard Square throughout the day – kind of like every day here in New York, except I think these artists got paid. Anyway, having heard good things about Cambridge in general, I wandered over there and discovered a little taste of Minnesota in Massachusetts.

The students have packed up and left for the summer, and pretty soon Harvard’s art museums will go on an extended hiatus, as well.  After many years and many false starts, Harvard is finally launching a major expansion of its art museums. In the process, what have been three separate institutions — the Fogg Art Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum — will be consolidated under one roof, and one name: the Harvard Art Museum.

Verizon Communications Inc. is leasing the first floor of 95 Mt. Auburn St. in Harvard Square in Cambrige, Mass.  The New York-based company is taking about 4,500 square feet at what used to be home to Tower Records, according to Richard Diamond, of The Diamond Group, a real estate firm, in Cambridge.

Ah, Paris.  Strolling along the banks of the Seine, munching fresh croissants, watching the surging euro turn your dollar into a worthless scrap of paper.  Since the floundering economy means we can’t always have Paris, we’ll have to settle for Harvard Square and the Charles, Au Bun Pain and – viola! – the new Make Music Cambridge festival.

Why isn’t there free Wi-Fi everywhere? I ask this as I sit in an Espresso Vivace in Seattle, typing away and enjoying free wireless (and a truly terrific latte—easily an 8.5 on the Huang scale). Being new to the city and still in the process of setting up connectivity, I’m acutely aware of any and all hotspots I find.

Home to one of the world’s top universities, Harvard Square normally hosts the exchange of ideas, but can now host the exchange of data, too. On Wednesday a number of businesses and organizations partnered to launch free public Wi-Fi for users within a half mile of the square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.