A Mall in the Square

Over the past four weeks, three Harvard Square business establishments that form a vital part of a student’s experience of living in Cambridge have shut their doors. Store 24, one of two always-open establishments in the Square, closed two weeks ago. Video Pro, the Square’s only video rental store, and the Crimson Sports Grille, a bulwark of first-year social life, have both foundered.

The demise of these institutions is part of a larger trend in which Harvard Square has become less student-friendly and more oriented toward the hordes of tourists and suburban teens who invade the Square on weekend nights.

The experience of living in a college town, with late-night establishments like the Tasty that not only provide cheap food but also serve a social function, seems to be vanishing rapidly. Over the course of this year, Harvard students have lost out to the concerns of tourists, the expansion of nationwide chains and skyrocketing rent prices.

Any sort of real bar scene in Harvard Square has vanished, thanks to the deaths of Grafton Street and the Crimson Sports Grille, once central points of convergence for students looking for an alternative to dorm parties and final clubs. The Grendel’s re-opening and the appearance of Daedalus, a new bar on Mount Auburn Street, gives us a reason for hope, as do rumors of Grafton Street’s reemergence.

The loss of the Grafton Street Bar and Restaurant is particularly bitter as this small business was overwhelmed by the corporate world as an expanding Cambridgeport Bank takes over Grafton’s space on Mass. Ave. The demise of Harvard’s bar scene is not the only signal of the Square’s gentrification and landlords’ insistence on the high rent chain stores can afford to pay.

At times, the University has contributed to the loss of the Square’s distinct character. It forced out the Harvard Provisional Store, known lovingly to those who can purchase alcohol as the Pro. Though less relevant to students’ lives, the closing of the classy Upstairs at the Pudding restaurant after a University buyout is another casualty. Instead of independent stores, Harvard Square now mirrors an outdoor mall. Staples joins Abercrombie & Fitch, Pacific Sunwear, Pizzeria Uno’s, Urban Outfitters and the Sunglass Hut, among the other chain stores that radiate from Out-Of-Town News.

But without a place to buy groceries, rent videos or go for post-midnight snacks, the Square is slowing losing its role as a living element in the Harvard student experience and is becoming nothing more than a destination for wealthy tourists.