Archives: Media Room

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream will look to be the crème de la crème of ice cream selections in Harvard Square as it is set to open a Cambridge location in the near future.

Founded in New York City and established in eight states and Washington, D.C., Van Leeuwen is planning to open three stores across the Boston metro area. The Harvard Square location will be located at 1 Brattle Square, across from Bluestone Lane Cafe.

Jisung P. Lee ’25 said she enjoyed trying Van Leeuwen’s ice cream while in New York and was “surprised” to hear the chain was coming to the Square.

“I was personally surprised to know that there was another ice cream shop opening because it just adds to the numerous that we have already,” Lee said.

The Square is currently home to six ice cream stores: J.P. Licks, Ben and Jerry’s, BerryLine, Amorino, Taiyaki, and Lizzy’s. With another nationwide chain joining the collection, residents will have a wealth of options to choose from for their late-night cravings.

Hannah G. Zhou ’25 said another ice cream shop in the Square does not feel “necessary,” but added that she’s still willing to try Van Leeuwen for the “novelty.”

“If after going one time, I didn’t like it that much, I probably wouldn’t go back again,” she said. “It also depends a lot on the price point.”

Carlos Covarrueeis — an employee at Boston area ice cream shop J.P. Licks — said he does not think they will face competition from Van Leeuwen because “J.P. Licks is the best ice cream from Boston,” adding that J.P. Licks also sells a fully kosher certified menu that includes coffee and breakfast sandwiches.

Eddie H. Galante, who has worked at J.P. Licks for three months, said he is happy to see another ice cream shop appear in the Square.

“On a summer night, there’s never enough ice cream places open,” he said.

Ben and Jerry’s associate manager Hannah Nangle said she doesn’t believe the Harvard Square Ben and Jerry’s will face threat from Van Leeuwens, thanks to the company’s established presence on campus.

“People love our brand presence,” Nangle said. “They love knowing our history.”

Emily Parke ’24 said she is “excited” for Van Leeuwen’s eventual opening and that it’s “fun” to have so many ice cream options.

“I see them in the grocery store sometimes and I see that they’re kind of expensive, but that makes me think that maybe they’re good,” Parke said.

Gabriel H. Basden ’26 said that despite the new option, he will be remaining loyal to J.P. Licks, his favorite ice cream shop in the square.

“I believe in loyalty and maintaining ties to the relationships and connections you’ve known for the longest time, and I’ve yet to have a bad cookie dough from J.P. Licks,” he said. “I will not be trying the new place.”

Van Leeuwen did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the many ice cream chains on campus, Karen Z. Song ’25​​ said she doesn’t see the shops as a “hangout spot” that students frequent on campus.

“It will be interesting to see if Van Leeuwen changes that dynamic and normalizes ice cream consumption,” Song said.

Harvard Book Store owner Jeff Mayersohn told GBH News that he was excited by the opportunity to expand to the Prudential Center, a marquee downtown shopping location. With an expected 29,000 square feet, the former Barnes and Noble store also would have provided a much larger footprint than the 5,500 square feet of the original Cambridge location.

“It was a very ambitious project to begin with, and certainly much bigger than anything the bookstore itself has ever done,” he said.

The project started during the pandemic and costs started rising due to supply chain issues, labor shortages and inflation. Mayersohn said they tried multiple times to make the store happen by revising the design and staffing needs. Construction had already begun, but the escalating price eventually reached a point that it was no longer viable to continue with the new location.

Despite the recent cancellation of Harvard Book Store’s planned second location at the Prudential Center, independent booksellers say business is going well and they are hopeful about the future for bookstores in Boston.

Mayersohn said the Cambridge location continues to thrive — revenue is up, author events are popular and customers are coming back again and again. He said his focus now is investing further in that location.

The Cambridge City Council voted to support a tax on large real estate transactions and discussed the feasibility of municipally-funded housing vouchers during a Monday evening meeting.

