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Gerald Chan is the king of Harvard Square real estate. So why has no one ever heard of him?

Revisit a 2015 Globe Magazine profile of the reclusive investor and philanthropist who’d quietly bought up swaths of Harvard Square.
By Neil Swidey – May 2, 2015, 12:00 a.m.

Gerald Chan at his Newton office, which he decorated in part with furniture from eBay.
Gerald Chan at his Newton office, which he decorated in part with furniture from eBay. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe

This article is part of an effort to resurface Globe readers’ most loved stories or timeless reports you might have missed. It was originally published on May 2, 2015. It was updated on April 10, 2025, with a new headline,but is otherwise unchanged.

As usual, Longwood Avenue, the main artery through Boston’s vast medical-industrial complex, is as clogged as any in even the most desperate cardiac patient. The lines into the overwhelmed parking garages back up, pushing minivans and Mercedes into the street, forcing other motorists to idle on Longwood as traffic lights change, tempers flare, and horns blare.

The driver calmly maneuvers past the jam, turning down a ramp into a garage underneath Harvard Medical School. His car is immaculate but otherwise unremarkable, a white 2010 Volkswagen Passat wagon that he bought used. He pauses at the entrance to fish out a crimson pass from his armrest compartment, flashing it at the attendant. As the gate to this private refuge opens, he turns to me. “This is the highest status symbol in the medical area,” he says, waving the pass. “Parking!”

That’s quite a statement coming from Gerald Chan, a man who has four university degrees, is on the Forbes billionaire list, and who, with his family, just gave the world’s wealthiest university the largest gift in its history. As thanks for that $350 million, Harvard renamed its public health school after Chan’s late father — it’s now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It was the first time the university had named one of its schools after a benefactor since 1639, when the donation of 400 books and 779 pounds earned immortality for a minister by the name of John Harvard.

Chan places the pass on his dashboard. He had been given it only recently, after having arrived late for a meeting with the dean and apologizing that he’d been circling the block looking for a space. The garage under the Harvard Longwood campus leverages every inch of its precious real estate, using racks that accommodate two cars for every space, one on top of another. Just a few spaces are rack-free, and those are labeled for trucks and vans only. Chan’s Passat is neither, yet he begins backing it into one of the solo spaces.

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“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” comes a loud voice from the distance. Soon, a young parking attendant with a dark beard and a serious face appears at Chan’s window. “Those spaces are for trucks.”

“Ah, but it’s late enough in the day,” Chan replies hopefully. “C’mon, it’s five o’clock.”

The attendant shakes his head sternly and points to a rack space nearby. “I can put you right there.”

Chan demurs, explaining that he is not comfortable parking in a space where his car would get raised above another.

“I can park it for you,” the attendant says.

“But I’ll still have to bring it out.”

When the attendant pauses, Chan moves in to close the deal. “Please, please!” he pleads, before pointing to another small car in a regular spot. “C’mon, look at that Honda over there.”

“We only have a few spaces,” the attendant starts to say. But then, motivated either by compassion or about-to-punch-out-for-the-day fatigue, he relents. “OK, you’re good.”

“Thanks sooooo much,” Chan says respectfully, drawing out that modifier to the point where, by the time he has finished the sentence, the attendant has disappeared.

I turn to Chan and smile. “He has no idea who you are.”

Chan lets out a huge full-bellied laugh. That’s just how he likes it.


Gerald Chan projects refinement and restraint, right down to his habit of excusing himself to use the “loo.” At the same time, he comes across as unpretentious and accessible. He stretches out your name whenever he greets you (“Neil” becomes “Neeeeil”) and often finishes his sentences with the word “huh?” as if waiting for you to signal either comprehension or buy-in. When Chan laughs, which he does often, he puts his whole body into it, shaking his shoulders and thrusting his chin up toward the sky, like a Peanuts character.

As his laugh about the exchange with the parking attendant subsides, it’s clear it had gone exactly the way things in his life tend to go. He had gotten his way using only soft power, relying on his wiles and persistence without ever having to pull rank or surrender his anonymity — something more valuable to him than even his parking pass.

Chan’s determination to preserve his privacy while simultaneously emblazoning his alma mater with his family name is just one of the many contradictions that make him fascinating. He is a fabulously successful 64-year-old investor who is relentless in building his family’s empire even as he warns us about the dangers of becoming “mere economic beings.” He is a devout Christian who begins his mornings reading Scripture and a serious scientist who spends his days working with people on the front lines of research, where faith in God is often viewed as some kind of mental defect. He is a highly influential funder of novel cancer treatments who speaks passionately about the coming revolution in oncology even as he confides a more fatalistic belief that “cancer is Nature’s mechanism for making sure we don’t live forever.” And he is someone who evinces little interest in the real estate business, even as he has quietly scooped up enough buildings in Harvard Square to become the neighborhood’s biggest property player besides the university, almost overnight.

In his quest to keep a low profile, Chan has long been aided by his peripatetic lifestyle. The Hong Kong native became a US citizen in the 1970s, but for decades functioned as a citizen of the world, operating out of offices and homes in Massachusetts, California, London, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. For many years, though, Newton has served as his primary office for the Morningside Group, the private equity and venture capital investment firm he cofounded with his brother. About a year ago he made Newton his official home base, going so far as to surrender his California driver’s license and wait in line at the Registry in Watertown to get one for Massachusetts.

The decision reflects Chan’s increased business and philanthropic footprint here as well as Boston’s emergence as the global hub for his true passion: the life sciences. It also reveals Chan as the embodiment of Boston’s ambitions in the 21st century — a new version of the old Brahmin, a wealthy, civic-minded businessman able to connect East with West, the past with the future, and the academy with the marketplace.


Chan holds a doctorate from Harvard as well as two master’s degrees. What he doesn’t own is a high school diploma.

In 1967, amid political unrest in Hong Kong, his parents sent 16-year-old Gerald and his 17-year-old brother Ronnie to the United States. Their father, Tseng-hsi, had fled poverty and war in mainland China to build a booming Hong Kong real estate company, Hang Lung Group. But he insisted that his family continue to live frugally, sharing an apartment that was well below their means. Their mother, who worked as a nurse, taught them the important role hygiene plays in avoiding infection. Her public health lessons stuck even if Gerald wanted to slink under the table when she insisted on disinfecting tableware with ethanol pads whenever they went to a restaurant.

In the States, while Ronnie enrolled at UCLA, Gerald took the unlimited Greyhound bus ticket his parents had bought him ($99 for 99 days) and headed east. He took summer courses at Columbia, living in Morningside Heights (a name he would recall years later when it came time for him and Ronnie to name their investment company). But when Gerald tried to enroll in college that fall, his lack of a high school diploma boxed him out. He eventually found a tiny engineering school by the airport in Los Angeles, which accepted him and the report card he had proudly proffered, even if it was entirely in Chinese.

He transferred to UCLA, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, then to the Harvard School of Public Health in 1973. He picked up another master’s, in medical radiological physics, then switched his focus to biology thanks to a radiobiology course taught by legendary professor John Little. He earned his doctorate in 1979, then headed for a fellowship at Dana-Farber, paving the way for a future where life sciences would loom large.

By that time, Ronnie had been back in Hong Kong for years, working in their father’s real estate company, but Gerald’s parents were pleased that he was headed for a life in academia. Still, a taste of the family business couldn’t hurt.

