Construction will resume on the Harvard Square Kiosk Plaza after years of delay, according to the Harvard Square Business Association. By Julian J. Giordano
Construction is slated to resume on the Harvard Square Kiosk Plaza with an eye toward completing the project by 2026, the Harvard Square Business Association announced on Thursday.
The renovation project has been in the works for nearly a decade, but the construction was delayed by a variety of factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, according to HSBA Executive Director Denise Jillson.
HSBA announced in an email that the project will go through eight phases before it is completed in 2026. The update comes after a years-long delay in the project, with the latest update on the city’s website being from mid-2022.
Jillson said in an interview that several recent incidents — such as the falling debris in Harvard Square’s MBTA station — also likely contributed to the project’s delay.
“It was just really clear that the MBTA wanted to make sure that everything was solid before construction began upstairs, overhead with the plaza,” Jillson said. “Because from the sidewalk below, there’s just — literally, in some cases — just a couple feet before you hit the top of the tunnel.”
The renovation will start with Phase 8, due to delays involving minor water pipe issues with the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority.
“Luckily, they’re moving forward with Phase 8, because all of the requirements around that particular phase are in a position for us to move forward,” Jillson said.
Jillson also discussed some of the planned changes, including improving accessibility of the overall space.
“I think probably the one thing that will please everybody is that the plaza will be ADA compliant, and right now it’s not,” she said. “So it’s very difficult for people with disabilities to maneuver through the plaza.”
Folk music, Barry Schneier wants you to know, is not dead.
“It’s well alive. Certainly in the Boston and Cambridge area,” Schneier tells me in a recent phone interview from his Plymouth home.
The title of his new photography book — and accompanying exhibit at Boston’s Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame opening Sept. 12 — says it all: “The Song is Still Being Written: The Folk Music Portrait Project.”
That song is not just by older white guys, Schneier, 74, points out: “A lot of people have this impression that folk music is old white guys with guitars. It’s not,” he said. “All music is folk music.”
A popular New York-based gourmet cookie chain is preparing to open two new locations in Massachusetts.
Chip City will be opening its third Massachusetts location in Harvard Square in Cambridge and its fourth location on Newbury Street.
The cookie chain’s menu rotates more than forty unique flavors yearly such as Peanut Butter & Jelly, the Everything Cookie, Oatmeal Apple Pie, Blueberry Cheesecake, S’Mores, Lemon Berry, and the Cannoli Cookie.
The menu also changes each week to offer classic flavors, seasonal varieties and always offers dairy-free options.
This year the chain successfully rolled out imaginative desserts such as the Chocolate Cupcake Cookie, Frootie Crunch, and most recently, debuted their Thin Chips and Chip Crookies.
The Harvard Square location will open on September 13th and the Newbury Street location will open its doors on September 27. The first 100 customers will receive a free cookie.
View of Joyce Kozloff’s “New England Decorative Arts” (1985), circa 1985 (photo by Cymie Payne, courtesy Joyce Kozloff)
Walk through Cambridge’s Harvard Square station on any given day and you’re bound to catch a glimpse of artist Joyce Kozloff’s 83-foot-long prismatic “New England Decorative Arts” mural. Located above the curved ramps leading to the subway station’s bus terminal, the quilt-like work features hundreds of interlocking hand-painted tiles containing scenes from New England’s landscape and motifs referencing the region’s history, like gravestones, weathervanes, sail boats, houses with steeply pitched roofs, and silhouettes of Indigenous individuals and European settlers.
Initially installed in 1985, it was Kozloff’s first public art commission, exemplifying the artist’s pioneering work in the ’70s and ’80s Pattern and Decoration movement. A year earlier, sections of the work were shown in an exhibition at MoMA PS1. But in the four decades since its installation, deteriorating conditions in the city’s subway system, also known as the T, have increasingly threatened the longstanding homage to regional history and feminist art.
Holes in the ceiling above the mural compound longstanding issues with the wall’s infrastructure that have resulted in cracks in the tiling. (photo correspondent/Hyperallergic)
Kozloff told Hyperallergic that deficiencies in the wall’s infrastructure are the root cause of the work’s current condition. She was already forced to restore a crumbling section of tiling due to a misplaced joint back in 1986.
