Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. Adjacent to Harvard Yard, the historic heart of Harvard University, the Square functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge, the western and northern neighborhoods and the inner suburbs of Boston. The Square is served by Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway and a bus transportation hub.
Harvard station is a rapid transit and bus transfer station in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Located at Harvard Square, it serves the MBTA's Red Line subway system as well as MBTA buses. Harvard averaged 18,528 entries each weekday in FY2019, making it the third-busiest MBTA station after Downtown Crossing and South Station. Five of the fifteen key MBTA bus routes stop at the station.
The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) is a theological school in New York City that trains students for service with the Episcopal Church. It was affiliated with Union Theological Seminary from 2018 to 2023. Known throughout the Anglican Communion for progressive teaching and action on issues of civil rights and social justice, its faculty and students were directly involved in many of the social controversies surrounding the Episcopal Church in the latter half of the 20th century and at the start of the 21st.
The Tasty Sandwich Shop, often called "The Tasty", was a restaurant that operated from 1916 to 1997 near the intersection of JFK Street and Brattle Street, at the center of Harvard Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was housed in the Read Block building, on the site of the home of colonial poet Anne Bradstreet. The Tasty closed in 1997, after 81 years in business. Its location was later used by the chain stores Abercrombie & Fitch, then Citizens Bank and, as of 2021, a CVS Pharmacy.
Lesley University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. As of 2018-19 Lesley University enrolled 6,593 students.
The Brattle Theatre is a repertory movie theater located in Brattle Hall at 40 Brattle Street near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theatre is a small movie house with one screen. It is one of the few remaining movie theaters, if not the only one, to use a rear-projection system; the projector is located behind the screen rather than behind the audience.
"The Village Blacksmith" is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in 1840. The poem describes a local blacksmith and his daily life. The blacksmith serves as a role model who balances his job with the role he plays with his family and community. Years after its publication, a tree mentioned in the poem was cut down and part of it was made into an armchair which was then presented to Longfellow by local schoolchildren.
Brattle Hall is a historic building along Brattle Street near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was constructed in 1889 for the Cambridge Social Union – established in 1871 – when that organization moved into the adjacent William Brattle House that year. Brattle Hall was built to house the organization's library, and to provide a space for larger meetings and social functions. Brattle Hall was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, originally in the Dutch Colonial Revival style, but it acquired more of a Colonial Revival feel with the 1907 addition of brick ends, designed by Charles Cogswell.
The William Brattle House is an historic house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the seven Colonial mansions described by historian Samuel Atkins Eliot as making up Tory Row, housing several prominent figures in early colonial history. It remains in use by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
The Dexter Pratt House is an historic house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is remembered as the home of Dexter Pratt, the blacksmith who inspired the poem "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Thomas Brattle was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Street Church.
The Brattle Street Church (1698–1876) was a Congregational and Unitarian church on Brattle Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Brattle Street, which existed from 1694 to 1962, was a street in Boston, Massachusetts located on the current site of City Hall Plaza, at Government Center.
Dock Square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, is a public square adjacent to Faneuil Hall, bounded by Congress Street, North Street, and the steps of the 60 State Street office tower. Its name derives from its original (17th-century) location at the waterfront. From the 1630s through the early 19th century, it served boats in the Boston Harbor as "the common landing place, at Bendell's Cove," later called Town Dock. "Around the dock was transacted the chief mercantile business of the town." After the waterfront was filled in during the early 19th century, Dock Square continued as a center of commerce for some years. The addition in the 1960s of Government Center changed the scale and character of the square from a hub of city life, to a place one merely passes through. As of the 1950s the square has become largely a tourist spot, with the Freedom Trail running through it.
Community Charter School of Cambridge is a charter school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Located in the Kendall Square area near MIT, the school serves 360 students in grades 6-12. CCSC opened in September 2005. Since 2009, when CCSC graduated its first class, 100% of seniors have been admitted to college, with over 90% to four-year schools including Boston College, Bucknell University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Northeastern University, UMass Boston, University of Chicago, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2013, 100% of CCSC 10th graders scored advanced or proficient on the ELA MCAS. In 2012, 100% of 10th graders at CCSC scored advanced or proficient on both the math and English MCAS tests, earning the school a #1 ranking statewide. In 2011, CCSC was 1 of 14 charter schools in the U.S. to be awarded an EPIC grant for attaining the highest gains in student achievement.
Tory Row is the nickname historically given by some to the part of Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts where many Loyalists had mansions at the time of the American Revolutionary War, and given by others to seven Colonial mansions along Brattle Street. Its historic buildings from the 18th century include the William Brattle House and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 of the seven Colonial mansions making up Tory Row, called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." Owners of Caribbean slave plantations, including the Vassall and Royall families, built the mansions as a statement of the "incredible wealth" they had amassed from slave labor in Jamaica and Antigua, and they enslaved an unusually high number of people on the premises.
Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War, is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store, and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived, as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."
This is a timeline of the history of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
Major-General William Brattle was an American politician, lawyer, cleric, physician and military officer who served as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1736 to 1738. Brattle is best known for his role during the American Revolution, in which he initially aligned himself with the Patriot cause before transferring his allegiances towards the Loyalist camp, which led to the eventual downfall of his fortunes.
The Window Shop (1939–1972) was a store located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created by a small group of women wanting to help immigrants fleeing Europe. It was originally located in a room on the second floor of 37 Church Street and was named for the room's large window. One of these women was Elsa Brändström Ulich, a Swedish-immigrant nurse and philanthropist.