While Chan was studying for his doctorate, his father had given him some money and encouraged him to invest in real estate. Chan plunked down $145,000 for a six-bedroom Gambrel Colonial on Brattle Street, not far from the Harvard campus. He and his wife, Beryl, moved in, and the following year, Ashley, the first of their two sons, was born. Chan sold that house for nearly $450,000 in 1982, more than tripling his investment in just five years. His father was proud. “I was a hero,” Chan says, “huh?”

To this day, Chan speaks of his father in only reverent tones. Gerald stands 5-foot-8 but says his father was “almost six foot, I think,” even if the framed photos on his desk suggest they may have been closer in height.

His father had been able to visit Gerald during his Harvard days just once, in the mid-1970s. But as Gerald later described it in a speech, the memory of that visit never left him. While the two men perused the stacks at a bookstore, a coffee table book of Norman Rockwell paintings caught his father’s eye. Drawn to the warmth of nostalgia woven into those paintings, his father asked his son to buy him the book. Chan did, inscribing it “To Dad, as a token of affection.” That Rockwell book, Chan told his audience decades later, “was the medium by which my father and I communicated a tender feeling between us from the depth of his soul and mine.”

After graduating, Chan continued to build his life in the States, weighing several offers for assistant professorships. A bit burned out, he decided to take a break from the lab. He bided his time buying apartment buildings around Boston and making a living as a landlord, though he expected to return to science.

But one day back in Hong Kong, his father urinated blood. He went to his doctor, who diagnosed him with bladder cancer and sent him to a specialist at UCLA. That doctor performed a partial operation rather than removing the entire bladder, a decision Gerald rues to this day. The cancer continued to spread. After further treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital, his father decided he wanted to return to Hong Kong to die. Even then, he insisted on flying coach, until his son pleaded with him to go business class. In 1986, within nine months of his diagnosis, his father was gone, at age 65. Gerald returned to Hong Kong to help his brother run the family business.

Across my many hours with Chan, in various settings, he was thoughtful and expansive. He grew silent only once, when I asked him to tell me more about his father’s visit to the Harvard campus. Because the exchange over the Rockwell book had taken place in the Coop, I wondered if the Square had any added meaning for him.

Politely but firmly, Chan refused to talk about it further. “With some things,” he told me, closing his eyes, “less is more.”


On a Tuesday morning in April, after much prodding, Chan agrees to take me on a walk around Harvard Square. As we stroll Harvard Yard, I ask what the campus means to him. “Oh, I don’t know,” he says, drawing out his words. “These buildings are very old.”

When Chan wants to deflect, he opts for an empty sentence like that.

Yet it’s clear the Harvard campuses, both the main one here and the medical campus in Longwood where he toiled for years in the lab, hold special significance for him.

Yuling Luo is the founder of Silicon Valley-based Advanced Cell Diagnostics, one of the many biotech startups for which Chan has been the principal early funder. When Luo came to Boston for a meeting, Chan picked him up in his VW, drove him to Cambridge, and gave him a personalized tour of the yard. “He clearly showed a lot of attachment to the campus of Harvard,” Luo says. “He was taking pictures of me, like a proud father. I was very touched.”

After I mention Luo’s comments, Chan grows more introspective. “When I do this,” he says, “I am sharing with them part of my world.”

There is real meaning for him in all those red bricks. He seems at home among them. As Harvard provost Alan Garber says, anyone who saw Chan walking around Harvard Square “would probably assume he was a Harvard professor.” Of course, that’s the life he once envisioned for himself, but things worked out differently. The Chan brothers have turned their father’s very successful company into one of the biggest real estate developers in Hong Kong and an increasingly important presence in mainland China. While Ronnie oversees the Hang Lung real estate operation, Gerald leads their Morningside investment firm, putting all his lab knowledge to use investing in life-science startups and his landlord background to work buying up buildings around Boston. (Despite Gerald’s Newton base, Morningside remains incorporated in Hong Kong.)

In April 2012, Chan bought two buildings in Harvard Square for $16 million. Over the next 18 or so months, using a series of shell companies, he spent more than $100 million more on nearly a dozen other buildings in the Square. In some cases, rents went up and leases were not renewed. Fixtures like UpStairs on the Square and Leo’s Place were soon gone. There was fear about who would be next.

A year ago, merchants and tenants in Harvard Square were feverishly trying to divine what Chan’s grand plan might be. Denise Jillson, who runs the Harvard Square Business Association, says those worries have largely abated, since Chan’s buying binge hasn’t been followed by any radical changes.

Not that there aren’t still critics. Psychologist Lin Reicher is one of a couple dozen mental health professionals working out of 1218 Massachusetts Avenue, which Chan bought last year. She complains that rents have gone way up, she and others have been switched from long-term leases to month-to-month, and they’ve been stymied in their efforts to reach Chan directly. She’s read about the humanitarian who had given Harvard such a historic gift, but says “there’s nothing recognizable in that description in our experience.”

A photo of 11 family members dressed in suits and dresses standing behind a sign that they're holding. It is rectangular white sign with the Harvard seal and the words "Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health" written in black letters.
The Chan family at the dedication ceremony for Harvard’s public health school in September 2014. Chan’s brother (and business partner) Ronnie stands at center with his arm around their mother (in green); Gerald Chan is fourth from the left.From the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Earlier this year, news filtered out about Chan’s highest-profile purchase yet, the 21,000-square-foot structure on Church Street that had housed a movie theater since 1925. Chan bought it for $17.5 million — $11 million more than Charles Hotel owner Dick Friedman had paid for the shuttered theater two years earlier.

Because Chan paid such a premium for a theater that reportedly wasn’t even for sale, the purchase fueled more speculation that he must have some secret master plan. But Chan tells me that, in fact, the building was being quietly shopped around, and the purchase had come about like all his others in the Square: A broker had approached his team. “All the brokers in the Square know me, and they know I always close on deals,” he says.

Related: Harvard Square’s most prominent vacant property is still dark. Now officials want answers from its owner.

Chan’s reputation has become so well known that brokers seem to be invoking his name to increase the buzz on their properties. The newest property to go on the market in the Square is the unmistakable “Curious George” flatiron building, which comes with a sticker-shock asking price of $80 million. A story in the trade press suggested Chan is the most likely buyer, since he’s fueled the neighborhood’s recent gravy train of high-priced purchases. “I’m not in the gravy train business,” he tells me. “There’s a lot more that I can do with $80 million.”

While Chan gets passionate whenever he talks about science, for him, real estate appears to be purely transactional. “You buy it, you rent it, you put it out of your mind,” he says. If he has a guiding philosophy with real estate, it is this: “Hang on to it. Don’t sell.”

“In all my real estate purchases over the years — let me think about this — no, there is not one property that I regret having bought,” he tells me. “There are many that I regret having sold.”

Among the regrets was his first purchase, that Cambridge house on Brattle Street that made him a hero when he sold it for three times what he’d paid. Shortly after that first sale, he expressed interest in buying it back — “seller’s remorse, I guess,” he says — though the new owners didn’t bite. The remorse may not have been entirely sentimental. The house is now assessed for $2.5 million.

No matter. He recently paid millions more than that for a historic house on Brattle Street, this one even closer to the Square. He says he hasn’t decided yet how he will divide his time between it and his longtime home in Newton, except that he will keep them both. Lately, he’s been doing quite a bit of shopping for furniture, favoring the same source he used to furnish his Newton office: eBay.

Chan says he spends only a tiny fraction of his time thinking about real estate. But as we walk along JFK Street in Cambridge and I ask him about a vacant double-wide storefront in one of his buildings, I’m not surprised that he knows the fine details of its lease. Capital One has paid its rent on the space every month for more than two years, even though it has never opened a branch there. Chan says he’d prefer an active business, but he inherited the long-term lease, so there’s little he can do.