Councilors voted 6-2 to endorse keeping local option transfer fees a part of the state Affordable Homes Act, which is currently being reviewed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Under the current version of the AHA, Massachusetts municipalities would have the authority to impose a tax of between 0.5 and 2 percent on real estate transactions of more than $1 million, with revenues going to fund affordable housing projects.

Based on an estimate from the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, Middlesex County — in which Cambridge is located — could raise more than $131 million for each 1 percent tax on large real estate transactions.

Councilors expressed hope that the additional revenue resulting from the tax could help alleviate Cambridge’s longstanding affordable housing crisis.

But some local advocates urged the Council to reject the policy order, raising concerns over the additional cost to homeowners.

“The reality is that this is not a fee for municipalities. It is actually another fee for every homeowner in Cambridge whose property is valued over a million dollars,” Denise Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said during the Monday meeting.

“I urge you to consider what a local option transfer fee will mean to residential property owners in Cambridge,” Jillson added, “particularly those who are older and may be looking to downsize, those who are younger with families and need to upsize, and every home or condo owner who might be counting on their most valuable asset — their home — to maintain financial security and, for some, their independence.”

However, councilors stressed that the provision itself would not immediately impose the real estate tax in the city.

“It is really important, though, to note that this legislation does nothing to enact a tax of any kind or a fee of any kind in Cambridge,” said Councilor Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80.

“What it would allow is local control for municipalities across the state to decide whether to implement a transfer fee that reflects the reality of the markets within their own city,” Nolan added.

Jillson suggested the tax was unnecessary, citing numerous programs the city has implemented to support affordable housing development, and the relative abundance of affordable housing in Cambridge.

“These programs have resulted in 15 percent of the housing stock in Cambridge deemed affordable,” said Jillson. “While there are a few communities with higher percentages, it is important to note that the statewide average is 10 percent. Cambridge far exceeds that.”

Cambridge Residents Alliance President Lee Farris disputed the sentiment, pointing to the Envision Cambridge plan, the city’s blueprint for 2030.

“It says we’re trying to get to 20 percent income-restricted affordable housing in the city,” said Farris, referring to goals laid out in the Envision plan. “If some speakers don’t like that, they’re going against what the city has already said it wants to do.”

The Council also debated issuing municipally-funded housing vouchers in partnership with the Cambridge Housing Authority, ultimately referring it to the Council’s Housing Committee.

The CHA currently provides housing vouchers under the federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, which pays for low-income residents to rent an apartment in the private market. City funding for housing vouchers would increase the number of Cambridge residents who receive this assistance.

“Voucher holders can have flexibility on what part of the city they want to live in,” Farris said. “While I certainly think we need to build more income-restricted affordable housing, vouchers are really important in preventing displacement of lower-income people in the short term, in a faster timeframe than is possible by building new affordable units.”

ARVARD SQUARE’S newest performance venue, Arrow Street Arts (ASA), celebrates its official opening with a weeklong festival starting March 23. Featuring regional artists, organizations, and diverse genres, the event will showcase talents from the traditional to the avant-garde.

ASA is a combined black box theater and street-side studio that replaced the American Repertory Theater’s experimental venue, OBERON, and abutting former retail space. The combined 11,500-square-foot facility provides much-needed rehearsal and performance opportunities and is equipped to handle a wide variety of projects. ASA founder and long-time Cambridge resident David Altshuler, Ph.D.-M.D. ’94, envisions everything from “traditional musical theater to live music, dance, spoken word, circus, comedy, immersive audio, magic, and experimental programs that integrate multiple art forms.” Reflecting that range, the festival is produced by Liars and Believers (LaB), a Cambridge ensemble led by Georgia Lyman and Jason Slavick focused on artist-generated collective theatrical content. Fostering regional talent is also part of ASA’s overall mission—and goes along with revitalizing the arts and accessibility to them. “We love Harvard Square,” says Altshuler, “and we believe that fresh programming delivered in renewed and expanded spaces will make a difference and motivate traditional and new audiences to come back to the Square and join us on our journey of exploration and dis­covery.” A founding core member and former deputy director at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Altshuler is now executive vice president of global research and chief scientific officer at the Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

ASA was designed to accommodate audiences ranging from 150 to 600 people—the kind of flexible interior that best supports the arts in New England. Moreover, ASA’s educational programming will help foster exploration of topics like affordability, increasing arts resources, and equity. “We are dedicated to being a part of the ‘why and how’ as we move beyond the pandemic and bring life back to our shared spaces,” Altshuler notes. “We are confident that ‘art builds community.’” 

