Tag Archives: lifestyle

So far, so fun for Cambridge’s version of Bourbon Street

28 Jun

Special open container zones and extended hours for alcohol service have drawn crowds for World Cup watch parties, but not complaints. Central Square’s happens Friday afternoon.

From the Tartan Army to the Tall Ships,  Cambridge is a prime beneficiary of the legislative mouthful called the Act Authorizing Municipalities to Opt-In to a Temporary Pilot to Extend the Hours of Liquor Licenses and to Allow for Public Consumption in Designated Districts in Summer 2026. Maybe we can just call it Bourbon Street comes to Boston.

Cambridge was first to sign up after Gov. Maura Healey signed the bill earlier this month, giving municipalities the opportunity to extend bar and restaurant last calls by one hour (but no later than 3 a.m.) and allow participating establishments to offer to-go alcohol that can be consumed on the street in designated social districts.

The city saw it as dovetailing with the Cambridge United initiative to host soccer watch parties throughout the city for each match held at Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium (Boston Stadium is its name for the duration of the World Cup).

The pilot period started June 12 and runs through the end of July, intentionally spanning the World Cup and the arrival of the Sail Boston Tall Ships.

Somerville, meanwhile, allowed the extended last call hour, but did not enact designated public drinking districts, saying the city was not laid out in a way that made sense from logistical point of view.

Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

Harvard Square sees the light again

5 Dec

By Tom Meek

Friday, December 5, 2025

The restored lighting at the Christian Science Reading Room on Church Street in Cambridge’s Harvard Square.

A burst of brightness came to a gloomy stretch of Church Street last month as the Christian Science Reading Room restored soft white art deco lighting absent from the building’s facade for decades.
The lights returned to Church Street, across from the long-dormant AMC Loews Harvard Square, at a Nov. 7 unveiling. Pictures of the alluring illumination have become a slow-trending wave on local social media.

“Now when you see it, it catches your eye,” said Jason Fredette of Poyant Signs, the New Bedford company that restored the lighting over nine months. “The building looks totally different.”
The first structure at the site was a blacksmith shop in the late 1800s, later a veterinary practice. That became mixed retail at the turn of the century as Harvard Square became more thickly settled and the subway arrived in 1912, said Cambridge Historical Commission executive director Charles Sullivan. The 23 Church St. structure was razed in favor of the current one-story 1936 art deco design by architect William Laurence Galvin as a new, upscale home for Cambridge Gas and Electric Light Co.

Continue reading →

Tags: , ,