I bring up the theory floated in The Harvard Crimson that Chan may be snatching up all these buildings with the plan of one day donating them to the university. “Ah, speculation is what students do,” he says, though he doesn’t actually reject the suggestion.

We head down Winthrop Street, where his Passat is parked in a reserved space outside another of his acquisitions. In the basement where the Indian bistro Tamarind Bay once operated there is now Night Market, a funky small-plates Asian restaurant that his older son, Ash, opened late last year. An artsy entrepreneur in his mid-30s, Ash is building his own portfolio of eateries and real estate here and in California.

Chan says he has no grand vision for the Square. (“Nah. I’m too busy trying to cure cancer!”) But he admits that it doesn’t seem as vibrant as it once was, and says Davis Square in Somerville, where he’s also picked up some property, seems to be humming more. Adding restaurants is one way to inject more life. But truly making Harvard Square more vibrant, he tells me, “is above my pay grade.”

“Just what is your pay grade?” I ask, mentioning that Forbes has estimated that he and Ronnie are together worth about $3 billion.

“My pay grade? GS-8,” he says with a wry smile, invoking the salary schedules for government functionaries.

While Chan’s buying spree was originally met with suspicion, now the more common reaction is impatience. Leo’s Place, once a favorite hangout of Ben Affleck’s, has been gone for more than a year. Chan’s representatives secured city approval to open a noodle restaurant there but then shifted gears and got the OK for a breakfast joint. They told the licensing board they planned to open it last June. It is still vacant.

Parsnip, a fine-dining restaurant taking over the space once occupied by UpStairs on the Square, was supposed to open last fall. The space is being remodeled with spare-no-expense meticulousness, and Chan says it will open soon. But, as with most of his initiatives, he seems thoroughly unhurried.

About 15 years ago he bought an 18th-century manor house called Heckfield Place, which sits on 400 acres in the English countryside about an hour from London. He did little with it for years, and it fell into further disrepair. But in 2011, he closed it to start a massive renovation and turn Heckfield into a luxury countryside hotel. Progress, however, has been slow. A British food blogger recently wrote that the opening has been delayed so many times that “it is now farcical to actually conceive that it will ever open.”

But friend Ben Elliot, a notable Brit whose aunt is Camilla Parker Bowles and father-in-law is Steve Winwood, says he is confident Heckfield will open later this year. (“He is perhaps more confident than I am,” Chan says with a chuckle.) As Elliot puts it, “Gerald wants it to be the very best country-house hotel in the world, and I imagine it will be.” He cites the example of Spring, the restaurant Chan recently opened in the august Somerset House in London. With a kitchen run by Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell, Spring has become what Elliot calls one of the hottest tables in the city.

Another chef Chan met through Heckfield, Peter Quinion, will oversee Parsnip. But until it opens, Quinion on many nights can be found offering previews of his plates in Chan’s Newton home.


It’s late evening, and the table has been cleared of the lamb with rosemary puree and the chili roasted pineapple with pain perdu. Although “Chef Peter” is packing up his things for another night, the conversation still has hours more life left in it, lubricated with red wine and mint tea.

People who know both Gerald and Ronnie Chan well describe the brothers as incredibly close yet remarkably different. In Hong Kong business and political circles, Ronnie is a boldface player — an outgoing, outspoken character who fills every room he enters. Gerald prefers to slip into most rooms unnoticed. (He tells me their younger brother, Andy, who is eight years his junior, lives in Canada and is “mostly retired.”)

But in his own element, at home in Newton, Gerald can also be charismatic. Nowhere is that more true than when he is sitting at his table, surrounded by good food and smart company. He calls these dinner gatherings his “salons,” and there is something decidedly 19th century about them, even if a recurring theme is how to push science toward the 22d century. (He says his wife isn’t usually an active participant because she’s not particularly interested in specialized science talk. “She’s very quiet,” he says, “very spiritual.”)

On the second of two dinners I attend on back-to-back weeknights in April, the guests include the chief of neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the head of innovation for Partners HealthCare. The conversation jumps from researchers who peddle “old data” to the flat tax to birth order. There is usually at least one member of his small Morningside investment team at these dinners, since business is the backdrop. (Morningside patent attorney Jason Dinges, seated next to me, is one of roughly 20 employees working out of the Newton office.) But the salons appear to be less about transacting business and more about Chan leading an Old World-style, import-export exchange of ideas.

While managing the discussion, Chan uses his iPad to take a picture of each dish that Chef Peter has set before him. He says he does this “so I can critique Peter later, though I never do.”

At my first dinner, after the final cheese course has been cleared, Chan steps away to speak privately with Nancy Ip, who holds a professorship his family endowed at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Meanwhile, another out-of-town guest, Cedric Francois, explains to me what makes Chan so different from most venture-capital investors.

Francois runs Apellis, a biotech startup based in Kentucky. “Gerald doesn’t ask the questions most VC investors are asking,” he says. Those people want assurances about certain financial metrics, so they can satisfy their limited partners. Chan doesn’t have to answer to anyone besides his inner scientist.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Francois says. “He wants to make money. And he is a tough negotiator. But if he believes in something, that’s the most important part.”

Chan’s deep interest in science — he doesn’t watch TV and his bedtime reading includes rafts of papers from scientific journals — led him to the field of immunotherapy. Based on tantalizing early results, this emerging field has begun to attract billions from big pharmaceutical companies, making Chan’s investments that much more valuable.

Usually, Francois explains, when a new pathogen enters our body, our immune system can figure out how to conquer it within about three days. But cancer and other diseases are like sophisticated cat burglars that manage to disable our immune systems’ alarm sensors so they can do their dirty work undetected. With immunotherapy, however, cells are injected with viruses — such as polio, HIV, or measles — that have been reengineered so as not to be deadly to the patient, only to the cancer. The introduction of this foreign foe serves to reactivate the patient’s internal alarms, firing up the immune system to go on the attack against the tumor.

Chan bet early on a company named BioVex, which developed an immunotherapy treatment using a modified herpes virus to treat melanoma. In 2011, pharma giant Amgen bought the company in a deal valued at up to $1 billion. Although its run of promising results suffered a setback last spring, Chan remains bullish.

Four years ago, key investors backed away from a startup called Aduro Biotech in part because some patients in its immunotherapy trial developed fevers. Chan, however, saw the fevers as a sign that their immune systems were revving up, and he became the company’s biggest investor. In March, pharmaceutical giant Novartis hatched a cooperation deal with Aduro valued at up to $750 million, which will give it a small stake in the company. Johnson & Johnson also owns a slice. Chan’s firm owned nearly half the pie until a couple of weeks ago. That’s when Aduro, whose treatment for pancreatic cancer was awarded “breakthrough” status by the Food and Drug Administration, raised $124 million more in an IPO.

Chan is also the largest investor in Apellis, the startup that Francois runs, which is developing immunotherapy treatments for autoimmune disorders, such as obstructive pulmonary disease.

As an investor, Francois tells me, “Gerald is shrewd, but he’s not calculating.” If money were his driving force, he says, Chan would clearly make different choices. “Look around. This is a nice house, but this is not the house of a multibillionaire.” His house is hardly the grandest on the block. Although it has a dining room, Chan holds these dinners in his kitchen, around a simple blond-wood table. On the mirror in the first-floor bathroom is a handwritten Post-it that reads, “When flushing the toilet, please hold the handle for a longer time before letting go.”