“I knew even then that unless the wall was rebuilt, the tiles at that location would crack again, and of course, they did,” Kozloff said, citing other issues including additional cracking from a collapsing cantilever and damage from moisture leaking from the street.
“[The damage] gets worse and worse, and is not restorable,” the artist continued, adding that the only solution at this stage would be to install a completely new artwork. She estimates that such a project would require upwards of $1 million in funding to cover replacement tiles, shipping, demolition, and construction costs.
In recent years, Kozloff has received letters of support from both the director of the Cambridge Arts Council and former Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, but she says she needs the backing of either the MBTA CEO or the Massachusetts governor in order to raise the funds.
Joyce Kozloff said that problems with the wall’s construction have increasingly degraded the mural. (photos by and courtesy the artist)
The work was supported by the Arts on the Line program — an initiative known today as “Arts on the T” that helped integrate public art into six subway stations across Boston and Cambridge. Implemented by the Cambridge Arts Council and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the program helped inspire similar efforts in transportation systems in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.
Kozloff’s mural is not the only artwork at the Harvard Square station to have suffered conservation issues. György Kepes’s stained-glass work “Blue Sky on the Red Line” (1985) also had problems with burnt-out backlighting fixtures and in required $40,000 in restoration repairs in 1998. Late Harvard professor Dimitri Hadzi’s 20-foot granite sculpture “Omphalos” (1985) stood outside the station’s main entrance for decades before it was removed in 2013 due to deterioration (the MBTA said it could not afford the repairs).
The state of the T’s public art is only a small part of the issues plaguing the historic underground subway system, which has been dealing with a multitude of track and station maintenance issues that the agency says it needs $24.5 billion to address.
“The MBTA recognizes the importance of public art in humanizing our system and enhancing the travel experience of our riders,” the agency’s Deputy Press Secretary Lisa Battiston told Hyperallergic. “When new art is included today … the art is required to be composed of resilient and durable materials, like ceramic tile, glass, and concrete, that are easier to maintain and can withstand existing within the conditions of our public transportation network.”
Detailed view of the mural’s fifth section, which contains scenes from New England’s landscape and motifs referencing the region’s history (photo by Andrew Moore, courtesy Joyce Kozloff)
While the MBTA did not answer Hyperallergic’s inquiries about any initiatives to fix Kozloff’s mural, Battiston did say that the agency “continues to explore and evaluate opportunities to upgrade its historic art pieces, including related costs, manpower, time, and access.”
“With a number of competing priorities, challenging decisions need to be made as we continue to make upgrades to our tracks, signals, and other infrastructure, which are critical to our mission of providing safe, reliable transit service,” Battison said.
In the meantime, Kozloff, now 81 years old, has been digitizing tile designs on her iPad so her work could be potentially restored in the future.
“These files can be printed with high fire glazes on stoneware tiles, if and when there is the funding, desire and will to do it, and whether I’m around or not,” Kozloff said, adding that she has coordinated the plans with longtime Italian collaborators.
“I don’t know what else I can do, except make some noise!”
Left: Close-up view of the mural circa 1985 (photo by Andrew Moore, courtesy Joyce Kozloff); right: Kozloff’s digital rendition of the original tiling (image by and courtesy the artist)Up-close views of the tiling designs alluding to quintessential New England imagery (photo by Andrew Moore, courtesy Joyce Kozloff)
From puppetry to drag shows to immersive theatre, ArrowFest features more than 40 performances and events throughout the week. (Cristela Guerra/WBUR)
ArrowFest organizers are leaning into chaos and whimsy. Over the next week in Cambridge, audiences will be introduced to more than 40 performances by hundreds of artists in Harvard Square’s newest venue, Arrow Street Arts, the former site of the Oberon.
The inaugural festival offers daily opportunities to experience music stylings, a dance showcase, lunchtime concerts, and interactive performances for a spectrum of ages, including an interactive show for babies called “Whipped Up!” by Soap & Rope Theatre Company.
It follows a server at a 1950’s-style diner trying their very best to please their tiny customers and caregivers. It previously had a sold-out run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August last year.
“It’s been such a joy to be in that space, to watch it come together and, and take a step back and then come 40 steps forward,” said Georgia Lyman, executive producer for theater ensemble Liars and Believers and the lead curator for the festival. “I consider our role to support the artists in their vision and to push them to go even further.”
