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The Forces that Will Shape the Future of Harvard Square
1) Over the past 50 years, retail in Harvard Square has evolved from catering to everyday students to higher-end boutique retail due to economic forces. 2) While the physical form of Harvard Square has remained largely the same, retail uses have changed dramatically with many independent shops replaced by banks, cell phone stores, and national chains. 3) However, some argue that meaningful retail experiences arose from intentional efforts by business and community stakeholders to blend Harvard Square with the surrounding university environment.
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The Forces that Will Shape the Future of Harvard Square
- 1. My Freshman YearDorm Harvard Square Around the T The mixed use of retail spaces 4D MOVIE Church St THEATER Palm HARVARD UNIVERSITY GROW YOUR OWN FOOD BAR er S t Brattle St. START- UP BOSTON LABS CELL PHONE FREE CAFE THE WORLD By Albert Ching | MIT Masters of City Planning Candidate, 2012 | Intro to Urban Design and Development Assignment #1 Source: Google Maps Aerial View of Harvard Square. Retrieved October 24, 2011 from Google Maps website: www.maps.google.com
- 2. 1898 2009 1996 1990s 1958 Source: Albert Ching. Taken October 15, 2011 in Harvard Square
- 3. HYPOTHESIS In many ways, Harvard Square Asia around the T is a leading indicator of how many of the most important places in the world have and will The World evolve into the future. It was put on the map by a great institution, Internet connected to the local world Historic MIT outside by transit investments and inextricably linked to the global Harvard world by the internet. While forces retail form like nostalgia may attempt to Harvard preserve not just the form but also Fixed street S q u a r e University the uses of the space, the power of retail economics will likely keep its grid a r o u n d uses attentive to a rapidly Tran changing clientele. That clientele t h e T spo will be a increasingly Asian, both rt Nostalgia Boston tech savvy and tech wary, inclined Retail to recycle as much as to consume, and will make more of their Economics purchases through the smartphone than at a cash Digital technologies register. While the physical form of the Square will remain largely the same, digital technologies will redraw the boundaries etched by the founders of Newtowne almost 400 years ago.
- 4. PAST | 1631sto 1950s | An original, transit-oriented development PRESENT | 1950s – today | Retail economics overpowers nostalgia FUTURE | Today and beyond | The mixed use of retail spaces
- 5. THE PAST Anoriginal transit-oriented, development 3! 1631 – 1950’s 1910s Opening of subway Harvard Streetcar & Subway Transport 4! Retail Association 1911 Despite the growing prominence of Harvard, the Square was a sleepy village for Creation of Harvard almost 300 years. It wasn’t until the electrification of the horsecar and later the Square addition of a prominent subway line in the late 1800s which significantly increased 2! Businessman’s commuter traffic and started the development of the retail square that we know Association today. An original transit-oriented development, the Square was not left to market 1880s forces but its retail character was scripted intentionally by business owners and Electrification of Harvard itself (something that MIT should be doing for Kendall Square today). the horsecar 1! 1631 Founding of Harvard Square by Massachusetts Bay Colony; original street grid lay 1636 Founding of Harvard University
- 6. Original Harvard SquareStreet Grid, 1635 Overlayed with Current Google Maps Street Grid, 2011 1! Founding of Newtowne 1630s Harvard Square or Newtowne as it was originally called was the first planned town in North America, chosen by the Dunster St was the principal street Proprietors of the with the first meeting house on the SW corner of Mt. Auburn and the ferry Massachusetts Bay to be landing down south their capital in 1631. The street grid established in 1631 is still in use today. In 1636, Harvard University was established. Source: Cambridge Historical Commission (1999). Originally appeared in Final Report of the Harvard Square Historic District Study Committee. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Cambridge Historical Commission website, Page 1: http:// www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/hsqhistory1.html Route to the sea (or the Charles River) Source (Overlay Image): Google Maps View of Harvard Square. Retrieved October 24, 2011 from Google Maps website: www.maps.google.com