When Chan returns to the table, he says immunotherapy provides the potential for a paradigm shift in cancer care. Chemotherapy, he points out, “is basically poison.” (The treatment has its roots in research involving World War II veterans who’d been exposed to mustard gas.) Still, he cautions: “Nature has its boundaries. We all have to die.”

When I ask how he squares those two sentiments of optimism and fatalism, he says, “What we’re tackling is premature death.” Life expectancy in America is now around 79. “So I guess anything before that is premature,” he says.

When he answers another question by once again saying it is above his “pay grade,” I call him on it. “You told me the other day you were GS-8, so I looked that up. That’s like thirty-nine grand.”

“Oh,” he says, flashing a smile. “I guess I’m more like GS-13.”

Anticipating this move, I had looked ahead on the chart of base salaries. “That’s about seventy-three grand,” I say.

He pauses for a beat and then says, “Getting closer.” With that, he tips his chin toward the ceiling and lets out a roar of a laugh.


Harvard officially renamed its School of Public Health after Chan’s father last September. But seven months later, as we walk into the main entrance, I ask him if he’s disappointed that the big sign facing the courtyard makes no mention of his family name. “Not at all,” he says, explaining that he’s sympathetic to all the complicated logistics of renaming a century-old institution.

Settling into a seat in the first-floor cafeteria, Chan tells me he wouldn’t mind if it took longer. “I want my private space, you know? I don’t want to be a public figure,” he says. “So I hate you for changing my life.”

He laughs, because we both know this article, as much as he initially resisted it, isn’t what threatens his low profile. “You can’t give Harvard the biggest gift in its history and ask it to rename one its schools and expect to remain anonymous,” I remind him.

As it turns out, though, Chan had hoped to do exactly that.

It’s not that he didn’t clearly intend to have his alma mater bear his father’s name for posterity. He’d been interested in pursuing this route from the moment his old friend Larry Bacow, the former president of Tufts University and a current Harvard trustee, had informed him that the university corporation would be willing to rename one of its schools. Chan didn’t even quibble with the price the corporation quoted him for naming rights. It’s just that he hoped to do all of this without calling attention to himself.

Bill Lee, who serves as Harvard’s equivalent of trustee board chair, tells me Chan had wanted to give the money but delay the renaming and not reveal the identity of the $350 million donor for several years, so he could hang on to his anonymity awhile longer. But Harvard opposed that request, arguing that such secrecy could only fuel speculation that there might be dodgy money behind the gift.

In the end, Chan relented. Unlike most major gifts, his family’s is unrestricted. Harvard has already gotten the first payment of $60 million and will receive five more payments over the next five years, dean Julio Frenk explains. The money will go to the School of Public Health’s endowment, though the principal will remain off-limits. In five years, the school will be getting an annual annuity of about $15 million to use however its dean sees fit.

Chan knew that putting no restrictions on his family’s gift was the way to strengthen the public health school as it enters its second century. (Although Harvard’s overall endowment has galloped past $36 billion, only about $1 billion of that belongs to the public health school.) Chan also knew that agreeing to reveal his identity would help Harvard in its effort to attract other mega-donors with naming rights. “I don’t know which school will be renamed next,” he says. “Probably the ed school.”

And as much as Chan talks about his desire to remain a private figure, now that he is in his 60s, there are hints that he is not entirely opposed to being noticed. He enjoys having top university administrators solicit his thoughts, mentioning to me a lunch meeting he would be having the next day with the president of MIT. (“I hope he arranged for parking!”) And he keeps a website where he warehouses the full texts of the various speeches he has delivered, mostly at universities. Like the professor he might have otherwise become, he regularly directs people to pore over one speech or another of his, as though he’s handing out a reading assignment. Yet he seems to do this more out of pride than vanity. He puts considerable thought into challenging the minds under all those mortarboards.

In one commencement address for a Johns Hopkins program in China, he warned the graduates to “never let the forces of economic imperialism reduce you to a mere economic being,” and he admitted that his contemporaries, the baby boomers, “are the most selfish generation that ever lived and are truly guilty of generational child abuse.”

While it may seem easy for a billionaire to tell debt-saddled twentysomethings not to become overly focused on money and consumption — “If one iPad makes you happy, two iPads will not make you twice as happy” — Chan is careful to keep his own money in perspective. “Where people get into trouble is they let money get in them,” he says.

That’s why he says he has no hesitation about carrying out the plan that he and his older brother hatched with their father shortly before his death: They would aggressively build up the family empire and then just as aggressively give it away.

Ronnie alluded to this pact during a different renaming ceremony last fall, at the University of Southern California, when a $20 million family gift in honor of their mother ushered in the new, respectfully titled, Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Speaking of the next generation of Chans, Ronnie said, “The money will never go to them!”

When I ask Gerald if his two sons are on board, he says, “Of course!” Ash has his restaurant and real estate work, while his younger son, Evan, who is in his late 20s, works as a Christian campus minister in California. Each son is pursuing something important to their father, the hard-charging businessman who is also deeply spiritual. “Without faith,” he says, “life becomes empty.”

It’s starting to get late, as we sit in the cafeteria at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, when our conversation is interrupted by a young master’s student. She approaches us to explain that she and some fellow students have reserved the cafeteria to hold a workshop.

“What is the subject of the session?” Chan asks.

“Power and identity,” she replies. “Sorry I have to kick you out.”

“That’s OK,” Chan says, clearly pleased that he remains unrecognized. “You’re more powerful than we are now. So we’ll move.”

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News Flash: Memory Shop and Anime Zakka to Open in Harvard Square

Anime Zakka and Memory Shop are set to move into Harvard Square in June. The stores are owned separately by a father and son duo. By Hugo C. Chiasson

By Jaya N. Karamcheti and Kevin Zhong, Crimson Staff Writers

Yesterday

A snapshot of Asian culture will light up Harvard Square with the anticipated openings of photo booth store Memory Shop and Anime Zakka this June.

Father and son pair Henry and Brian Cheung are separately opening Korean-style photo booth store Memory Shop and Anime Zakka — a family-owned Japanese anime shop — in The Garage on JFK St.

Brian Cheung, a senior at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said he was inspired to open Memory Shop after traveling to Vietnam last summer. He noticed that photo booth stores were very common in Asia, and he wanted to bring the experience to the United States.

“Some streets had four photobooth stores on the same street,” Brian Cheung said. “To be honest, we went to every single one, and it was just a super fun experience.”

“I was like, ‘If it’s this fun, why don’t we have something like this in Boston?’” he added.

Brian Cheung opened Memory Shop on Newbury St. in September 2024, and is now planning to expand into Harvard Square. He said he is eager to harness the “Harvard energy” of the Square to serve the “college crowd” and “local visitors” that frequent the area.

He added that the store will bring back the vintage charm of Harvard Square that he remembers from his childhood.

“Ever since I was a kid, I remember Harvard Square being that vintage place where you can hang out,” Brian Cheung said. “There’s a lot of small things you can do, but lately I feel like it lost a little bit of fire — there’s something missing.”

Henry Cheung, who grew up visiting Harvard Square and ran an Anime Zakka store in The Garage from 2012 to 2021, agreed with his son.

“Harvard Square is supposed to be like, very local, school area,” Henry Cheung said. “But now? Totally different. All the big corporations there, they don’t even know who you are.”

But Brian Cheung said he believes his family’s businesses will help change that trend.

“Just bringing back Anime Zakka plus Memory Shop in that main Harvard Square center would boost the fun that everyone can have,” he said. “Our end goal is just to have everybody have fun. We just want everyone to make memories of each other, bring it home, share with their family.”