Tracy Chapman was 45 years old when she finished her 2009 summer tour at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Although she had achieved every level of success as a recording artist, her career was at a bit of a crossroads, the very name of her second studio album, released 20 years earlier.

Chapman’s self-titled 1988 debut was one of the music industry’s great artist development stories. Born on March 30, 1964, in Cleveland, Ohio, she enrolled at Tufts University, majoring in Anthropology, while also singing in coffee houses and night clubs and doing street performing around Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. She was discovered by Brian Koppelman, a fellow student, who told Rolling Stone a year later, “I was helping organize a boycott protest against apartheid at school, and [someone] told me there was this great protest singer I should get to play at the rally.”

Koppelman swiped a demo tape from the college radio station and played it for his father, Charles, a veteran music industry executive. Soon signed to Elektra Records, Chapman’s debut album featured 11 original compositions, including “Talking ’bout a Revolution” and “Fast Car.” Defying all odds for a debut album from a Black female singer-songwriter, 1988’s Tracy Chapman topped the album charts around the world, including the U.S., where it was certified 6x Platinum. It went on to become one of the most successful debuts of all time, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. It remains one of the most successful albums by a female artist in history.

In an alternative universe, Chapman’s performance at the 66th annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, where she performed “Fast Car’ as a duet with country superstar Luke Combs, would be the icing on the cake of a career filled with a more traditional album-tour, album-tour routine. Instead, the performance, which has since received headlines around the globe, along with plenty of social media discussion, was just Chapman’s fourth public performance in 15 years. Hers is a story of quick, early stardom that turned into an equally abrupt fadeaway.

Two months after her debut album’s release, Chapman performed “Fast Car” at the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute at London’s Wembley Stadium, giving her access to the world stage.

The Harvard Square venue will reopen its larger performance space, hosting Boston Opera Collaborative’s production of Carmen beginning April 4.

Arrow Street Arts is set to begin regular programming in its newly renovated performance spaces beginning April 1, 2024. The Harvard Square venue will reopen its larger performance space, the flexible Black Box Theater, hosting Boston Opera Collaborative’s production of Carmen with performances beginning April 4. That production will be followed by other opera, music, theater, and dance performances throughout the spring and early summer.

Arrow Street Arts’ 1,100 square foot street-front Studio space opened in January 2024, and is already hosting dance classes, workshops, meetings, rehearsals, and performances, including many supported by grants through the Arrow Street Arts Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation.

Due to an installation delay with the venue’s bespoke telescopic seating system, ASA’s launch festival, originally planned for March 2024, has been moved to September 2024.

The fall launch festival, produced for Arrow Street Arts by Cambridge-based Liars and Believers (Georgia Lyman, executive producer and Jason Slavick, artistic director), will offer a wide variety of performances, events, and gatherings celebrating the vibrant diversity of the local performing arts community. The festival will take place September 7-14, 2024, marking the grand opening of ASA’s Harvard Square venue. All artists who responded to the open call for the original March dates are being considered by the selection panel for the rescheduled festival. Details on the performer lineup will be announced later this spring.

