Harvard Square

The Chicago Tribune today provides the ultimate stupid tourist's guide to Cambridge. Full of helpful advice (never lick the statue of John Harvard; look both ways before you cross the street and don't worry if the locals think you're a dweeb), the story also advises you not to bother staking out Gates's house because you'll have much better luck stalking him at his favorite burger joint.

Thanks to Monique for forwarding this.

Photos from:

• Zombie Walk in Salem
• World War II airfield battle reenactment in Stow
• Oktoberfest in Harvard Square (more

Just a dad carrying a tuckered daughter after some fun along the Charles near Harvard Square yesterday, as captured by Kate Mitchell.

Copyright Kate Mitchell. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

Matt O'Malley photographs a guy holding a sign reading "Tell me off!! $1."

Faculty Meeting Lacks Usual Cookies (no, that is not an Onion headline):

The first Faculty meeting of the year kicked off without a regular staple: cookies to complement professors' tea and coffee.

"This is the first time in modern times with no cookies," Faculty Council member Harry R. Lewis '68 said as he held a white mug of tea. "We are sharing the pain with the undergraduates."

Right at rush hour at Harvard. Are you having fun yet? Jamie Thompson tweets it took her 40 minutes to get from Davis to South Station.

The Crimson reports the unidentified man was mugged at Eustis and Oxford streets around 10:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Only in Harvard Square.

So 20-25 minute delays between Harvard and Park Street, the T says.

Or longer, Dan Dunn says:

After 15 minutes of "moving shortly" announcments now says "in 20 minutes". Stuck at Porter.

Two disabled trains on the Red Line, though? Jesanut wonders:

Why is there a disabled train at Broadway? MBTA, why??

Korri Leigh Crowley photographed Christos Soillis at work at his Felix Shoe Repair in Harvard Square. Soillis bought the shop in 1969 after immigrating from Greece. Crowley say: "Christos and his leather work are an integral part of the diverse fabric of Harvard Square."

Copyright Korri Leigh Crowley. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

There's a wonderful headline in the Crimson today: Harvard Students Remain Largely Unaware of a String of Violent Crimes in Boston:

... [A]nother student, Elizabeth H. Thompson '12, when informed of the incidents, said, "I've walked into Boston at night once or twice and I probably wouldn't do that anymore." ...

Jack Shafer examines the way media from all over loves them some good Ivy murder sagas - the Globe has already run six stories on that recent Yale murder case:

... Had the Le murder happened at, say, Oklahoma State University, you'd have to bribe the night editor of the New York Times with a case of scotch and Hasty Pudding tickets to get him to run a one-inch wire story. Hell, a Stanford murder wouldn't warrant this sort of coverage! ...

The Crimson reports on the death of the Dunster Street ice creamery.

Above: Trying to bring order to chaos outside a shut Downtown Crossing station tonight. Below: Smoke fills the Downtown Crossing station before it was evacuated. Both photos part of 16WadeSt's subway meltdown collection. Also see: Photo of people being evacuated from a Red Line train.

Husband called to say he'll be late because the Red Line is down.

Watch where you walk these days, or you might be inadvertently immortalized on film, as Kevin James and a few dozen of his closest friends film "The Zookeeper" in the Public Garden and Back Bay (via Hub on Location), and Ben Affleck and his sweetie Jennifer Garner draw crowds and snarl the snarled traffic in Harvard Square while filming "The Town" (via

16WadeSt was in Harvard Square this afternoon, reports:

A band of drummers, horn players, and cheerleaders played a rollicking series of surprise shows around Harvard Square this afternoon. I don't know who they were or what it was all about, but it was GREAT. I think this guy was the ringleader.

Copyright 16WadeSt. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Crimson reports on the religion professor taking advantage of a centuries-old clause in his contract to graze a cow on Harvard land.

27.3%, or $11 billion, in a year, the Harvard Crimson reports.

The boys are back in town. Wicked Local Cambridge reports on an alleged run-in between some Harvard lads and the local constabulary.

The Crimson accepted money to run a week's worth of Holocaust denial ads, but pulled them after the frist day because of protests from, among others, students whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust. The paper's president said the ad wasn't supposed to run and apologized.

The Crimson reports Harvard's IT department is getting rid of a dial-up modem pool that a few professors and staff members still used to access online university resources, such as e-mail. The savings are "substantial," the paper reports.

Alana notes that Harvard Extension School is offering a course this semester on blogging:

... Readings cover the best (and worst) of political, art, lifestyle, and personal blogs, and students practice writing in each of these genres. Students learn the ins and outs of the technical side of blogging including graphics and layout, interpreting traffic data, selling advertising, and building an audience. This course emphasizes the excellent writing and organizational skills that a compelling blog requires, and prepares students for careers as creative journalists or successful freelancers in the digital world.

It's $1,100 if you want the credits for undergraduate work; $1,800 if you're going for a graduate degree.

Wicked Local Cambridge reports on a beating outside Cardullo's on Monday night that started when a guy watching the game on TV in the store window there asked them to move their bikes from in front of the TV.

No attendants and all the gates open at Kenmore around 3:30 p.m.

All the gates stuck on open at Harvard, around 4:45 p.m.

It seems like each four minutes there's a new event happening in Boston proper or across the river where I sit typing right now.

These events range from knitting circles to test drive tweetups, and the thing these events have in common is that they're increasingly organized via social media tools.

So imagine my surprise when I found out this morning in one of the first sessions at the Social Technology and Education Conference at Harvard University, that this very conference was completely organized without any traditional marketing.