Fifty Years Later, Harvard Square Caters to a Different Population

As a teenager in the 1950s, Louisa Solano learned to tell time backwards at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop. She read a clock reflected in the mirror of a barber shop across the street.

“It was a symbol of the time,” says Solano, now the owner of the poetry shop on Plympton St. “Everything ran backwards rather than forwards. It was a sign of preservation. Society was preserving itself.”

People familiar with the Square then and now attest to the metamorphosis that the area has undergone.

The square’s retail stores have shifted their focus from the working class demographic to students and visitors with greater disposable income.

“In the 1950s there were five and dime stores that catered to people without much money. It was great,” Solano says, remembering that a wedding band could be purchased for $24.

Of the stores and restaurants that the class of 1954 patronized, many have been replaced with more expensive establishments; only a handful of the originals remain, and two of them—Brine’s Sporting Goods and Grolier Poetry Book Shop—announced that they were closing this year.

Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, says that the character of the Square has been transformed.

“It’s unrecognizable except that we’ve preserved the buildings,” he says. “It’s a completely different community here than when I came down on week-ends from Dartmouth...If you live in Cambridge now, most people...don’t go to the Square for every-day things.”

Paul Corcoran ’54, whose family owned Corcoran’s Department Store where Urban Outfitters is now located, says that the Harvard Square of the 1950s was cozier.

“Central Square was where it was at. [Harvard Square] was like a little village: small, intimate and not a lot of traffic,” he says. “Central Square had much more to offer than Harvard Square.”

Sullivan attributed the changes to the demolition of the subway yards in the late 1970s, where the School of Government now stands, and the closing of the University Press Printing Plant in 1969.

“There was a lot more of a working class presence because of the subway yards...and the printing plant [nearby],” he says.

GREASY SPOONS

Not only was there more of a working class presence, but Sullivan says that in the 1950s students had less disposable income because many of them were veterans.

Most of the stores and restaurants were inexpensive.

John T. Bushell ’54 says that there were two cafeterias on Mass. Ave. where he would spend time—the Waldorf and Hazen’s.

“[At the Waldorf] there were tables that weren’t very clean—very simple fare,” he says. “You could go and sit there and stay there as long as you wanted. A lot of writers sitting there having their eleventh coffee.”

Michael G. Eakin ’54 remembers that the cleanliness of a place had nothing to do with the taste of its food.

“A couple of greasy spoons–one that looked dirty was good and the one that was clean was bad,” he says, struggling to recollect their names.

Another inexpensive student favorite was Cronin’s, a bar on Dunster Street that William B. King ’54 described as “the quintessential Harvard hangout.”

“Cronin’s Bar was where many of us drank more than we should have,” says Wendell Perry ’54.

“They sold dimies—draft beer for a dime,” Corcoran says.

The bar was destroyed to make way for the Holyoke Center in 1965.

On the site where Alpha Omega now stands, a store called Varsity Liquors had no qualms about selling alcohol to those underage.

“We would always send our youngest looking classmate...to get the beer, [he was] barely 16 and looked around 12,” says Warren Markarian ’54.

THE LEFTOVERS

The stores that remain have had to adapt to the changing Square.

King, the chair of the Cambridge Historical Commission, recalls spending time with his then girlfriend (now wife) at a luncheon counter (now gone) at Leavitt and Peirce on Mass. Ave.

“I would meet my girlfriend at the counter where there were all sorts of faculty who would be regulars,” says King.

Sheila King ’54 recalled one regular who had particularly bizarre eating habits: “corn beef hash with an egg and a scoop of chocolate ice cream.”

J. August on Mass. Ave. has dropped its men’s clothing in favor of Harvard apparel.

Markarian says that the store used to provide special clothing items for commencement, such as the tails which attached to the gowns of class marshals.

“Day before Commencement it was a madhouse,” he says. “It had a certain clientele.”

J. August Manager Dimitri Tragos says that the store has had to evolve.

“It was a men’s clothing store that dealt with fashions of times—sport jackets, tweeds...Geared to Harvard administration, professors, rather than kids,” he says. “Certainly the market for gentleman’s clothing has been taken over by big chains...We’ve changed. [Now we’re] catering to students and tourists.”

The University Theater, once with one screen and an entrance on Mass Ave., is now the five-screen Loews on Church St.

“The balcony had wicker chairs in it. [You would] get a ticket to sit in the wickers which were more comfortable than those below,” William King says.

Alums and merchants say that in the 1950s the Coop was smaller but managed to offer a more extensive collection of goods, including hockey sticks and records in addition to books and apparel.

“The Coop was an honest to God viable general store where you could get sweaters, underwear,” says Tony Ferrante ’46, the owner of the Ferrante-Dege camera store, which he opened in 1955.

Solano, the owner of the Grolier Poetry Shop, says that even among the dozens of bookstores that lined the Square, the Coop’s collection stood out.

“Bookstores were everywhere. Every block and side street had two of them...The Coop had one of every title published by good publishing firms,” she says.

Markarian praised the store’s “great record department” and “enormously knowledgeable staff.”

The Coop’s main music competitor was Briggs and Briggs, which offered a listening station for records. The store closed in 2000 to be replaced by the first of two Adidas stores on the site.

The Brattle Square Florists once devoted half of its space to selling fruit. Store manager Stephen Zedros says that the advent of airfreight made it easier to receive fresh flowers, so the store abandoned its fruit selling.

Zedros adds that cars would park right in front of the store, where there is now a sidewalk.

A CHANGE OF PACE

Corcoran says that throughout the Square, traffic was light enough that cars could park perpendicular to the side of the road.

A policeman stationed in a tall booth at the center of the square directed vehicular and passenger traffic.

“If you were jaywalking a cop would yell at you with a loudspeaker: ‘Hey You!’ I remember that,” says Charles Sullivan of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Now, the policeman who presided over the simple intersection of a two-lane Mass Ave. with JFK St. (then Boylston St.) has been replaced by an elaborate apparatus of traffic lights and beeping, countdown crosswalk signals.

As part of the expansion of the Red Line, which was completed in 1984, the connection between Mass. Ave. and Brattle St. was filled in and became part of the Pit. The “Harvard Square” cap of the former entrance to the subway was removed, salvaged, and now adorns the top of Out of Town News.

Markarian says that in a way the Square of the 1950s, which did not cater as much to out of towners, was more relaxed.

“It was laid back—in all kinds of weather you would see Harvard people walking around eating ice cream cones,” he says.

“For me it certainly was the golden day,” says Solano. “Very high energy. At the same time everything seemed very quiet until the late 50s...It was a very colorful place.”

But quieter—street musicians were illegal.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.