Throughout the first six months of this year, five performing arts companies will activate the Arrow Street Arts spaces with support awarded through the Arrow Street Arts Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation (CCF), established by the two organizations to increase equitable access to the performance spaces for artists and arts organizations who wish to present their work at ASA’s venues. These inaugural CCF/Arrow Street Arts Fund grant recipients (listed below) will use ASA’s space for projects of their own design, including theatrical performances, teaching residencies for choreographers, multidisciplinary dance showcases, and open dance studios. For more information on future CCF grants, visit: https://cambridgecf.org/grantmaking/arrow-street-arts-fund/

Inaugural Arrow Street Arts Fund awards were made by CCF to these organizations:

Boston Opera Collaborative (BOC) is committed to reducing barriers for opera artists and audiences. Their programming centers around providing professional performing opportunities for emerging artists in the Boston area and bringing intimate and unique operatic experiences to the Boston area. At Arrow Street Arts, BOC will present Georges Bizet‘s and Peter Brook‘s La Tragédie de Carmen (Carmen), April 4-7, 2024.

Janelle Gilchrist Dance Troupe is a women-led and Black-owned Ballet company that works within the Cambridge community. Funding from their Arrow Street Arts grant will be used to showcase two works in ASA’s Black Box Theater: Journeys 2018 and Danzas y Canciones. Rehearsals and performances take place in the Black Box Theater July 19-21, 2024.

Through the Nourish project, Jessica Roseman Dance works with Black mothers from Cambridge in partnership with Cambridge Center For Families to provide a healing, creative community together. This work has inspired Jessica’s new choreographed work, also called Nourish. Funding will be used to hold periodic open rehearsals and showcase Jessica’s solo dance as it develops. Rehearsals will continue for six months, culminating in two performances in the Studio scheduled for June 21-22, 2024, and a series of lunchtime community showings on February 28, April 24, and May 29.

CCF funding will support Jo-Mé Dance’s upcoming show, Guilty Until Proven Innocent (The Sean Ellis Story) in ASA’s Black Box Theater in June 2024 (exact dates TBA). This contemporary dance work, choreographed by Joe González and featuring majority BIPOC Boston- and Cambridge-based contemporary dancers, will be based on the story of Sean Ellis, a 19-year-old Black man wrongfully imprisoned in Boston for 22 years.

Midday Movement Series will use funding to offer a process-focused platform supporting early-career and mid-career contemporary dance-makers to deepen their works-in-progress through a three-pronged approach. Six artists/companies will participate in month-long teaching residencies with a final informal showing of work-in-progress. All six works-in-progress will be presented for two performances in ASA’s Black Box Theater on Saturday, July 13, 2024. All program components are free to the artists (except classes, where artists earn 60% fees) and free or low-cost for audiences.

Arrow Street Arts is set to begin regular programming in its newly renovated performance spaces beginning April 1, 2024. The Harvard Square venue will reopen its larger performance space, the flexible Black Box Theater, hosting Boston Opera Collaborative’s production of Carmen with performances beginning April 4. That production will be followed by other opera, music, theater, and dance performances throughout the spring and early summer.

Arrow Street Arts’ 1,100 square foot street-front Studio space opened in January 2024, and is already hosting dance classes, workshops, meetings, rehearsals, and performances, including many supported by grants through the Arrow Street Arts Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation.

Due to an installation delay with the venue’s bespoke telescopic seating system, ASA’s launch festival, originally planned for March 2024, has been moved to September 2024.

The fall launch festival, produced for Arrow Street Arts by Cambridge-based Liars and Believers (Georgia Lyman, executive producer and Jason Slavick, artistic director), will offer a wide variety of performances, events, and gatherings celebrating the vibrant diversity of the local performing arts community. The festival will take place September 7-14, 2024, marking the grand opening of ASA’s Harvard Square venue. All artists who responded to the open call for the original March dates are being considered by the selection panel for the rescheduled festival. Details on the performer lineup will be announced later this spring.

