A rendering from a March 6 meeting shows proposed restaurant space on Palmer Street in Cambridge’s Harvard Square. (Image: Harvard Square Advisory Committee)
Harvard University plans to reuse the empty former Coop Annex building at 12-30 Palmer St. for new commercial ventures and outdoor space, part of a plan to make Harvard Square more walkable and engaging. One idea presented March 6 to the Harvard Square Advisory Committee is for the first floor to be used as a restaurant space that could have the facade open during good weather.
The alley is a blocklong shared space for business, pedestrians and delivery trucks famous mostly for having the folk venue Club Passim at its Church Street end; the Brattle Street end is less busy but has been a reliable space for buskers to set up and in 2018 got an Instagrammable set of angel wings painted on a brick wall by artist Jason Talbot – just stand in front of them and have someone take the picture. Between the cross streets are artful, if lesser-used, benches.