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Landlord booting Harvard Square's last dive bar, which had been open since the 1950s

By adamg on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 5:29pm

Cambridge Day reports on the impending end of Whitney's, which opened on JFK Street when it was still called Boylston Street.

Neighborhoods: 
Cambridge
Harvard Square
Topics: 
Business
Dining


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Comments

By passing thru on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 6:38pm.

there's still Charlie's

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By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 6:44pm.

Gonna be honest

Sigh of relief that it wasn’t Charlie’s

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By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 6:58pm.

I had a friend visit from NY who wanted the "Authentic Boston dive bar experience". I told him we're in Cambridge and that isn't a thing and this isn't Goodwill Hunting, although we went to the People's Republic and he liked the vibe. Then we went to Whitney's and the Cantab and he thought they were both garbage and uninteresting. Philistine. RIP Whitney's, the locals remember what you were

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By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 8:44pm.

Don't know if Cantab has gotten any better post-pandemic/ NY Times obituary for it a few years ago- but was awful circa 2019- doorman tried to charge me 2x to attend same show and friend I was with mused that the service response level was akin to breaking into someone's house and demanding a drink

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By Pete X on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 7:37pm.

Maybe instead of the city spending wasting all that money to re-open an empty newstand as a
"community gathering center," they can just take over Whitney's? With every beer 50 cents goes to affordable housing, housing crisis solved!

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By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 7:49pm.

No

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By Plen-T-Pak on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 7:59pm.

.

By Pete X on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:04pm.

Pizza Buffet/Whitney Bar/Skee Ball joint

Who says no?

By robo on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 8:35pm.

I guess not

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By Pete X on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:02pm.

I never mistook you for a guy who could recognize a joke.

By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 8:05pm.

Aren't Shays and Charlie's still open?

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By Pete X on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:05pm.

A bit outside the square, but that's as close to a dive bar as you're gonna get in the area.

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By anon on Sat, 12/14/2024 - 8:18pm.

Money money money....MONEY!

By deselby on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:42am.

When did "dive bar" become the term for a normal bar free of 20+ taps of sours, IPAs and pastry stouts, and "artisanal cocktails?" In the 90s? 00s?

"Dive" used to mean a place that opened at 7 am and was patronized by full-on alkies and career thieves. Whitney's is not such a place.

The term has been broadened to give upper-middle class folx some little thrills and boasting rights.

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By Steeve on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:06pm.

Dive because it was literally the worst crowd that area could offer. These were the people that would never step foot in Charlie’s, Grendel’s, or Shay’s. And that’s a wonderful thing. Maybe CHUD bar fits better?

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By xyz on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:25pm.

I must be getting a fever, because I agree with des...

I agree with de...

Nope. Still can't type it.

Most people interested in "dive bars" wouldn't like it if they ever stepped into an actual dive bar.

By anon on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 12:45pm.

I used to work on Congress St in the 70s/80s. There was a bar near the corner of A street that had a sign that simply said "BAR". Every morning several truck drivers would park and double park on Congress and A Streets , and went to the "BAR" to have their morning drink(s) before starting their work day.
Other blue collar workers and some office workers too would stop in for a morning pop.
Different times.

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By deselby on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 6:52am.

I don't know if there are any true dives in Boston or Cambridge anymore. Sucking all the liquor licenses to the Seaport devastated their numbers.

Note I said "dives" and not "dive bars," because if you have to add the qualifier "bars," you don't know what you're talking about and are posing.

Dennis Lehane had a good description of a dive in A Drink Before the War.

The Tam? Not really, clientele is too varied and friendly. Sullivan's Tap? Possibly, haven't been there outside of game times ever. Like The Harp, in a separate category of bro sports bars, like some of the bars along Union Street and the late Sons of Boston. Mostly serving food. They can be dangerous but more because of young assholes from Weymouth and college jocks in feral packs than true dives with alkie psychos and career criminals.