- 7. Harvard Square StreetcarStation Postcards, 1900s-1920’s 2! Electrification Diagram of Harvard Square Streetcar Routes of the horsecar 1880s-1910s The electrification of the horsecar, also know as the streetcar, transformed Harvard Square from a purely local to a regional destination. As a major interchange point for 5 suburban towns, the Square would take in up to 20,000 commuters on its busiest summer Sundays. That congestion on the surface is Source: Albert Ching. Drawn on October 18, 2011 what would precipitate the need for the next transport investment. Look, there were automobiles back then too! Source: eBay. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from eBay website: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ CAMBRIDGE-MA-Harvard-Square-Old-Postcard-/350489888717? _trksid=p4340.m263&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA %252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D15%26pmod%3D200530005650%26ps %3D63%26clkid%3D3669084619401838596#ht_1252wt_1265
- 8. 3! Harvard Square Rapid Transit Station, 1927 Here comes the subway 1910s Harvard Square Subway Opening Headline, 19112 Takes 9-10 The Harvard Square subway line minutes today was started in 1909 and completed in 1911 at a cost of $11.75 million dollars ($275 million dollars today). Interestingly, Harvard Square retailers feared that the new transit line to Boston would actually draw away business from Harvard towards the other towns in Cambridge. (Boy were they wrong!) Source: NY Times (1912, March 24). Cambridge Subway Open. Retrieved on It was this fear and the new October 24, 2011 from Harvard Square Business Association Archives website: opportunity of thousands of http://www.harvardsquare.com/CMSPages/ commuters that would lay the Getfile.aspx?guid=968188c8-b223-4533- ac52-4c73d6d2eced foundation for the distinct retail vision that now characterizes Harvard Square. Source: MIT Rotch Visual Collections. (between 1954-1959). Harvard Square Subway Station Entrance. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Flickr website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/3441852660/
- 9. First Harvard SquareBusiness 4! Man Association Bulletin, 1911 The unique retail Proposal to Build High Rises in the Square That Was Ultimately Defeated, 1968 vision 1910s The Harvard Square Business Man’s Association was founded in 1911 in response to the threat of the subway but the retail association along with Harvard saw this moment as an opportunity to Source: Harvard Square Business Men’s Association (1911, April). First Issue. Retrieved on October 24, blend the form of the Square with the 2011 from Harvard Square Business Association Archives website: http://www.harvardsquare.com/ fabric of the surrounding university to CMSPages/Getfile.aspx?guid=26c5161f-2953-4e9a- create a unique retail experience. afda-bbc38b07fd10 “In an ideal metropolitan area, both the "collegiate square" and the "centre of a Special Harvard Square Zoning high-class residence district" should be Overlay Which Limits Heights "quickly reached from the city, but . . . to 60 Feet, Today quiet in use and appearance” (Cambridge Historical Commission, 1999) Since then, any development proposals to significantly change the character of Source: Cambridge Historical Commission (1999). Originally appeared in Final Report of the Square (especially by building up) the Harvard Square Historic District Study Committee. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 have been vehemently opposed and from Cambridge Historical Commission website, Page 4: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/ historic/hsqhistory4.html today, Harvard Square is governed by special zoning guidelines to preserve its Source: Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Dept of Cambridge Community Development website: http:// historic character. www2.cambridgema.gov/cdd/cp/zng/zmap/ zng_map.html#zomap Source: Cambridge Historical Commission (1999). Originally appeared in Final Report of the Harvard Square Historic District Study Committee. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Cambridge Historical Commission website, Page 1: http://www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/hsqhistory1.html
- 10. Retail economics THE PRESENT overpowers nostalgia 1950’s - Present Harvard Retail Economics Internet Nostalgia While the physical form of the modern Square was largely set decades before, the retail uses within the Square have evolved dramatically over the past 5 decades. The protest era of the 1960’s and 70’s ushered in a set of utterly distinct retailers – the largest concentration of independent bookstores in the world, tailors, and tobacco shops. Unfortunately, as the Square has become a prime retail haven, those small shops that have served the community for decades have given way to a flurry of higher-margin banks, cell phone stores, and national food chains who serve not just the students on campus but also a significantly large and growing visitor population. According to the Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, “Despite the common misperception, there is no “master puppeteer” running Harvard Square, and many of the property owners, including Harvard, do their best to ensure that the Square remains unique. If anything, the consumers are responsible for these changes, which reflect a changed Square customer more than they do a changed epoch” (Harvard Crimson, 2011). Source: Harvard Crimson Staff (2011, May 26). More Than a Square. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Harvard Crimson website: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/26/harvard-square- squares-businesses/
