In an oversize horizontal format (12.5x10" showcasing packed-in page design (the effect is lively, if a bit jumpy), each page features several captioned photos or a big full-page photo--of people (in their changing modes of dress over the years) and locations and businesses, with lettered references to maps. Intertwined are chunks of text--some describing the ambience, some setting the cultural context, and others (like the contributions from John Updike, Bill McKibben, Tom Rush, and several others) offering personal memories. Each decade through 2000 has its own chapter, and the final pages offer "bonus" material about the Square's present and future. The author is an enthusiastic denizen of the Square. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
What do Barack Obama, Samuel Beckett, Fidel Castro, Joan Baez, Conan O’Brien, Natalie Portman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower have in common? Their footsteps have all crossed paths in Harvard Square. This well-trod patch of Cambridge turf at the corner of the United States’ most renowned university has long been a crossroads where poetry, retailing, politics, design, performance, and every other cultural endeavor intersect.
From the square’s tweedy aspect in the 1950s through its many transformations in the ’60s,’70s, and beyond, author Mo Lotman gives a decade-by-decade account of Harvard Square’s history, traditions, and lore. The bookstores, the billiard parlors, the barbershops, the booze and burger joints: they’re all here. Based on interviews with more than a hundred of the square’s denizens, illustrated with archival photographs, and graced with texts by John Updike, Bill McKibben, Governor Bill Weld, and others, Harvard Square brings “the smartest urban space in America” to vivid life.
