Square Plans Streamlining

Chrome plating and glass bricks are invading Harvard Square in accordance with a master plan to create and maintain and important business center more inviting than the Central Square locale.

Stanley Sumner, chairman of the Advertising Committee of the Harvard Square Business Men's Association, announced last night that a program to encourage merchants to modernize their store-fronts is now in operation. The first firm to complete alterations under the plan is Schoenhof's book store, and work on other shops in the block is in progress. The remodeling campaign will extend down Boylston st. in the near future.

The Association is also urging stores to keep their lights on all night. Already some property owners have made all-night lights a condition in their leases, and most new leases will contain this clause.

Parking Situation

The program aims also at improving the parking situation. The Association will ask the city to construct a public parking lot with meters and to place more meters in MacArthur Square. Suggestions for improvement of the traffic situation will also be brought up.

The Christmas decorations on lampposts are an early example of the plan in action, Sumner stated. Cooperative spending on advertising is expected to start soon, and other ideas being considered include a nursery for children of shopping mothers and a cooperative sales-training school.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires have been sent out to all local firms as a part of a systematic study of the business community. The Association has already enlisted the help of the Business School in finding new ideas for improvements, and the problem may be studied in business marketing courses.

Many of the questionnaires have been returned already, Sumner stated, and have been turned over to C. Rodney Sage, a member of the Association, who will analyze the results. No final conclusions will be prepared before Christmas, however. Sumner is the manager of the University Theatre, while Dow is a member of a local real estate firm.

The idea of concerted efforts to improve the Square business was first presented and approved at a meeting in October by Richard A. Dow '35, president of the Association. Central Square has had a similar program for some time.