- 11. It is becominga matter of general remark that the economic emphasis is changing; it is shifting from how to make things to how to dispose of things that are made so that the machine can be kept in constant operation. The problem before us today is not how to produce the goods, but how to produce the customers. Consumptionism is the science of compelling men to use more and more things. Consumptionism is bringing it about that the American citizen's first importance to his country is no longer that of citizen but that of consumer. -Samuel Strauss (1870-1953), "Things Are in the Saddle," Atlantic Monthly, Nov 1924 Source: Quotations on Consumerism / Overconsumption. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from University of St. Thomas website: http://www.stthomas.edu/recycle/consume.htm
- 12. Harvard Square, 1963 Harvard Square Then: Catering to the Everyday Student Consumer 1940s-60s 22 RESTAURANTS, MOSTLY AFFORDABLE 7 BOOKSHOPS 1 PICTURE FRAME SHOP 1 MOVIE THEATER SEVERAL BANKS SEVERAL MEN’S CLOTHING STORES ASSORTMENT OF HARDWARE, GROCERY, DRESS, APOTHECARY, & BARBER SHOPS Source: Cambridge Historical Commission (1999). Originally appeared in Final Report of the Harvard Square Historic District Study Committee. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Cambridge Historical Commission website, Page 3: http:// www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/hsqhistory3.html Source: Lotman, Mo. Harvard Square: An Illustrated History Since 1950. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from The Boston Phoenix website: http://thephoenix.com/boston/arts/89934-photos-harvard-square-1950s-and-beyond/?page=7#TOPCONTENT
- 13. STARBUCKS LFSTORES MINT JULEP BORDER CAFE LOEWS CINEMA BODY SHOP FIRE & ICE DADO TEA TISTIK C’EST BON MARKET IN THE CLUB PASSIM / SQUARE OTTO VEGGIE PLANET CVS BANK OF AMERICA HARVARD COOP Harvard CRIMSON CORNER Square Now: OUT-OF-TOWN NEWS CITIZEN’S BANK N Higher End ED E STRIA R R TEALUWEET S STARBUCKS RESERVE P RRIDO OUTFATN U B XE PINK BERRY O Boutique TAIL C RUSSELL HOUSE I ER CAMBRIDGE SAVINGS RE T DIC ESS MU S VISION HOUSE BRO KSON DO AU BON PAIN Retail Oct THE PAPYRUS R’S PIZZERIA UNO’S 2011 CVS ALDO LE FOOT SPORTIF WHI VITAMIN SHOPPE 7 CAFES TNE Y’S LUSH MILLION YEAR LEO 18 FOOD ’S P PICNIC LAC RADIO SHACK E 14 STUDENT RETAIL HUNT’S PHOTO NEWBURY 24 SPECIALTY RETAIL COMICS LA FLAMME VERIZON WIRELESS KOFUKU 3 BANKS AMERICAN EXPRESS SEVEN-ELEVEN 4 TOURIST JOHN HARVARD’S FELIPE’S 4 VACANT AUDIO LAB LE’S RESTAURANT 7 HISTORIC RETAIL (BEFORE 1970) STARBUCKS
- 14. Retail can bemeaningful (and I’m not saying that just to make Dennis happy) I spent four of the most formative years of my life at Harvard as an undergraduate and the small shops that dotted the Square became an integral part of my student life, the context Bikram yoga studio and the cause of many lifelong memories. (formerly office of my first job The freshman year convenience store runs to as a web surfer) C’est Bon in 35 below temperatures, Friday evenings listening to CDs at Tower Records, sharing the blooming onion at Chili’s, late night tomato basil runs to Pinnochio’s, avoiding slick back hair guy at La Flamme, or hangover smoothie and wraps at the Wrap. Perhaps even the biweekly trips to CVS will hit a soft spot in my heart. Great retail does not come from nowhere – and in the case of Harvard Square, it arose from very thoughtful intention from business and community stakeholders. Source: Albert Ching. Taken October 15, 2011 in Harvard Square Yet, 5 years later when I returned to the Square, I found myself in unfamiliar territory. As I (hopefully) wrap up my final year Maybe it’s not up to me though. As The few retail-heavy blocks that surround the in Cambridge, I am worried that my Gavin Kleepsies, Executive Director of T station had been the site of significant future return trips will be even more the Cambridge Historical Society notes, change, some documented heavily in The jolting, especially as the the global “Harvard Square is constantly changing Crimson like the closure of treasured marketplace begins to price out the and that’s the constant.” The problem independent bookstores for much maligned local shops for aspatial brands or for students and residents is, “Everyone cell phone service shops. The office where I concepts tested on a population of wants Harvard Square to remain what it spent my first summer after college as a web- multi-talented, multi-lingual, multi- was when they first saw it.” surfer for a financial services firm had national students increasingly become in some strange bizzarro-world way, connected to everyplace and the location of my bikram yoga practice. ultimately to no place at all (like me).