Henry Cheung echoed his son’s sentiments, and said he was motivated to bring Anime Zakka back to the Square to “make the customer happy” and provide a way for residents to “buy a lot of anime stuff locally.”

“This is my passion,” he added. “If the customer is happy, I’ll be happy.”

Henry Cheung, whose family partly comes from Japanese descent, was inspired to start Anime Zakka after seeing local stores only selling comics and superhero content. He hopes Anime Zakka will attract more customers to Harvard Square through authentic anime products imported from Japan.

“Japanese culture is always the top culture people looking into,” Henry Cheung said.

Harvard students are excited for the Asian culture and friendship-building activity Memory Shop and Anime Zakka will bring to the Square.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Ashley B. Ding ’28 said. “I’ve only been to a photo booth in New York or Korea, so I’m glad there’s one coming in Cambridge. I’ll definitely go.”

Kylie S. Oh ’28, who also went to photo booths in Korea, said the activity “holds very fond memories.”

“I actually have the photo strips up by my room,” Oh added. “So I think having this in Cambridge is very full circle. So super exciting.”

—Staff writer Jaya N. Karamcheti can be reached at jaya.karamcheti@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Kevin Zhong can be reached at kevin.zhong@thecrimson.com.

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The Crimson

Cambridge City Council Will Ask Owners of Long-Vacant Properties To Discuss Development Plans

The Harvard Square Theater, located at 10 Church St. and owned by billionaire investor Gerald L. Chan, has been vacant for 13 years. On Monday, the Cambridge City Council voted to ask owners of long-vacant buildings to describe their plans for development.

The Harvard Square Theater, located at 10 Church St. and owned by billionaire investor Gerald L. Chan, has been vacant for 13 years. On Monday, the Cambridge City Council voted to ask owners of long-vacant buildings to describe their plans for development. By Brenda Lu

By Jaya N. Karamcheti and Kevin Zhong, Crimson Staff Writers

Yesterday

The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to ask owners of long-vacant buildings to come before the city council to discuss next steps for their properties in a resolution that specifically called out Gerald L. Chan, the billionaire real estate owner and Harvard donor who owns the former Harvard Square Theatre.

The vote is a step forward for several groups, including the Harvard Square Business Association and the city council, who are looking to pressure Chan into action over his long-delayed plans to redevelop the theater — a large building on Church Street that has sat vacant for 13 years.

At a committee hearing last month, councilors floated the idea of establishing fines for the owners of vacant property to reduce the problem generally, although they have not since taken any action toward such a policy.

That discussion did, however, catalyze Monday’s resolution to invite Chan to testify, with Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern citing the vacant theater as an egregious example of harmful vacant property in the city.

“It’s the heart of one of the busiest commercial districts and most important commercial districts in our city,” McGovern said.

“The vibrancy of our squares are really dependent upon businesses being there,” Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson said. “The theater, being such a historic space, is something that we can’t turn a blind eye on.”

While the policy order originally targeted Chan alone over his vacant theater, councilors agreed to amend the order to include the owners of 22 other properties that have sat vacant for five years or longer, at the suggestion of Councilor Paul F. Toner.

Councilors, residents, and business owners at the hearing all emphasized that the shuttered Harvard Square Theatre particularly detracted from visitors’ experience of the Square because it is so large and central to the area.

The Harvard Square Theatre first closed in 2012 after AMC sold it to local developer Richard L. Friedman. Chan then bought the building from Friedman in 2015, and put forward a proposal two years later for its redevelopment into a multi-use complex that would include storefronts, movie screens, and office space.

That plan received conditional approval from the Cambridge Historical Commission, but Chan never took the proposal to the Cambridge Planning Board.

Since 2019, the project has stalled.

Dan White, the manager of Chan’s investment firm which owns the theater, blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for the company’s lack of action in a statement to the Crimson.

“Our previous plan, which was well received and on its way to final approval, was derailed by the pandemic, requiring us to reappraise what might work best for the site,” White wrote. “We continue to work diligently on these efforts.”

Ivy Moylan, executive director of the nearby Brattle Theatre, said at the hearing she and her team had tried to speak with Chan regarding his intentions for the Harvard Square Theatre, but had never been able to make contact.

Moylan called the theater “a blight on a beautiful, historic street.”

While the order ultimately received support from all councilors, Toner and Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy both criticized the original draft for targeting Chan too directly.

“I don’t think shaming is the best way to motivate people,” Zusy said. “We want to partner with Mr. Chan. We don’t want to humiliate him.”

Suzanne P. Blier, president of the Cambridge Citizens Coalition and professor of fine arts and African and African American studies at Harvard, offered a rare defense of Chan during public comment, calling him “a generous individual who cares very much about Harvard Square.”

Many of the dozen public commenters on the vacancy issue emphasized their personal fondness for the theater and the “bohemian” character of the area it represented, while urging the council to take action.

“It’s an emotional connection that people have,” McGovern said during the hearing. “It has such an incredible history and has meant so much to so many people, particularly those of us who grew up here.”

—Staff writer Jaya N. Karamcheti can be reached at jaya.karamcheti@thecrimson.com.

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Boston Globe

A Harvard student’s guide to the best Harvard Square coffee shops

By Adelaide Parker Globe Correspondent,Updated April 8, 2025, 7:36 a.m.

33

Some of the coffees from shops in Harvard Square.
Some of the coffees from shops in Harvard Square.Adelaide Parker

Like any good college student, I’m always running on coffee. I recently spent a month sampling all the cafés in Harvard Square to find the best my campus has to offer. Here are my recommendations for which coffee shops to visit (and which to avoid).

Blank Street — 8/10

Blank Street’s Harvard Square location opened last year and has been packed ever since — especially because of its Regulars program, which allows members to get essentially unlimited coffee for a flat weekly subscription. Because Regulars subscriptions are tightly capped, they’re a coveted commodity on campus. (I’ve been trying to get one for months — if you have a referral code, my email is at the bottom of this article.)

I ordered the Daydream Latte with cinnamon and honey on the Blank Street app. The app took a few minutes to load, but from there, ordering was easy. Blank Street is right next to the Harvard T station, so I grabbed my drink on my way to work. The cinnamon shone through nicely, and although the drink was sweet, it wasn’t overly so. I wish I’d been able to taste the espresso more, though.

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Blank Street, 1380 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. blankstreet.com

Price range: $3.50-$9. Most simple drinks (an espresso, americano, or cappuccino) are just under $4, but flavored drinks and larger sizes reach $9.

Some of the coffees Adelaide Parker tried on her tour of Harvard Square coffee shops.
Some of the coffees Adelaide Parker tried on her tour of Harvard Square coffee shops.Adelaide Parker
Bluebottle — 10/10

Bluebottle is my personal favorite Harvard Square coffee shop. Every morning, I come here and order a 16-ounce iced NOLA (cold brew concentrate with chicory). In my opinion, the NOLA is the perfect drink. It has a refreshing taste with just the right amount of coffee flavor, it only takes one minute to prepare, and its caffeine content is equivalent to four espresso shots.

Bluebottle is on the pricier end of Harvard Square cafés, but its coffee is noticeably high-quality. (Even Jeffrey Grossman, an MIT professor who teaches a class on coffee, says Bluebottle is the best coffee chain.) Service is fast, but seating is limited and not very comfortable. Bluebottle works best as a place to order coffee to-go.

Bluebottle, 40 Bow St., Cambridge. bluebottlecoffee.com

Price range: $6-$9.

