Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. Adjacent to Harvard Yard, the historic heart of Harvard University, the Square (as it is sometimes called, locally) functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge, the western and northern neighborhoods and the inner suburbs of Boston. The Square is served by Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway and a bus transportation hub.
In an extended sense, the name "Harvard Square" can also refer to the entire neighborhood surrounding this intersection for several blocks in each direction. The nearby Cambridge Common has become a park area with a playground, baseball field, and a number of monuments, several relating to the Revolutionary War.
Location
The heart of Harvard Square is the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Brattle Street. Massachusetts Avenue enters from the southeast (a few miles after crossing the Charles River from Boston at MIT), and turns sharply to the north at the intersection, which is dominated by a large pedestrian space incorporating the current MBTA subway headhouse (entrance), an older subway headhouse building which formerly housed a newsstand, a visitor information kiosk, and a small open-air performance space ("The Pit"). Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street merge from the southwest, joining Massachusetts Avenue at 1 Brattle Street, where another newsstand used to be located. The Harvard/MIT Cooperative Society main building forms the western streetwall at the intersection, along with a bank and some retail shops.
Nearby places
The walled enclosure of Harvard Yard is adjacent, with Harvard University, Harvard Extension School, Harvard Art Museums, Semitic Museum, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and Museum of Natural History just short walks away.
Other institutions in the general neighborhood include the Cambridge Public Library, Lesley University, the Longy School of Music, the Episcopal Divinity School, the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, American Repertory Theater, the Cooper-Frost-Austin House, the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House, and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.
The high pedestrian traffic makes Harvard Square a gathering place for street musicians and buskers, who must obtain a permit from the Cambridge Arts Council. Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, who attended nearby Tufts University, is known to have played here during her college years. Amanda Palmer, of the Dresden Dolls, regularly performed here as a "living statue". Another frequent performer over the years has been indie rock guitarist Mary Lou Lord. A small bronze statue of "Doo Doo" (a puppet created by Igor Fokin) sits at the corner of Brattle and Eliot streets, in honor of Fokin and all the street performers. The Flying Karamazov Brothers also performed regularly in Brattle Square.
Other features
Until 1984, the Harvard Square stop was the northern terminus of the Red Line, and it still functions as a major transfer station between subway, bus, and trackless trolley. Most of the bus lines serving the area from the north and west run through a tunnel adjacent to the subway tunnel. Originally built for streetcars (which last ran in 1958) and still used by trackless trolleys as well as ordinary buses, the tunnel lessens bus traffic in central Harvard Square, and lets buses cross the Square without encountering automobile traffic. The tunnel also allows covered access between the subway and the buses.
At the center of the Square is the old Harvard Square Subway Kiosk, which held a newsstand Out of Town News until its close in 2020. A public motion art installation, Lumen Eclipse, shows monthly exhibitions of local, national, and international artists.
The office of NPR's Car Talk radio show faced the square, with a stencil in the window that reads "Dewey, Cheetham & Howe," the fictional law firm often referenced on the show.
In the southwest of the neighborhood, on Mount Auburn St, stands the Igor Fokin Memorial. This memorial, created by sculptor Konstantin Simun, pays tribute not only to the late puppeteer, but to all street performers that are an integral part of the square.