Harvard Square Subway Kiosk
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Harvard Square Subway Kiosk
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Out of Town News in the Harvard Square Subway Kiosk in 2011
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| Location | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°22′24.9″N 71°7′08.3″W / 42.373583°N 71.118972°WCoordinates: 42°22′24.9″N 71°7′08.3″W / 42.373583°N 71.118972°W |
| Area | 500 square feet (46 m2) |
| Built | February 1928 |
| Architect | C.B. Breed |
| NRHP Reference # | 78000441 |
| Added to NRHP | January 30, 1978 |
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[update], the City of Cambridge (which owns the structure) may convert it for public use.
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.
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