Café Gato Rojo, in the basement of Harvard Yard’s Lehman Hall, is this list’s only student-run café.
Café Gato Rojo, in the basement of Harvard Yard’s Lehman Hall, is this list’s only student-run café. Adelaide Parker
Café Gato Rojo — 9/10

Café Gato Rojo, in the basement of Harvard Yard’s Lehman Hall, is this list’s only student-run café. If you’re not a Harvard student, you can’t enter. But if you are a Harvard student, it’s wonderful! The café is packed with tables and cozy armchairs, and there’s always an ambient buzz of conversation and indie music. It’s one of my favorite places to sit and work.

I ordered a chai latte because, at 3:30 p.m., it was too late in the day to drink something genuinely caffeinated. The latte was tasty and came ….

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WBZ News Radio

Cambridge Officials Want Iconic Harvard Square Theatre Re-Opened

Apr 8, 2025

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Cambridge City Council is looking to tackle the issue of vacant properties in Harvard Square, including a historic theater that is approaching its 100th anniversary. 

The Harvard Square Theatre on Church St. has been unused since 2012.

Vice Mayor McGovern is calling on billionaire and owner of the building Gerald Chan to testify before the council to discuss plans to revitalize the building, along with other vacant properties of his.  

 He said it’s important that Chan be a part of that public discussion. 

“People can have a chance to express their feelings … why it’s important that something be done with that building sooner rather than later,” McGovern said. 

“We can all try and get on the same page about what the future of that building is going to be.” 

Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson supported the order. 

“When we have so many closed spaces, it does bring down that level of vibrancy,” Wilson said. “And that theatre, being such a historic space, is something we just can’t just turn a blind eye to.” 

The Harvard Square Theatre Business Association sent Chan a letter asking him to re-establish the theatre. 

Harvard Square Theatre opened in 1926 and seated more than 1,600 people.

Its live performances over the years included Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. 

The Clash performed their very first live show in the United States at Harvard Square Theatre back in 1979. 

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Billionaire is being called to explain lack of action around activating former Harvard Square cinema

(updated)

By Marc Levy

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Marc LevyThe former AMC Loews Harvard Square 5 at 10 Church St., Cambridge, seen March 18.

Billionaire Gerald Chan is being urged to act on redeveloping a former AMC Loews theater in Cambridge’s Harvard Square. It’s been more than a dozen years since it closed, with Chan the owner for much of that time, and the space is nearing its 100th anniversary.

Chan is being invited to come “answer questions and present his plan” in a policy order on city councillors’ Monday meeting agenda.

There are 23 storefronts in the city that have been vacant for five years or longer, and a March 11 committee meeting suggested there were some 10 owners whom councillors would like to pressure to finally fill them. The Monday invitation, though, is just for Chan.

“He’s the big one, so we’ll start there,” said vice mayor Marc McGovern, writer of the policy order. “Obviously everybody’s hot about the theater, right? It’s been 10 years.”

Dan White, a manager for Chan’s Mayhaw real estate investment firm, said Sunday: “We remain fully committed to bringing forward a new plan to develop the site in an innovative way that will energize both Church Street and Harvard Square.”

“Our previous plan, which was well received and on its way to final approval, was derailed by the pandemic, requiring us to reappraise what might work best for the site. We continue to work diligently on these efforts. Ultimately, our goal is to create a vibrant space on Church Street by developing a venue that will create jobs, help drive visitors to Harvard Square and, most importantly, bring the site back to life and carry it into a new era,” White said.

Plan meets resistance 

Marc LevyA proposed cladding for 10 Church St. in Harvard Square is tested June 28, 2019.

The AMC Loews Harvard Square 5 at 10 Church St. closed July 8, 2012, and Chan bought it in 2015 for $17.5 million, adding to his $100 million portfolio of real estate in and around Harvard Square.

In year five of the theater sitting empty on a languishing Church Street, city councillors threatened him with a land taking if he didn’t develop a plan for its use. Chan presented a plan for a 60,000-square-foot building with five stories of office space; street retail; and two lower-level movie screens that would be programmed by a team from the Somerville Theatre. He wanted to cover the building’s facade with digital screens.

Though the plans drew initial excitement – “Gerald Chan has clearly heard the council’s and the community’s concerns,” then-city councillor Leland Cheung said; “The design is fabulous,” said Suzanne Blier, of the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association – the screens also met resistance. There’s been no action on the plan since a June 2019 test of the cladding.

Pall on Church Street

Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, is urging people to write in support of the council order. In a March 19 letter to Chan that she made public Sunday, she asks him to take it seriously.

“I am truly concerned that you may not be fully aware of the negative impact of your building on Church Street,” Jillson wrote. “Gerald, this once-thriving, now desolate and ignored section of Church Street is unsafe and a blight to our district. When it was operational, on average 1,000 people a day visited the theatre. The loss of this entertainment use has had and continues to have an enormous daily adverse impact on the entire district.”

https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25880331-031925-hsba-letter/?embed=1

In addition to the loss of nightly first-run movies, the closing meant the end of a local “Rocky Horror Picture Show” phenomenon; the cult classic drew crowds every weekend since it began showing there in 1984. The effect was obvious and immediate, maybe most so at the nearby restaurants. Tex-mex Border Cafe (which left after a fire) once had lines out the door and a regular need for police details to watch over customers. John Schall, owner of the former Fire + Ice at 50 Church St., said he shut down the restaurant after nearly 20 years because he couldn’t recover from the loss of business. “It created a dynamic on Church Street – a loss of traffic and activity that I wasn’t able to recover from,” Schall said in 2017. While there were other factors, “the life of Fire + Ice would have been significantly longer if that building hadn’t remained vacant for the last five years.”

The pall affected businesses all the way to Brattle Street.

“It is not an overstatement to share that nearly every day I am asked about its status,” Jillson said of the empty theater space.

Katie Labrie, executive director of the small-business organization Cambridge Local First, said her experience has been the same since starting work in September. “The state of the property that previously housed the Harvard Square movie theater has been one of the most talked about issues amongst our membership,” Labrie said. “The obvious, wholly detrimental, effects that this particular streetfront vacancy has on our community has become a lightning-rod example of how vacant storefronts negatively impact all of us.”

Hallowed ground

Next year’s 100th anniversary of the structure, with its Trompe-l’œil painting of Charlie Chaplain defaced and a 1999 mural by Beatrice Sargent, is another reason to act, McGovern and Jillson said.

Jillson cited a History Cambridge appreciation of the building:

The Harvard Square Theatre, originally the University Theatre, opened in 1926, with an original entrance on Massachusetts Avenue. The theater could seat 1,640 people, and had wicker chairs and a velvet curtain displaying George Washington commanding the continental army on Cambridge Common. While it was always a movie theater, it also held live performances, including magic shows, vaudeville and rock concerts. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Hall and Oats, the Clash and Bruce Springsteen all played at the University Theatre.

In fact, Bruce Springsteen got his start at the theater. After [Springsteen opened] for Bonnie Raitt in 1974, music critic John Landau wrote, “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” The theater also hosted the first “Rocky Horror” stage show in the country, which was played by the full body cast.

“As we approach the 100th anniversary of this beloved and iconic building, we appeal to your sense of decency, love for community, appreciation of art and culture, leadership as a business owner, your solidarity with those who loathe urban blight and deplore the deterioration of public art,” Jillson wrote to Chan. “We implore you to reestablish the theater in time for its 100th anniversary. Take your investment to your community a step further by leading the restoration of the movie theater and reactivating live performances.”

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Boston.com

Officials want answers from billionaire owner of the vacant Harvard Square Theatre

The theater has been vacant on Church Street since 2012. The Cambridge City Council wants to question the owner about its reopening.