Arrow Street Arts has curated a line up of artists who bring their unique talents to the venue including immersive theatre, comedy, and an even interactive show for babies. (Cristela Guerra/WBUR)
Lyman said she feels there aren’t many places asking artists, “What do you want to do?” And then having the vision, funding and willingness to take that risk.
“So often I feel that art has to make safe choices in order to sell tickets,” she said.
The atmosphere has felt both exciting and chaotic as she’s spent so long looking at budgets and spreadsheets, schedules and contracts, to now finally see artists marvel at where they get to create. Among the artists is Mz Mo Phila, a media personality, born and raised in Dorchester. She will host and MC the festival’s grand finale the “Women of Boston” hip hop showcase on Sept. 15, which was co-curated with BAMS Fest, and will also feature Dutch Rebelle, Brandie Blaze, kei, Cakeswagg, and Jazzmyn RED with their own sets.
“Art is a universal language and I’m grateful for this festival to showcase the many facets of art, and having the freedom to showcase that art however they see fit,” Phila said. “That’s the biggest theme that I hear in all of this is inclusivity. We always find so many things that separate us and make us different. But there’s one thing that’s always going to bring us together. And that’s art.”
ArrowFest is showcasing local performers among its array of performers. (Cristela Guerra/WBUR)
Lyman attributes this focus to Arrow Street Arts founder and president David Altshuler who brought that sense of openness and edginess into the space. Altshuler said the festival was designed to be improvisational — in other words — expect the unexpected. It opened Sept. 5 with a ribbon cutting and an experimental and immersive show by Liars and Believers called, “Don’t Open This,” which is a spectacle of aerials, masks, music, puppets, and dance.
He said Arrow Street came out of a core belief that art builds community and community can build belonging. The new space has been renovated and expanded to change according to the needs of the productions.
“These days you need your audience to be more than just somebody who shows up in a seat,” Altshuler said. “They like to feel a part of what’s going on in the performance.” The festival runs through September 15.
Tiger Sugar, a popular Taiwanese boba tea chain, is expected to close its Harvard Square location less than two years after its grand opening.
Though Tiger Sugar could not be reached for comment for this article, the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeals is set to discuss an application to permit smoothie bowl restaurant SoBol to open in Tiger Sugar’s current space in the Abbot Building at 5 JFK St on Thursday.
The Harvard Square Advisory Committee, which reviews development proposals and planning projects in Harvard Square, previously reviewed SoBol’s application during a July hearing.
Michael Quinn, SoBol’s Digital Sales Specialist, wrote in an email to The Crimson that SoBol is expected to open in May 2025.
SoBol, a chain with more than 60 locations across eight states, offers a menu featuring smoothies, bowls, and waffles. The Harvard Square branch will be the fourth SoBol location in Massachusetts, joining stores in Beverly, Duxbury, and North Andover.
Tiger Sugar’s closing marks another incidence of turnover in Harvard Square’s bubble tea market. Before its closing, Tiger Sugar was one of four boba tea restaurants in Harvard Square alongside Ten One Tea House, Gong Cha, and Kung Fu Tea. Möge Tea, which opened in February 2023, permanently closed its doors less than a year after its grand opening.
Katherine M. Esponda ’25 said that Tiger Sugar was one of her “favorite places to get boba,” and that she’ll “miss Tiger Sugar for sure.”
When asked whether she would try the new smoothie bowl restaurant, Marissa L. Strong ’27 said “I’m really excited about that.”
Dozens of dog lovers and their four-legged friends gathered on Palmer St. in Harvard Square last month for a “Summer Pawty,” featuring costumes, treats, and even doggie portraits.
The event kicked off with a stroll around Harvard Square followed by a costume contest, which saw creative costumes including a pumpkin, duck boat operator, and a doggie batman. The winner of the contest received a Harvard Square gift basket containing gift cards and treats for both the owner and pup.
Vendors at the event, as well as event co-sponsors Tandem Vet and Cambridge Veterinary Care, provided treats, “pup cups,” toys, and other goodies for the dogs.
Local artist Bridget Foster Reed works on one of the several dog portraits she produced for event attendees.
Spencer the dog poses with his portrait.
