Built February 1928 NRHP Reference # 78000441 Area 404.7 m² | Architect C.B. Breed Opened 1928 Added to NRHP 30 January 1978 | |
 | ||
Similar Harvard Square, Harvard, Johnston Gate, Cambridge Common, Smith Campus Center | ||
The Harvard Square Subway Kiosk is an historic kiosk and landmark located at Zero Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was built in 1928 as the new main headhouse (entrance building) for the previously opened Harvard Square subway station. After the station closed in 1981 for renovations, the kiosk was moved slightly and renovated. The Out of Town News newsstand, which opened in 1955, has occupied the kiosk since 1984. As of 2016, the City of Cambridge (which owns the structure) may convert it for public use.
Contents
Subway entrance
Harvard station opened on March 23, 1912, as the northern terminus of the Cambridge Subway. Early plans called for an upright stone entrance in the center of Harvard Square, similar to those at Scollay Square and Adams Square. The headhouse was ultimately constructed as a massive circular brick structure.
As automobile traffic through the square increased during the 1920s, motorists called the building a hazard to navigation. In February 1928, the Boston Elevated Railway demolished the 1912-built headhouse and replaced it with a lower rectangular brick structure with a copper-clad roof. There is debate about the relative contributions to the design by Boston architect Clarence H. Blackall and MIT civil engineering professor, Charles B. Breed; there also was input from Boston Elevated Railway officials, mayor Edward W. Quinn, the Harvard Square Business Men's Association, and the Public Utilities Commission. The new headhouse, featuring three walls of brick, limestone, and mullion-framed glass windows on three sides, cost around $20,000, of which the city paid $15,000.
The distinctive structure became a Harvard Square landmark. In the late 1970s, the MBTA began planning an extension of the Cambridge Subway – by then known as the Red Line – further north in Cambridge, which involved completely rebuilding Harvard station. The original subway entrance structure was already overcrowded during peak hours and clearly could not handled the anticipated pedestrian flow of an expanded station, so it had to be completely replaced for fundamental functional reasons.
Public opinion called for the historic headhouse to be saved; under the guidance of the Cambridge Historic Commission, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1978. Harvard station closed for reconstruction on January 31, 1981; the temporary Harvard-Holyoke and Harvard-Brattle stations that replaced it were inappropriate for reuse of the headhouse. The expanded Harvard station, opened in 1983, uses a larger glass and steel headhouse at the original location.
The original headhouse was removed in one piece and stored during subway construction, then relocated slightly and restored. No longer needed by the MBTA, the structure was acquired by the City of Cambridge.
Out of Town News
Out of Town News was founded in 1955 by Sheldon Cohen. Located next to a bustling subway entrance, the newsstand was long noted for stocking the leading newspapers from around the nation and around the world, many of which were flown to Boston to be available just one day after printing. Customers, especially academics, came to get the most recent editions of their hometown paper or of newspapers from parts of the world where important news events were unfolding.
The newsstand became famous too for its regular clientele and visitors. John Kenneth Galbraith and Julia Child were both regular customers, and Robert Frost once asked for directions at the stand on the way to a reading. Paul Allen, then a young programmer at Honeywell, bought the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics at Out of Town News. The magazine inspired Allen and his friend Bill Gates to found Microsoft that April.
In 1984, Out of Town News moved into the former subway kiosk structure, which had been relocated a few feet north of its original location on June 8. Cohen operated several other businesses around the square, and was known as the “unofficial mayor of Harvard Square". Cohen sold Out of Town News to Hudson News in 1994, though it kept its name and unique business model. Responding to the 1994 sale, a citizen group submitted a petition to landmark the kiosk, but the Cambridge Historical Committee decided the lease restrictions on the kiosk were sufficient protections.
In 2008, it was announced that the newsstand might go out of business, principally because its unique function of supplying yesterday's newspapers was made obsolete by the ability to read them online. The physical structure also required hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs. In January 2009, a new owner, Muckey's Corporation, won a bidding competition and signed a lease to take over the newsstand. Muckey's diversified the stand's offering with more typical magazines and convenience store fare, but maintained the original name.
In 2013, the city began studying use and possible renovation of Harvard Square, including possibly further restoration or reworking of the kiosk. When the long-term lease expired in January 2016, the city signed a month-to-month lease ending in July 2017, while exploring its options for the space. In August 2016, the city released plans to convert the structure to a glass-walled public space, despite the lessee's offer to contribute to the renovations if the business could stay.
In September 2016, a citizen group again petitioned the Cambridge Historical Commission to designate the kiosk as a protected landmark, which would effectively stop the proposed major renovation. In November 2016, the Cambridge Historical Commission voted in support of proceeding with a landmark study.