Christmas Shopping as adventure

Went shopping in Harvard Sq.  Advance work for Christmas.

Parked on Chauncy Street across from Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center.  I couldn’t walk through the Yard because all the entrances required a Harvard identification card because of the Occupy Harvard people.  I walked to Out of Town News and found an unusual magazine.  Then I visited the biggest and latest addition to Harvard Square’s collection of Starbucks.  This unit faces the T stop and is next to Cambridge Savings Bank.  There is another Starbucks on the same block in The Garage, occupying the site of the long vanished and much-missed Coffee Connection.  Across the street from the newest location there is a Starbucks inside The Coop.  There is another Starbucks on Church Street where years ago there was a Steve’s Ice Cream.  There is a Starbucks on Broadway that is popular with people from Cambridge Rindge and Latin as well as the people who work at Harvard’s museums.  Law School students have their own location on Shepherd Street, across Mass. Ave. from Hi Rise.   That’s a lot of burned coffee in one zip code  The new Starbucks is an example of restaurant design and concept that isinspired by nice student centers at big universities.  The second floor there has another coffee station where you can find a Clover machine, not to be confused with the Clover Food Trucks.  A few years ago everyone in the coffee business was enthused about The Clover coffee maker.  It was the future and if you didn’t buy one you’d be left behind on the scrapheap of history.  But the company that manufactured them was purchased by Starbucks and suddenly no ambitious coffee shop wanted one.  They may not have been able to buy one.  But suddenly the went out and now only a few Starbucks still use the machines.  They’re slow and if the barista making what was once considered a perfect cup of coffee is quiet the experience can be off-putting.  I have had very good cups of coffee from Clover machines and interesting interactions with sociable baristas.   Very busy and off to Audio Lab on the second floor of The Garage where Mike the owner helped me guess how to work a small Sony Minidisc player.  Walked downstairs and looked in on that Starbucks.  I walked down Dunster Street and looked into the old Herrell’s ice cream location.  Owner Jessica Leahy waved at me and I went into what will soon be the First Press Cafe.  The name comes because the owner of the first printing press in British North America once lived there.  Like most new and yet-to-open restaurants, everything is perfect.  Soon it will become apparent what spaces are too small and what essential items were overlooked.  First Cafe hopes to open in January.  Next I walked to Holyoke Center, the administration building designed by Jose Sert, with a midblock passage I have often liked.  When I arrived in Boston it was open to the elements a good place for early skateboarders.  Harvard glassed in the space and turned it into an arcade.  The Thomas More Bookshop closed and then so did the Harvard University Press Shop.  One friend insisted whenever he visited Boston that we visit both book stores and the Million Year Picnic comic emporium.  Steve Welch owns Oggi Pizza and Corby Kummer loves Oggi as do many others.  Steve was eating pizza while we talked of the constant churning of restaurant competition in Harvard Square.  I mentioned to him that First Press would open soon and he shrugged.  Finally I visited Clover on Holyoke Street, a large space with a toy train set running endlessly around a loop.  Clover is an attempt to create a vegetarian fast food chain.  This is Clover’s only location but they do have five trucks.  Clover also has great t shirts which they produce in limited editions.  Most people were wearing a simple carrot colored shirt.  I had a good sweet potato sandwich and an enjoyable discussion of Boston’s truck scene, comparing it to the bigger truck and Airstream scene in Austin, Texas.

these days Harvard Square never seems as busy as you remember it being .  I Got back to my car.  There was a $20 parking ticket.  Got back to my house and the foyer was full of online boxes shipped in by UPS and Fedex.


Went shopping in Back Bay.  I like Christmas and within reason I like shopping during the Christmas Season

Back Bay hasn’t been a busy Christmas shopping area for years, unless you work there or live very nearby.  The shops close early and the sidewalks are not crowded by 4PM when the sun begins to set in December.  Louis Boston has moved to what is alternatively known as the Seaport District, the South Boston Seaport, the Innovation District or the area near the Federal Courthouse.  Louis was always expensive and beyond my means but the clothes were often amazing and the people watching was outstanding.  The Zegna shop selling fabuloso Italian clothes might have been even more expensive but that too is gone.  Went to Bilzerian which is small and idiosyncratic and as I tell people often has something wonderful and affordable in the building.  One time I found beautiful slippers for about $20.  At that price one almost doesn’t care if the size is a little tight.

I walked from Berkeley Street to Hereford Street keeping up with a Cayenne armored personal carrier being driven by the worst driver in the city.  She veered from one lane to another in order to read signs that limited parking, all the time driving while talking on her cell phone.  She slowed at whim and cars began to honk at her but when she got to Hereford Street she simply stopped to talk with friends walking across the street.  When all the cars on  the street began to honk she pulled up onto the sidewalk and blithely continued to talk to her friends.  Went in and out of Trident Bookstore Cafe with their great selection of magazines and teas from MEM Tea of Somerville, went in and out of Newbury Comics and then went in Patagonia.   Earlier I had called to be sure that the store had a specific garment and talked with a kind, laid back staffer.  When I got to the store and said “I think you have a garment set aside for me a young mountain man said “That’s cool” and I said “I think I talked to you on the phone.”  After going upstairs and spending time with a sales person who knew everything  about clothing design I went back downstairs where the first guy, who I had begun to think of as Cookie Monster, or maybe Carrot Monster, helped me put together a sweater and waterprooof shell that worked together at a good price. 

I Got back to my legally parked car in front of a former public school that had been converted to retail.    There was a ticket for parking in a space marked No Parking Before  4PM.  The ticket was issued at 435PM.  I used a little camera to photograph the sign but I suspect that this will require a trip to Boston’s City Hall, or Silly Hall.