The event was not the first dog costume contest to hit Harvard Square, but it was the first such event since the Covid-19 pandemic. Denise A. Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said she was was “just so excited” to bring a dog party back to the Square.
Two dogs meet — with differing levels of enthusiasm. The event saw many such introductions between pets and pet-lovers alike.
Candace Persuasian’s new show “FABULA: Gods and Goddesses Among Us” will debut during ArrowFest on Sept. 14. It’s part of an opening celebration for the Arrow Street Arts community theater.
Screengrab by GBH News from Boston Public Radio livestream
Starting Thursday, an 11-day festival will show off Arrow Streets Arts’ takeover of the old Oberon Theatre in Harvard Square and bring visitors into the reimagined space.
Arrow Street added a second performance space and opened up the lobby. It also expanded the original black box theater that was previously leased by ART, the American Repertory Theatre, until the end of 2021.
With these renovations, the new spaces can accommodate everything from spoken word, plays and musicals, to aerial circus and drag performances.
“It’s sort of basically a … wandering smörgåsbord of art forms,” Arrow Street Arts founder David Altshuler told Boston Public Radio on Tuesday.
The nonprofit was created with the mission to provide an accessible, affordable, high-quality performance venue for Boston-area artists to showcase their work.
ArrowFest starts with an immersive spectacle called “Don’t Open This” from the theater ensemble Liars and Believers to showcase the changes.
“We’ve transformed the space into an otherworld called ‘box,’ and it is the source of all your desires. But what happens when what you order online is not actually what your soul needs?” said ArrowFest curator Georgia Lyman.
The event will feature dance, aerialists, puppets and live music, and attendees are free to roam around the theater.
Boston drag star Candace Persuasian will premier her original show “FABULA: Gods and Goddesses Among Us” as part of ArrowFest. “Fabula” is Latin for “fable” and each act will highlight individuality, gender expression and gender identity through dancing, singing and lip synching, Persuasian said.
The re-opening of the theater by Arrow Street Arts helps fill the void in Boston’s theater scene, especially for Persuasian, who said it can be difficult to find drag performance venues.
“We also lost Machine,” said Persuasian, citing the venue that shut down in early 2020. “Coming back after the pandemic, it’s like, ‘Oh, all the places that I went to are no longer there.
“When Georgia approached me with this opportunity, I was like, ‘I’m going to take it,’” she said.
After the 11-day festival, Altshuler says another couple dozen artists will be parading through the theater spaces through the next year, including Bollywood dance groups, puppets and live music.
For more information on ArrowFest and Arrow Street Arts, visit ArrowStArts.org.
The Oberon’s former home reopens as a new arts hub for local and emerging talent.
By James Sullivan Globe correspondent,Updated September 2, 2024, 2:55 p.m.
Arrow Street Arts founder David Altshuler and Georgia Lyman, whose theater group Liars and Believers is curating the 11-day festival celebrating the launch of the Harvard Square multi-use arts space.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
David Altshuler always thought of himself as a “city kid.” But when the pandemic hit, and the entrepreneur began spending time outside of Boston, he realized the city itself wasn’t enough.
“Without restaurants and art,” he said recently, “Boston wasn’t interesting to me.”
When the American Repertory Theater announced in 2021 that it would not renew its lease for Oberon, the experimental theater space in Harvard Square, Altshuler sprang into action. His wife, Sharman, is the founder of the award-winning theater company Moonbox Productions. Altshuler knew the difficulties small arts organizations have faced in recent years as the Boston area’s development boom has surged.
After two years of negotiations with Harvard University (which owns the building that housed Oberon), Altshuler’s new nonprofit Arrow Street Arts is set to pull the curtain on a new multi-use arts center on Sept. 5. Through Sept. 15,the 2 Arrow St. venue will host an eclectic series of events — more than 40 of them, featuring hundreds of artists — under the umbrella of ArrowFest, a celebration of its grand opening.
The 11-day festival includes a dance showcase, a hip-hop summit, a “puppet slam,” and free lunchtime concerts, anchored by three performances of “Don’t Open This,” an imaginative spectacle produced by Liars and Believers, the Cambridge-based theater collective.
