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A City Council subcommittee agreed more outreach was necessary when planning future bicycle safety initiatives in Cambridge at an Oct. 10 public hearing, following backlash about a new protected bike lane on Cambridge Street.  “People feel left out and people get angry when they feel left out,” Mayor Denise Simmons said.  The debate began in September when the city installed a bike lane on Cambridge Street to the right of a parking lane. The project was part of a city-wide initiative to make streets safer for travel, but a loss of more than half the street’s parking and perceived safety issues for pedestrians sparked criticism from neighbors and local business owners.

New separated bike lanes along Cambridge Street have drawn intense criticism from some residents who say the reduction in parking and the location of the spots are hurting area businesses as well as those with physical disabilities.

The outpouring of compassion and assistance to those wracked by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in Texas is a remarkable testament to the human spirit that seeks to comfort and assist.  But equally remarkable, if not more so, are the acts of human kindness that happen quietly, often out of sight from the hustle-and-bustle of our everyday lives. The enablers of such acts seek no reward or recognition, but only the ability to alter someone’s path in a good way and, in the end, make the world a better place for doing so.

A local chef known for his specialty burgers is bringing the beef to his second Cambridge restaurant.  Chef Michael Scelfo celebrated the one-year anniversary of “coastally-inspired” Waypoint by debuting a small batch of “secret burgers” this past weekend.

The city will hold a discussion over concerns raised by the business community regarding new bicycle lanes…

On Brattle Street’s busiest days, the bicycles used to swim upstream like salmon, headed (illegally) into two lanes of one-way traffic toward Harvard Square. Well, sometimes it was two lanes: Brattle was so frequently crowded with delivery trucks and (illegally) double-parked cars that the second lane was often a theoretical concept.

In the latest twist in &pizza’s quest to open in the Brattle St. location that formerly housed newsstand Crimson Corner and restaurant Tory Row, the D.C.-based pizza chain has received preliminary approval for a Harvard Square location.  The Cambridge Planning Board earlier this month voted to approve the proposed restaurant, a partnership between &pizza and Milk Bar, a dessert bakery based in New York.

July 28, 2017

Six years ago, this magazine ran an article reflecting on the many changes Harvard Square had undergone in the past 25 years: the losses of The Tasty Sandwich Shop and the Wursthaus, as well as the significant decline in independently run bookstores with the closing of the Globe Corner Bookstore and Curious George Books and Toys. The latter closed in 2011 and reopened a year later as “The World’s Only Curious George Store,” and is now once again threatened. So far this year, the Square has bid farewell to locally owned businesses like Schoenhof’s Foreign Books, and Café Algiers.

It’s been this way for years in Harvard Square — every time a business or property changes hands, it sets off debate about what the deal might mean for the neighborhood’s ever-evolving character. So imagine what might happen if a family trust goes ahead with its plans to sell two buildings — with more than a dozen storefronts — along a prime stretch of Brattle Street.