Original station Horse-drawn omnibus service between
Harvard Square in
Cambridge and downtown Boston began in 1826. The hourly service soon increased to ten-minute headways to meet demand. On March 26, 1856, the
Cambridge Railroad began
horse-drawn tram service between Harvard Square and
Bowdoin Square— the first such service in the Boston area. After debate about running an elevated line above business districts in Cambridge, the BERy agreed in late 1906 to build a line under
Beacon Hill in Boston, over a new
West Boston Bridge, and under Main Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge to Harvard Square. The platforms and floors were made of
granolithic. Station walls were tiled with white enamel, with a red tile band above the floor and white plaster above. No longer needing to run to downtown Boston, lines from the north and west were truncated to Harvard Square. The streetcar tunnel served lines to
Watertown,
Waverley Square, Belmont, Huron Avenue, and Arlington Heights via North Cambridge. Some lines were
through-routed: Arlington Heights with Watertown, and North Cambridge line with Waverley and Belmont; the Huron Avenue line terminated at Bennett Yard. Lines to
Lechmere Square,
Kendall Square, and Boston continued to use surface tracks in the square. This lasted until July 8, 1916, when they were cut back to Arlington Heights. By 1922, 104 streetcars per hour (24 single cars and 40 two-car trains) ran northbound through the tunnel during the afternoon peak. At that time, the BERy believed that Harvard would be the permanent terminus; the heavy ridership from the north was expected to be handled by
extending rapid transit from Lechmere Square. Bus routes added in the 1920s and 1930s (including the 1925 conversion of the Harvard-Kendall line) originally stopped on the surface.
Trackless trolleys (trolleybuses) began to use the tunnel with the conversion of the Huron Avenue streetcar line (now route ) on April 2, 1938. (The Harvard–Lechmere line— now route — was converted in 1936, but it continued to run on the surface because of road geometry. Not until spring 1956 were wires reconfigured to allow the line to use the tunnel.) The busy Arlington Heights line (now route ) was converted to surface-stopping diesel buses on November 19, 1955. The MTA replaced
Arborway-based trolleybus lines with diesel buses, then transferred the trolleybuses to replace the Harvard-based streetcars. Some off-peak and Sunday service was replaced in 1956, followed by Cushing Square
short turn service in 1957. (The
College Hill Tunnel, in
Providence, Rhode Island, was used by trackless trolleys from 1948 to 1953, but had no stations. The use of the
Essen premetro subway in Germany by trolleybuses ended in 1995, and the
Kanden Tunnel and
Tateyama Tunnel in Japan were non-urban trolleybus tunnels.) On March 30, 1963, the MTA replaced all remaining trolleybus routes except for the Harvard-based routes with diesel buses. The Harvard tunnel was closed on Sundays, with trolleybuses replaced by diesel buses operating on the surface. In January 1965, catalytic-muffler-equipped diesel buses on route 77 began using the tunnel, followed by route 96 in March 1966.
Maintenance facilities The BERy constructed a pair of rail yards on a site to the southwest of Harvard Square, bordered by Eliot Street, Bennett Street, University Road, Charles River Road, and Boylston Street. Much of the site was occupied by BERy and
West End Street Railway streetcar barns; the area had been used for horsecar facilities since at least 1871. The whole facility covered , including the shop building and the -wide yard. Footings were built between the yard tracks to allow for future
air rights development. The architecture of the station was designed by Robert S. Peabody. BERy also constructed a brick division headquarters building, later known as the
Conductor's Building, in Bennett Alley between the yard and the streetcar tunnel. It is the last remaining aboveground building from the 1912 construction of the Cambridge tunnel. The Harvard Square power station, which was built for streetcars in 1897, was located adjacent to Eliot Shops across Boylston Street. It had a substantial
coal trestle for freight streetcars to deliver coal. A
steam tunnel ran west from the power station under Eliot and Bennett yards, supplying steam power to both. The power station was largely unused by the time it was sold to the university in 1929. Harvard demolished the structure in 1930 in favor of purchasing steam from a Cambridge Electric Light Company plant.