Liars and Believers executive producer Georgia Lyman took the lead in curating ArrowFest. She joined Altshuler for a walk-through of the new venue two weeks before opening night.
“I’ve been in this space a hundred times and I had no idea there’s natural light in here,” Lyman said as the group entered the main theater at Arrow Street Arts. Altshuler says the renovators removed “2,000 square feet of stuff” from the old Oberon, including the bar and the stage. The new room will seat 264 people. The entire facility, including an adaptable foyer and a front-window dance studio, is licensed for a capacity of 600.
Now a black box, the main theater has state-of-the-art lighting and sound and a custom-designed retractable seating system that can be configured by remote control.
A view of the setup seating in the new 2 Arrow St. theater space. Depending on need, the seats can collapse and retract from a closed position against the wall. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
“I love the chaos of artistic creation,” said Altshuler. As an arts organization, he said, “we can’t compete with the internet, or those 60- or 70-inch TVs at home.
“The way we survive and thrive is to embrace the vitality of life. And that’s chaos.”
Shriya Srinivasan is the founder and artistic director of the Anubhava Dance Company, which leads the lineup for the ArrowFest dance showcase on Sept. 8. By day an assistantprofessor of biomedical engineering at Harvard, Srinivasan and her founding partner, Joshua George, explore psychological concepts, such as fear and elation, through Indian classical dance.
“Indian dancing is very mimetic,” she explained, “almost like Broadway.”
“A Hip Hop Experience with Jazzmyn RED,” scheduled for the evening of Sept. 11, will encompass a workshop on the history of the art form, a panel discussion about hip-hop’s current representation in Boston, and live performances headlined by A Trike Called Funk. That group’s creators built a custom cargo tricycle outfitted with a sound system, graffiti-tagging materials, and a pop-up dance floor.
A view of the stage floor in the new Arrow Street Arts location. The new multi-use arts space renovated and revamped the former Oberon theater space in Harvard Square and opens Sept. 5.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Jazzmyn Rodrigues, who performs as Jazzmyn RED, is a US Ambassador of Hip Hop and Cultural Exchange, traveling as far afield as Abu Dhabi. She had applied to be a performer at ArrowFest, but was pleased when the organizers suggested she expand her proposal to include a comprehensive, hip-hop mini-festival.
“I said, ‘Well, yes, I will do that,’” Rodrigues recalled. “I really love that they saw what more I could do.”
Even after hip-hop marked its 50th anniversary, she said, the form is still too often seen strictly as music. “Hip-hop is actually a culture. We have our own artwork, cultural norms, food. In the workshop, we’ll talk about all the elements of hip-hop and where they came from, and we’ll celebrate each one.”
The new venue on Arrow Street will be a welcome addition to the local arts community, Lyman said.
“It’s very freeing to look at a space and say ‘How can we use this?,’ as opposed to ‘This is what we get,’” Lyman continued. “The flexibility is key, because it frees creativity.”
From left, Arrow Street Arts founder David Altshuler, Georgia Lyman, whose theater group Liars and Believers is curating the festival, Jazzmyn RED, and Shriya Srinivasan.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Arrow Street Arts is partnering with the Cambridge Community Foundation, one of the first organizations of its kind in the country, promoting equity and justice initiatives and “social cohesion.” Grants from the foundation will support artists and producers, subsidizing their use of the multi-use arts center going forward. Moonbox Productions will be a permanent resident of the building, calling 2 Arrow St. its new home.
“Art is what helps people be able to cope with the human condition,” said Rodrigues. “It makes people feel seen and heard.”
Altshuler seconded the notion.
“We know that Boston’s artistic heart is strong,” he said. “It just needs a home and a little help.”
ARROWFEST
Sept. 5-15. Some events free, others ticketed ($5 and up). Full schedule: arrowstarts.org
“Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” is coming to Cambridge.
This Friday, the series’ newest episode will feature Source, a modern gastro pub in Harvard Square.
Known best for their award winning wood-fired pizza, Source also offers small plates, entrees, homemade desserts and weekend brunch. Source follows their mission of embracing roots by using sustainable and local products.
After many rounds of interviews, Source was chosen for Guy Fieri’s iconic show, and they began filming in May. Viewers can expect to see authentic customer reviews and behind-the-scenes footage of two original Source recipes.
How to watch Source on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”
