Malling the Square

When asked if he's seen the new Shops by Harvard Yard, Wursthaus owner Frank N. Cardullo seems a little confused. "Which one?" he queries. Not a bad question. The misnamed new marketplace, which opened to fanfare two weeks, ago, isn't any more Harvard than their much older neighbors. It's actually a fair amount less Harvard.

The revamped Holyoke shopping area is bright, flashy, and modern. Its "Forbes Arcade" is full of specialty booths and tiny stores, most of which hawk accessories and gift items--a kite shop, an ethnic handicraft "kiosk," a booth devoted exclusively to the sale of pepper. Holyoke Center is now a piece of an ongoing trend: the mall-ification of Harvard Square.

The story of the Square is a neverending saga of independently owned shops (J. F. Olsson & Co., The Bookcase, Reading International) that succumb to high rents, only to be replaced by trendy yuppie huts (The Body Shop, Origins, WordsWorth Abridged). "The Shops by Harvard Yard" is only the latest installment. And every time another landlord drops out of the Harvard Square rat race, we compose another elegy to a neighborhood whose character is quickly fading.

This newest makeover has been the pet project of Harvard Real Estate, a University subsidiary and the Square's largest landowner. The Shops by Harvard Yard, and the future it portends, leads us to wonder what HRE's role in the Square should be.

With the Shops by Harvard Yard, HRE had an opportunity to revamp what Harvard Square Defense Fund president Gladys P. Gifford calls the "dark hole" that was Holyoke Center. This citizens advocacy group--composed of about 500 Cambridge residents and business owners--negotiated with HRE as the company made plans to remodel the Holyoke arcade. They were hoping for stores in keeping with the Square's quirky atmosphere. They were disappointed.

"All in all, we think it's much more for tourists than we had hoped," Gifford says. The stores are, indeed, devoted to tourists who make impulse purchases and shop for small gifts, not staple items. According to Gifford, a "Where's Cambridge" video and souvenir shop may soon move into the arcade, clinching the "Shops'" role as a blatant tourist trap.

Of course, Harvard Square caters to tourists--in pairs and clusters, they clog the Yard every morning. After congregating at the Statue of Three Lies, these passersby presumably cross the street to shop and eat. But Harvard attracts tourists because it is Harvard, not because it has stores.

By turning the Square into a shopping festival a la Faneuil Hall, HRE is changing the very qualities that make Harvard a spectacle. At the same time, Harvard Square is losing bookstores and other shops that have been important to the students, professors and Cantabrigians who live and work here. "It's a residence for people," Gifford points out. "It's not a DisneyWorld yet."

In one sense, the Shops by Harvard Yard seems to be a rather clever profit-making move. According to Gifford, HRE deliberately pursued the Profitable switch form large stores to small ones. The big, older stores like The Cambridge Shop had longstanding contracts that tended to favor the storeowner over the landlord. By replacing the old standbys with tiny stores, HRE can increase the amount of rent it receives.

It's not the size of the stores we object to so much as their nature--although size and nature seem inextricably linked. But we have to question the business sense behind HRE's apparent decision to pursue the yuppie market. While the trend might lead to big profits in the short run, HRE could well be bartering away the future of the Square. And anyway, profits aren't supposed to be the motive driving HRE. As a non-profit, HRE's mission is to provide housing and space for Harvard students and staff, and presumably serve the greatest educational purpose of Harvard.

By catering to the young and trendy, Harvard may be jeopardizing the Square's future marketability. If the neighborhood becomes a collection of streamlined Shops by Harvard Yard, what will be left to distinguish the Square from every other mall-come-lately? Why should East Cambridge residents flock all the way to the Square, when they can get the same goods, and the same neon, at the CambridgeSide Galleria? And another thing. That huge "Shops by Harvard Yard" sign by Massachusetts Avenue--we think it's ugly and gaudy and call for its immediate and complete removal.

Frank Cardullo says he's seen a lot of changes in his 50 years as a Square merchant. "I'm not sure," he says, "they're for the better for Harvard Square."

We're not sure, either. We'd rather see an HRE that showed concern about the future of the Square and its residents. As the Square's principal landowner, HRE has an effects on market prices, and should make sure that small, less trendy shops which reflect the academic community of the Square are able to survive.

In doing so, Harvard Real Estate could fulfill Harvard's implicit responsibility to make its community a better place to live and do business in. Harvard isn't primarily a real estate company--it's a university.

By encouraging a less cutthroat market for Square real estate, HRE could encourage a return to the days of a Square defined by its uniqueness, not by its conformity. HRE officers and the University officials to whom they report are ignoring the fact that Harvard Real Estate exists because of Harvard--not the other way around.