--to create an active people oriented space;

--to encourage the development of new mixed income housing.

Although the plan still requires the formal recommendation of the Cambridge City Council, Central Square is already undergoing urban revitalization. The two most visible improvements are the renovation of the Central Square T Station and the Central Square Enhancement Project.

The state of Massachusetts and the federal government spent more than $11 million to completely renovate the underground subway station. In addition to providing subway riders with expanded train platforms, the MBTA also improved surface transit by restructuring the bus stop area along Western Avernue. Bus riders now enjoy benches and weather protection in Central Square.

"The city has been saying all along that Central Square must be made more attractive," says Catharine Woodbury, a city planner and a staffer on the city's Central Square Subcommittee. To that end, the city, along with the state's Department of Environmental Management, contributed $1.5 million to spruce up the sidewalks at the triangle which connects Western Avenue and River Street to Central Square.

"We widened the sidewalk, greened the traffic island, and placed a park where a gas station used to be," Woodbury says. Also, the city contributed to a newly opened housing project in the area which will provide a home for middle and lower income families, she adds.

Woodbury insisted, however, that all renovation and beautification projects will not infringe upon the integrity of the square.

"Central Square has its own character and uniqueness that people around there like. While Harvard Square relies on students and the tourist trade, Central Square is a neighborhood shopping center," the city planner says.

Deputy City Manager Richard Rossi, who chaired the original Central Square Committee in 1983, says that community leaders were most concerned then with crime, street people, and garbage removal. "One of the things we needed to do was coordinate city, non-profit, and commercial leaders in the area," Rossi says.

As a result of the committee's recommendation, the police added more personnel to the Central Square beat and the department started keeping better crime statistics, Rossi says. Like Woodbury, Rossi insists that "the whole thrust was not to change Central Square but to make it more appealing for those who already live there."

Rossi says that the committee proposed a cap on the number of liquor licenses and the number of fast-food operations. "If you go back five or six years, neighborhood stores went out of business and were replaced by fast food places. We want to reverse that," Rossi said.

Improving Business

One merchant not driven out of business is David Galgay, owner of Galgay the Florist, a Central Square establishment since 1919. Galgay says that subway renovations ruined business in Central Square for four years. "People avoided the square like the plague," says Galgay. "Once they clean up this area, business will improve," Galgay adds.

Henry Carter, manager of Surman's Men's Clothing Store is more skeptical. "There is always an element of the population that avoids areas in transition," says Carter who said that the renovations might not help, but that to be against the improvements was to be against progress.

Surman's did not increase its inventory for the holiday season. "We didn't have any indication that business would be stronger," says Carter, adding that he was more concerned with the strength of the overall economy than with subway renovations.