Since 2012, the Harvard Square Theatre has sat vacant. David L Ryan/The Boston Globe

By Molly FarrarApril 7, 2025

3 minutes to read

Harvard Square is marred by at least a dozen of vacant storefronts, including, notably, the nearly century-old Harvard Square Theatre on Church Street.

It’s been closed since 2012, and, after a failed proposal to reopen the theatre in 2022, it’s still boarded up. The historic theater is one of the many properties owned by billionaire investor Gerald Chan, known for his $350 million gift renaming Harvard University’s School of Public Health to honor his father.

Harvard Square Business Association President Denise Jillson is asking Chan to reopen the theater. The Cambridge City Council voted Monday evening to call Chan to testify to a committee about his plans for the theater and his other vacant properties in Cambridge.

“I am truly concerned that you may not be fully aware of the negative impact of your building on Church Street,” Jillson wrote in a letter to Chan last month. “It is not an overstatement to share that nearly every day, I am asked about its status.”

Harvard Square Theatre, which opened in 1926, could seat more than 1,600 people and held live performances. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Hall and Oates, the Clash, and Bruce Springsteen all performed at the venue when it was called the University Theatre, according to the Cambridge Historical Society.

Jillson spoke at the City Council meeting, where several neighbors spoke about the neighborhood’s decline. Jason Doo, owner of Wusong Road in Harvard Square, said the business neighborhood has too many bowl restaurants, banks, and blights.

“I would love to see as a small business owner,.. to see Harvard Square go back to those bohemian fun roots that used to be instead of now we’re on our back foot,” Doo said. “We used to have a headstart, and now we’re just trying to get out of from underwater.”

Councilor Paul Toner, who is facing calls to resign following allegations of paying for sex at a local brothel ring, voiced concerns that the policy order “targets Mr. Chan.” He proposed an amendment to call the other owners of 23 storefronts that have been vacant for more than five years to also answer questions. The amendment passed unanimously.

“I’d like to hear from all of them about what their plans are. Again, I don’t know the reason why Mr. Chan hasn’t moved forward with his plans,” Toner said. “I know some people accuse him of land banking and, you know, this is some sort of tax write off.” 

Vice Mayor Marc McGovern said that “this is not about calling out Mr. Chan.” The policy order that passed calls Chan to answer questions in front of the Economic Development and University Relations Committee about plans for the theater.

“When people talk about vacant buildings. It’s the Harvard Square theater that they talk about,” McGovern said. “He is the property owner. It has been vacant for a while … Now the question is, now what? And I think it’s appropriate to have a conversation and a public conversation.”

Mayor Denise Simmons also called attention to the mural on the historic theater’s facade. She said she’d bring forward a separate policy order to address it.

The amended order also passed unanimously. When Chan was contacted for comment, a spokesperson for Kirche LLC, the group developing the site, said “we remain fully committed to bringing forward a new plan to develop the site in an innovative way that will energize both Church Street and Harvard Square.”

“Ultimately, our goal is to create a vibrant space on Church Street by developing a venue that will create jobs, help drive visitors to Harvard Square and, most importantly, bring the site back to life and carry it into a new era,” Kirche LLC Manager Dan White said.

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The Crimson

Billionaire Investor Gerald Chan Under Scrutiny for Neglect of Historic Harvard Square Theater

The Harvard Square Theater, located at 10 Church St., is owned by billionaire investor Gerald L. Chan. The property has been vacant for 13 years.

The Harvard Square Theater, located at 10 Church St., is owned by billionaire investor Gerald L. Chan. The property has been vacant for 13 years. By Amanda Y. Su

By Jaya N. Karamcheti and Kevin Zhong, Crimson Staff Writers

13 hours ago

Gerald L. Chan — billionaire investor, Harvard donor, and prominent Harvard Square property owner — is under fire from city officials for the 13-year vacancy of the Harvard Square Theatre.

The theater, which sits on 10 Church St. across from the First Parish Church, has sat vacant since 2012. On Monday evening, the Cambridge City Council will vote on a policy order to invite Chan to present his plans for the property.

Since a March meeting about vacant properties throughout the city, the Council has considered options to reduce the number of empty storefronts — including imposing fines and taxes on owners.

In response, Denise A. Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, wrote in a public statement that she is opposed to the fines on developing businesses.

“It has always been our preference to partner with property owners and the city to use unleased space in more useful and community-oriented ways until leases are signed or development plans are underway,” she wrote.

In addition, Jillson publicized a letter from her to Chan urging him to revive the theater before its 100th anniversary in 2026.

“Take your investment to the community a step further by leading the restoration of the movie theater and reactivating live performances,” she wrote.

Jillson also recognized the negative economic impact of the vacant theater on Harvard Square.

“Gerald, this once-thriving, now desolate and ignored section of Church Street is unsafe and a blight to our district,” she wrote. “When it was operational, on average 1000 people a day visited the theatre.”

“The loss of entertainment use has had and continues to have an enormous daily adverse impact on the entire district,” she added.

The theater was first opened in 1926, but has been vacant since 2012 after it was sold by AMC. Chan purchased the property in 2015, and proposed a plan two years later to demolish the building and construct a new mixed-use space.

The Cambridge Historical Commission approved the project after a series of public hearings under the condition that the renovations were also supported by the Cambridge Planning Board.

But, according to Charles M. Sullivan, the executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, Chan and his team never made it before the Cambridge Planning Board.

“He’s never spoken to us, and he’s never made any public pronouncements that I know of,” Sullivan said.

Dan White, the manager of Chan’s company, Morningside, wrote in a statement that the Covid-19 pandemic impeded initial plans for the theater’s revitalization.

“Our previous plan, which was well received and on its way to final approval, was derailed by the pandemic, requiring us to reappraise what might work best for the site,” White wrote. “We continue to work diligently on these efforts.”

But no changes have been made to the theater since the plan fell apart in 2019. Now, local leaders are seeking action to bring Chan in front of the council.

Chan has numerous property holdings in Harvard Square, including 40 Bow St., 115 Mount Auburn St., and 39 JFK St., all developed sites occupied by operating businesses such as Blue Bottle, Warby Parker and an apartment complex. But Jillson noted that the theater has not seen the same attention from Chan.

“It seems incompatible to many, myself included, that since acquiring the theater in 2014, you subsequently purchased six additional Harvard Square properties while this asset sits fallow,” Jillson wrote.

Jillson added that she hopes to work with Chan and other business owners to restore the theater.

“Let’s work together to celebrate the theatre’s historic importance, resume its reputation as a cultural destination, repair its cherished mural, and restore its value as an economic driver to our district,” Jillson wrote.

— Staff writer Jaya N. Karamcheti can be reached at jaya.karamcheti@thecrimson.com.

— Staff writer Kevin Zhong can be reached at kevin.zhong@thecrimson.com.

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Time Out

Harvard Square Bookish Ball

Time Out says

The Bookish Ball, a celebration of Harvard Square’s bookstores complete with a Revolutionary theme, returns to Harvard Square on April 12 from 11am to 4pm. This free, family-friendly extravaganza put on by The Harvard Square Business Association, in partnership with the City of Cambridge, features literary tours of Harvard Square, sweet treats, live music, and special book-themed promotions within Harvard Square businesses. The festivities begin at 11am on Harvard’s Smith Campus Plaza, where you’ll be greeted by Elizabeth Glover (portrayed by Linda Peck), who established the first printing press in the Thirteen Colonies on nearby Dunster Street. Grab a “Passport to Wisdom” and visit Harvard Square’s five book stores, Groiler Poetry Book Shop, Harvard Book Store, Harvard COOP, Lovestruck Books, and Rodney’s Bookstore to collect stamps. Return to the Smith Campus Center plaza by 4pm to be entered to win the Grand Prize – a one-night stay at the Sheraton Commander Hotel, $300 gift certificate for The Hourly Oyster House, and a $50 gift certificate for each of the five bookstores.