Some of the bars along Broadway in Southie might qualify. El Mondongito on Dudley? Could be.

There are some outside the city. Quincy, bars around Revere Beach etc

The Cantab isn't a dive.

By Pete X on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 9:24am.

The # of Boston liquor licenses doesn't have any relation to what's going on in Harvard Square in Cambridge. It's the commercial real estate prices that are driving bars out.

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By lbb on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 11:08am.

It's been years since I was in that neighborhood. Did the Wedge close?

I mean Little Steve's closed so I don't know how the Wedge could have survived.

By The Snob on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 3:21pm.

A cop friend of mine years ago said that most of the murder victims in Boston were last seen alive in one of three places: Weggie's, the Waltham Tavern, or the Quiet Man. Those places were what local old-timers liked to call "a bucket o' blood," though in practice even that sometimes became synonymous with "cheap grimy bar" and most weren't truly off limits to yuppies.

I never did try to go to the Teamsters Pub in Southie, but was told by locals a college boy like me would probably leave with more than one new bruise for my efforts.

"Dive" in my world always referred to a place with cheap booze, bartenders who were highly accommodating of questionable life choices by patrons, and similarly low standards for sanitation. The last particularly, since you have places like the 21st Amendment or the Sevens that were very much drinkers' bars, but your feet didn't stick to the floor quite as much as they do at the Tam or Biddy Early's.

By deselby on Tue, 12/17/2024 - 12:53am.

sticky floors, the smell of pools of stale beer and urine.

Whether a bucket of blood or not, dive status requires a quantum of déclassé clients. In Boston and Cambridge, that means not entirely full of students and regularly employed people.

By Chris77 on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 6:40pm.

I was at MIT from 1985 to 1990 and hung out at Father's Fore quite a lot(drinking and darts). It later became the Cambridgeport Saloon, then was eventually torn down for new construction. Other places I visited between there and Harvard Square included the Hong Kong, the Bow and Arrow, John Harvard's, the Boathouse, the Piccadilly Filly, the Red Line, the Plough, Drumlin's, the Cellar, the Field, the Cantab, the Middle East, the Phoenix Landing(soccer!), the Miracle of Science, etc. Some may or may not have been dives, but Father's definitely was. I've been to Sullivan's Tap hundreds of times, but only when hockey games are taking place at the Garden. I currently live a short walk from Buff's Pub in Newton Corner, a very popular neighborhood place(Tuukka loves it). Do today's Harvard students gravitate to any bars? Do they hang out at Felipe's?

By deselby on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 8:56pm.

Father's Four. The ten cent hotdogs on Saturdays, and what? 50 cent pint bottles of Knickerbocker? Might have been a dollar, but they also had dollar pitchers back when.

Could fairly meet the definition of a dive, despite the presence of MIT students. Dark wood paneling was exquisite.

I always think of the bar scene in Good Will Hunting as being at the Bow and Arrow.

By Pete Nice on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 9:37am.

Something else though that imo determines what a "dive bar" is in 2024. Just think of all these places that get 500K renovations only to go out of business in a few months? Dive bars simply don't renovate. I also think this is why Boston is so expensive across the board right now. It seems that places did not get renovated from 1965 to 2005. Then in 2005 everywhere got a 500K+ facelift except for the "dive bars".

By Frelmont on Sun, 12/15/2024 - 1:25pm.

A little soul.

The last few vestiges of soul are being wrung out of Harvard Square. Its decline into gentrified corporate trash past the tipping point and hit critical mass some twenty years ago and it’s only a transit hub for me now. So many memories. Dates, drinks, movies, music, jobs, cafes…

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By Bob Leponge on Mon, 12/16/2024 - 12:29am.

Among many wonderfully quirky things about Harvard Square dives, was that Cronin’s was where the local Mensa chapter met. (Never been to a Mensa meeting, but I did go to Cronin’s from time to time.)