Eliot House opened on the site in 1931. In April 1924, the BERy converted the
East Boston Tunnel (later the
Blue Line) from streetcars to high-platform metro rolling stock. A small maintenance facility was built underground near
Maverick station, but more extensive work was performed at Eliot Shops. Pavement was laid around several tracks in Bennett Yard in 1936 and 1938 for use by trolleybuses. Several yard tracks were removed in 1942 and 1949, the latter to accommodate trolleybuses for the conversion of the
Harvard–Massachusetts line. Until it was reassigned to Reservoir Carhouse in 1940, the
Lake Street line had been based out of Bennett Street, requiring a long deadhead move along Cambridge Street to Lechmere. In June 1964, then-city councilman
Alfred Vellucci proposed to instead locate the library on the site of the Bennett and Eliot railyards, on the northern side of the river. The MTA had begun offering this site for sale the previous year, with Harvard University and several real estate developers developing bids, as the agency planned for a replacement maintenance facility either near
South Station or as part of the planned northwestern Red Line extension. Shortly after being selected as architect in December 1964,
I.M. Pei indicated an interest in the yard site, The sale took place on February 15, 1968, though the MBTA had not yet finalized plans for a replacement. Plans to replace the
Mattapan Line with a Red Line extension and build the new yard at
Mattapan station fell were cancelled in 1969 due to local opposition. The MBTA ultimately purchased land near South Station for its new Red Line maintenance facility in December 1969. However, community opinion had by then turned against placing the library in Harvard Square because of concerns about traffic and crowding; in November 1975, the Kennedy Library Corporation voted to instead place the library at
Columbia Point near
UMass Boston. Eliot Shops closed in 1976, with demolition beginning on December 22. Bennett Yard closed on March 22, 1980, replaced by new maintenance facilities at North Cambridge and
Watertown Yard. In October 1978, the first building of a new
John F. Kennedy School of Government complex opened on the southern half of the site. The new buildings were constructed on fill atop the concrete base of the yard. A single segment of wall reading
BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY CO. 1911 remained in the courtyard of the Kennedy School until a
2015-17 expansion project. The abandoned tunnel to Eliot Shops under Brattle Street is still extant and used for MBTA storage.
Former stations There have been a total of five stations on the Red Line in and around Harvard Square. The original Harvard station was located just east of the current station, and some remains exist. The original station closed permanently on January 30, 1981. The surviving eastern end of the original outbound
side platform, built to accommodate passengers alighting at the former terminus, is still visible from passing trains. The 1945 Coolidge Commission report— the first major transit planning initiative in the region since 1926— recommended an extension from Harvard to Arlington Heights via East Watertown. The 1947 revision recommended an extension north to Porter Square instead, with branches along the
Fitchburg Railroad to Waltham and the
Lexington Branch to Lexington. The 1966
Program for Mass Transportation by the 1964-created
MBTA called for an immediate extension to Alewife Brook Parkway via Porter Square, with possible future extensions to Arlington or Waltham. During the construction of the current Harvard station, two temporary stations were built. "Harvard/Brattle", a temporary station built of
pressure-treated wood, consisted of two
island platforms between three tracks in Eliot Yard, just outside the portal. A $1.4 million construction contract was approved on December 7, 1977, with a groundbreaking ceremony on January 23, 1978. The station was open from March 24, 1979, to September 1, 1983, and was the northern terminus of the Red Line during that period. The main lobby and the new Harvard Square headhouse opened on March 2, 1985. The reconstructed former headhouse was returned to the square and occupied by
Out of Town News in 1984.) Since its reopening, the
Harvard Square Subway Kiosk has been occupied by several different news retailers, until it was rededicated as a public information and art gallery space. The
artworks at Harvard and the three new stations were dedicated on May 3, 1985. The bus platforms had been moved to the south (occupying part of the former tunnel to Eliot Square Shops) and renovated during the six-year closure of the tunnel. The One Brattle Square shopping complex, opened in 1992, was constructed partially on
air rights over the south end of the bus tunnel. Harvard Square was planned to be the terminus of a spur of the
Urban Ring Project, a circumferential
bus rapid transit line. Under draft plans released in 2008, northbound buses would have crossed the
Anderson Memorial Bridge and entered the bus tunnel via Eliot Street, Bennett Street, and Bennett Alley. Southbound buses would have started at the Dawes Island bus stop, then proceeded on the surface on Eliot Street and JFK Street back to the bridge. The project was cancelled in 2010 due to high cost. The MBTA agreed to build a new elevator at the south end of the upper busway at Eliot Square, and to replace the Harvard Square elevator, as part of the 2006 settlement of
Joanne Daniels-Finegold, et al. v. MBTA. Construction of the Eliot Square elevator began in mid-2010. The $4.1 million project, which provided
redundant elevator access to the station, was completed in January 2012. The main elevator in Harvard Square was closed in 2018 for an 18-month replacement with a larger glass elevator. The new elevator, which has copper sheeting on the kiosk, opened on October 31, 2019. A project to make repairs to the deteriorated pavement, replace the trolleybus wire, replace lighting, improve wayfinding, and add automatic doors to the main station took place in 2019 and 2020. On June 23, 2019, the upper busway was temporarily closed; most buses used the lower busway for boarding and surface stops for alighting, while routes 71 and 73 ran on the surface only. The lower busway reopened on November 22, with the upper busway again closed until December 21. Additional closures of the lower busway took place from March 31 to May 2 and June 21 to December 21, 2020, as decreased ridership during the coronavirus pandemic allowed for faster construction. The upper busway was again closed from June 20 to July 29, 2021, with the lower busway then closed until August 29. Trolleybus service ended on March 13, 2022, with routes 71 and 73 rerouted to board in the upper busway. Six of the stations were completed in 2019 and 2020, and designs were completed for Harvard and three others. Construction began at Harvard in early 2020, but was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was not resumed due to a lack of available funding. == Public artwork ==