A CHANGE OF PACE

Corcoran says that throughout the Square, traffic was light enough that cars could park perpendicular to the side of the road.

A policeman stationed in a tall booth at the center of the square directed vehicular and passenger traffic.

“If you were jaywalking a cop would yell at you with a loudspeaker: ‘Hey You!’ I remember that,” says Charles Sullivan of the Cambridge Historical Commission.

Now, the policeman who presided over the simple intersection of a two-lane Mass Ave. with JFK St. (then Boylston St.) has been replaced by an elaborate apparatus of traffic lights and beeping, countdown crosswalk signals.

As part of the expansion of the Red Line, which was completed in 1984, the connection between Mass. Ave. and Brattle St. was filled in and became part of the Pit. The “Harvard Square” cap of the former entrance to the subway was removed, salvaged, and now adorns the top of Out of Town News.

Markarian says that in a way the Square of the 1950s, which did not cater as much to out of towners, was more relaxed.

“It was laid back—in all kinds of weather you would see Harvard people walking around eating ice cream cones,” he says.

“For me it certainly was the golden day,” says Solano. “Very high energy. At the same time everything seemed very quiet until the late 50s...It was a very colorful place.”

But quieter—street musicians were illegal.

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