Five Organizations to Offer Performances as Inaugural CCF/ASA Fund Grant Recipients

Throughout the first six months of this year, five performing arts companies will activate the Arrow Street Arts spaces with support awarded through the Arrow Street Arts Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation (CCF), established by the two organizations to increase equitable access to the performance spaces for artists and arts organizations who wish to present their work at ASA’s venues. These inaugural CCF/Arrow Street Arts Fund grant recipients (listed below) will use ASA’s space for projects of their own design, including theatrical performances, teaching residencies for choreographers, multidisciplinary dance showcases, and open dance studios. For more information on future CCF grants, visit: https://cambridgecf.org/grantmaking/arrow-street-arts-fund/

Inaugural Arrow Street Arts Fund awards were made by CCF to these organizations:

Boston Opera Collaborative (BOC) is committed to reducing barriers for opera artists and audiences. Their programming centers around providing professional performing opportunities for emerging artists in the Boston area and bringing intimate and unique operatic experiences to the Boston area. At Arrow Street Arts, BOC will present Georges Bizet‘s and Peter Brook‘s La Tragédie de Carmen (Carmen), April 4-7, 2024.

Janelle Gilchrist Dance Troupe is a women-led and Black-owned Ballet company that works within the Cambridge community. Funding from their Arrow Street Arts grant will be used to showcase two works in ASA’s Black Box Theater: Journeys 2018 and Danzas y Canciones. Rehearsals and performances take place in the Black Box Theater July 19-21, 2024.

Through the Nourish project, Jessica Roseman Dance works with Black mothers from Cambridge in partnership with Cambridge Center For Families to provide a healing, creative community together. This work has inspired Jessica’s new choreographed work, also called Nourish. Funding will be used to hold periodic open rehearsals and showcase Jessica’s solo dance as it develops. Rehearsals will continue for six months, culminating in two performances in the Studio scheduled for June 21-22, 2024, and a series of lunchtime community showings on February 28, April 24, and May 29.

CCF funding will support Jo-Mé Dance’s upcoming show, Guilty Until Proven Innocent (The Sean Ellis Story) in ASA’s Black Box Theater in June 2024 (exact dates TBA). This contemporary dance work, choreographed by Joe González and featuring majority BIPOC Boston- and Cambridge-based contemporary dancers, will be based on the story of Sean Ellis, a 19-year-old Black man wrongfully imprisoned in Boston for 22 years.

Midday Movement Series will use funding to offer a process-focused platform supporting early-career and mid-career contemporary dance-makers to deepen their works-in-progress through a three-pronged approach. Six artists/companies will participate in month-long teaching residencies with a final informal showing of work-in-progress. All six works-in-progress will be presented for two performances in ASA’s Black Box Theater on Saturday, July 13, 2024. All program components are free to the artists (except classes, where artists earn 60% fees) and free or low-cost for audiences.

The Arrow Street Arts Fund at the Cambridge Community Foundation is accepting additional applications through February 15, 2024, and a second round of grants will be awarded in March. For more information, visit: https://cambridgecf.org/grantmaking/arrow-street-arts-fund/

Performances This Spring/Summer by Cambridge-Based Arts Organizations

With the first production in ASA’s Studio opening February 16, 2024, Cambridge-based Moonbox Productions, the resident theater company at Arrow Street Arts, will present The Manic Monologues. The Manic Monologues brings to life incredible true stories that will challenge and inform your ideas about what it means to be touched by a mental health condition. The Manic Monologues runs through February 25.

Longy School of Music of Bard College, also located in Harvard Square, will present its spring opera production, Rachel Portman‘s and Nicholas Wright‘s The Little Prince, in the Black Box Theater April 12-13, 2024. The production features students in Longy’s Vocal Studies and Orchestra FLEX programs.

Following its February production of The Manic Monologues, Moonbox Productions will return to the Black Box Theater with The Mermaid Hour, a play by David Valdes April 26-May 19, 2024. For Pilar and Bird, parenting a trans tween is all about guessing how to get it right when they’re not even sure what that means—and it doesn’t help that they’re not on the same page. Vi just wishes they would keep up: she’s busy navigating her first crush on super-cool Jacob, obsessing over her favorite YouTube vlogger, and just about ready to make herself an internet sensation. Fast-paced, funny, and heartfelt, The Mermaid Hour finds all three confronting the gaps between who they are and who they wish to be.

For more information and to book tickets for any event at Arrow Street Arts, visit arrowstarts.org.