- 15. STARBUCKS BORDER CAFE LOEWS CINEMA FIRE & ICE If a place disappears from our memory, does it make a sound? What is C’EST BON our role as CLUB PASSIM / VEGGIE PLANET 4 out of 30 places designers CVS in 8 years may not to preserve seem like a lot of meaning and turnover-- but FLEET BOSTON memory? juxtaposed next to an institution that HARVARD COOP has remained firm for almost 400 years, it does. OUT-OF-TOWN NEWS TEA ABERCROMBIE & FITCH URB LUX A E OUT N FINAGLE A BAGLE FITE RS DIC BRO KSON AU BON PAIN THE R’S PIZZERIA UNO’S CVS HERRELL’S ICE CREAM NEWBURY 4 OUT OF BUSINESS TOWER RECORDS COMICS LA FLAMME 26 MEANINGFUL LOCATIONS DEVELOPED SEVEN-ELEVEN from 1999-2003 JOHN HARVARD’S My Harvard Square Map LE’S RESTAURANT Oct 2011 STARBUCKS
- 16. IS THIS THEFUTURE? Orchard Ion Singapore’s most desired retail location Source: Albert Ching. Taken July 23, 2011 in Singapore (Of course not.)
- 17. HARVARD SQUARE 2100 2011 Source: Albert Ching. Taken July 23, 2011 in Singapore 2100 Source: Albert Ching. Taken October 15, 2011 in Harvard Square
- 18. The mixed useof retail spaces 2011 and beyond 4D The further development of the MOVIE smartphone technologies and Church St THEATER robust online shopping will deemphasize retail spaces as Palm mainly places to make GROW YOUR OWN er S purchases. FOOD BAR While the physical form of the t Brattle St. Square will look the same, the START- area will become subdivided UP digitally by use along a LABS CELL hundred different lines as PHONE FREE retailers become interested in CAFE blurring the line between peoples’ everyday life and their own brands. THE FUTURE
- 19. Everywhere is aStore Source: PSFK Consulting (2011). Future of Retail. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from SlideShare website: http://www.slideshare.net/PSFK/psfk-presents-future-of-retail-report
- 20. Retail Spaces as Brand Experiences Starbucks Reserve Thislocation opened in 2011 is only the 3rd location in the world (besides Seattle and Dublin). It features a coffee bar, extra large study spaces, and is packed every hour of the day. Source: Albert Ching. Taken October 15, 2011 in Harvard Square
- 21. Retail Spaces as Start-Up Spaces Harvard Harvard’s Recently Created Innovation Lab, 2011 Innovation Lab Gordon Jones, director of the Harvard Innovation Lab joked that he “would love nothing more than to blow up a building in Harvard Square and put this building there” (Harvard Crimson, 2011). Source: Miraval, Nathalie & Rebecca Robbins (2011, September 16). Innovation Lab Looks to Help Start-Ups. Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Harvard Crimson website: http://www.thecrimson.com/ article/2011/9/16/jones-harvards-business-ilab/
- 22. Retail Spaces as LiveConcert Venues Best Buy Source: Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from Best Buy Live website: http://www.liveatbestbuy.com/
- 23. Retail Spaces as Protest Spaces VietnamWar Vietnam War Protest in Harvard Square, 1967 Source: Unknown (1967, June 11). Retrieved on October 24, 2011 from SuperStock website: http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4048-1897
- 24. Pinnochio’s Harvard Square Sicilian Artichoke Sicilian Pepperoni Some things will hopefully always stay the same.