“It is unfortunate not to have key marquee retail spaces with a use that would be open the majority of day and night and week-ends,” said John DiGiovanni, president of Trinity Properties, which owns the Garage. “You want to have retail life at signature corners.”

But DiGiovanni reasoned that if the Square could not support the banks they would close.

“Things change over a [long] period of time,” said DiGiovanni, who is also the president of the Harvard Square Business Association. “At the end of the day the consumer will choose what stays and what goes.”

Representatives of two long-time denizens of the Square—Cambridge Trust and Cambridge Savings—said that they were unconcerned with competition from the new Sovereign and Citizens.

“It’s always been a competitive market,” said Robert Siegrist, the marketing director at Cambridge Trust Bank.

Cambridge Savings even owns the building that one of the new banks on the block is moving into, according to Cox, the marketing director for Cambridge Savings.

It was not Cambridge Savings’ idea, however, to have a competitor move in.

When Abercrombie & Fitch moved out, it transferred the remainder of its lease to Citizens.

“Everything took place between those two organizations,” Cox said.

Robin Lapidus, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association said the glut of banks was just a sign of the times.

“People expect [the Square] to be a Williamsburg, Virginia,” Lapidus said. “[But] it’s America and it’s capitalism — what are you going to do?”

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.