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Boston Globe

Harvard Square’s most prominent vacant property is still dark. Now officials want answers from its owner.

By Spencer Buell Globe Staff,Updated April 6, 2025, 8:15 a.m.

57

Since 2012, the Harvard Square Theatre has sat vacant. Now a new effort is afoot to press its owner for answers on why nothing has been done with a property with a long history as a cultural hub.
Since 2012, the Harvard Square Theatre has sat vacant. Now a new effort is afoot to press its owner for answers on why nothing has been done with a property with a long history as a cultural hub. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

CAMBRIDGE — It’s been 13 years since the Harvard Square Theatre showed its last blockbuster, and hosted its last “Rocky Horror”show. The only reminders of its heyday are a yellowing marquee and a graffiti-tagged mural.

Now, with frustration mounting over a building that has been vacant longer than any other in Harvard Square, Cambridge officials want answers from the person with the power to change that: its owner, the investor and philanthropist Gerald Chan.

City Councilors thisweek are expected to take the uncommon step of asking Chan, one of the largest property owners in Harvard Square, to appear before them to account for the holdup.

“It’s been too long,” said Councilor Marc McGovern. “It’s time for him to do something.”

Chan, a Harvard-trained scientist and private equity and venture capital investor, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Dan White, the manager of the company controlled by Chan, said in a statement it remains “fully committedto bringing forward a new plan to develop the site.”

Related: End of an era: The Pit, a landmark of Harvard Square, is demolished

“Ultimately, our goal is to create a vibrant space on Church Street by developing a venue that will create jobs, help drive visitors to Harvard Square and, most importantly, bring the site back to life and carry it into a new era,” White said.

Gerald Chan posed for a portrait.
Gerald Chan posed for a portrait. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe

But many of his neighbors are getting impatient.

The theater isn’t much to look at now, and in truth was never an architectural marvel. From the street, it’s mostlyjust a long, tall brick wall.

But what it lacks in curb appeal, the nearly 100-year-old Harvard Square Theatre makes up for in nostalgia, and, say many with fond memories of it, potential.

It was a cinema back in Hollywood’s Golden Age, when its entrance fronted Mass. Ave. It hosted live music of the likes of Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, David Bowie, and Tom Waits. For years, it was a long-term home for superfans of the cult film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and people came from across Greater Boston to get glammed up in fishnets and leather for the shows.

The venue as seen in 1945, when it went by the name University Theatre and its entrance was on Mass. Ave.
The venue as seen in 1945, when it went by the name University Theatre and its entrance was on Mass. Ave.Cambridge Historical Society

By the 2010s, when it was owned by the multiplex chain AMC, it had seen better days. It closed in 2012 and has never reopened.

Lots of people had their cultural education there, said Ned Hinkle, who grew up seeing both blockbuster and arthouse films in the quirky multiscreen theater, and is now creative director at The Brattle, a single-screen theater that is the last of its kind in Harvard Square. They’ve held out hope it isn’t gone for good.

“Since it closed, we’ve been fantasizing about everything that we could do in that space,” Hinkle said. “There’s such a history in that building with all different kinds of entertainment, and it’s sort of crazy that it’s just sitting there rotting.”

When it closed, AMC sold it to real estate titan Richard Friedman, who intended to renovate the space and keep the lights on.

“We didn’t buy it to flip it. We bought it to run it as a theater if we could,” Friedman said in a recent interview.

But he found the aging building, which by then needed significant investment to bring it up to code, was too far gone to save without losing lots of money.

“We couldn’t figure it out, which is not our style, because we usually figure out complicated problems,” said Friedman, whose firm built the One Dalton tower in Boston, and the Charles and Liberty hotels. “I care about Harvard Square and I care about the culture here. It was just a tough nut.”

He sold it two years later to Chan, who owns multiple properties in the square and remains a major figure at his alma mater: The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is named after his late father, after Chan’s Morningside Foundation gave the university a $350 million donation.

Other parcels under Chan’s control have flourished. The Cambridge Historical Commission has lauded his work restoring properties such as 40 Bow Street.

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was advertised at the Harvard Square Theatre, where it had been screened and performed since 1984.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was advertised at the Harvard Square Theatre, where it had been screened and performed since 1984.The Boston Globe/Boston Globe

Chan once proposed a showstopper of a plan for the theater. In 2019, he devised a scheme that had wide support in the city, which would see it replaced by an office building with a hulking LED screen, with room for a two-screen movie theater.

It stalled. The COVID pandemic that hit the following year brought projects of all sizes to a halt and upended the market for office space. The movie theater business slumped, and the return of viewers to in-person screenings has been uneven. Actor and onetime Cantabrigian Casey Affleck publicly expressed interest in taking over the theater. That fizzled as well.

The Harvard Square Theatre has remained dark.

Meanwhile, its absencehas had an impact on business in the square, said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, who said the theater once brought 1,000 visitors a day into the neighborhood. The commercial district has 11 storefronts that have been vacant for at least six months, according to a database created by the city.

Jillson ideally would like to see entertainment return to the theater — movies, live performance, or both — so it can again be a draw to the square. But at this point she’s not picky.

“Anything is better than what we have now, which is nothing,” Jillson said. “Certainly what’s not helpful is buying properties and not developing them, and not understanding the negative impact of leaving a building or space empty.”

Related: George Howell comes full circle in Harvard Square

White, Chan’s business partner, didn’t respond to questions through a spokesman about their specific intentions with the property and whether they would commit to including an arts component in any redevelopment.

It’s expensive to do nothing. Last year alone, about $190,000 in taxes were assessed on the property, according to city records.

Still, it’s not an ideal time to be making big construction plans, experts say, as markets reel from new tariffs and renewed recession fears, and developers confront uncertainty about the kinds of properties that will be profitable to build, especially in a place like Harvard Square.

“The obstacles are probably the highest they’ve been in several decades,” said John DiGiovanni, who also owns properties in the square, including The Garage shopping center, as well as the building that houses music venue The Sinclair.

But that’s no excuse for letting a historic theater fester in the heart of Harvard Square, DiGiovanni said. If anyone can solve the problems this property presents, he said, it’s Chan.

“He’s a leader in all sorts of areas. He’s a model in the biotech world. We need that kind of focus with his real estate,” DiGiovanni said. “This is a really special, unique urban district that deserves good stewards.”

A view of a mural on the exterior wall which is deteriorating.
A view of a mural on the exterior wall which is deteriorating.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The defaced mural on the outside of the theater.
The defaced mural on the outside of the theater.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

On the street outside the old theater on a recent afternoon, it was surprisingly quiet, despite being rush hour. A man spread out a flattened cardboard box to take a load off, lounging next to a fading collage of painted movie characters like Robin Williams’s “Mrs. Doubtfire” and R2D2, from “Star Wars.” Above, the Beatrice Sargent “Women’s Community Cancer Project” mural that clings to its exterior wall showed signs of falling apart — neighbors say a chunk of it recently clattered onto the sidewalk.

On the old marquee, which juts over Church Street, it reads “lifting as we climb,” and “onward and upward we go.”

The faded scene suggests otherwise.

Marquee of the long-shuttered Harvard Square Theatre.
Marquee of the long-shuttered Harvard Square Theatre.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff