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Harvard Square
Looking down Brattle St., this is what it looks like now:
https://goo.gl/maps/mLH9du3kDJEteSee8
Harvard Square?
Harvard Square?
Yep-- Boylston St = JFK St
(also 5 JFK is the same
(also 5 JFK is the same building today)
Somebody call the Law offices
Somebody call the Law offices of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe and let them know there's a 1947 Ford with a clutch problem outside.
Repeat!
Starting doing some Google-fu to answer this, and what should I find but this UHub thread from 2021: https://www.universalhub.com/2021/we-dont-have-nearly-enough-rathskeller...
Was Cambridge still part of
Was Cambridge still part of Boston at the time?
It never was.
Cambridge was never part of Boston. It was incorporated in 1636 and became a city in 1846. No idea why this is in the Boston City Archives.
However, one part of Boston was once part of Cambridge
Brighton (including Allston), just a few blocks from here across the river, was once part of Cambridge.
Why do they have a photo of Cambridge
in the Boston City Archives?
Someone once explained it on Uhub
As I recall they inherited the photos around the time the MTA was being formed as a state agency from pieces of the defunct private railways.
I might be mistaken as to how they acquired these shots but they have other mass transit photos from outside the city limits.
Definitely Harvard Square but
Definitely Harvard Square but with a two way Brattle Street and Street Cars
Parking used to be allowed in
Parking used to be allowed in the center of Harvard Square, and now it's not. Some people claim cars only became a thing in the city around 1960, but for a while before that, people used to drive to Harvard Square to go food shopping and do other errands. Now you have to go to Porter Square or Fresh Pond to find a grocery store, and people living near the Square without a car are out of luck.
Cuts to bus service over the years don't help either. Nobody wants to wait half an hour to get home from the store. And I still don't understand why nobody took a stand to preserve the trackless trolleys, not Cambridge elected officials nor anyone else.
My mother says she used to
My mother says she used to drive to Harvard Square and literally park right in front of Out of Town News to buy foreign papers and magazines for her job.
I can tell you where it’s not.
It’s not Boston.
Harvard Square obviously. Are
Harvard Square obviously. Are there any magazine shops left now?
The Answer!
Thanks for playing, folks!
This photo was a little tricky, because it wasn't taken within Boston City limits. Instead, it was taken in Harvard Square in the late 1940s. This photo is in our Public Works Collection and we're not sure why - but we assume that it has to do with a public transit project that spanned the Cambridge/Boston border.