The Portland Loo Comes to Harvard Square

There goes the neighborhood... Harvard Square has been famously without public restrooms for decades. Now we're getting a Portland Loo.

The new loo is located in MacArthur Square, the traffic island between Harvard Yard, the Old Burial Ground, Flagstaff Park, and Cambridge Common on Massachusetts Avenue at the north end of Harvard Square. It's taken 22 months to bring the project to fruition from when it was first reported in February 2014.

The facility will be especially convenient to the folks who like to camp in Flagstaff Park or Cambridge Common during the warmer months, which is to say it may not prove to be terribly convenient for the rest of us. I didn't see as many of them this past summer, maybe they were run off Flagstaff Park by the mosquitoes:

Where to go next? According to the city's 2013 "When outdoors in Cambridge, where have you experienced the greatest need for public toilets?" survey, the next place we might expect a Portland Loo to go up would be along along the equally mosquito-infested left bank of the Charles River. You read it here first.

Davis Square Will Keep Its Meat Market, But Will It Keep McKinnon's?

McKinnon's in Davis Square, Somerville was closed Christmas Day, so Jim's notice in the window that "there is NO TRUTH to the rumor that McKinnon's is closing" wasn't entirely true. Where are us Scrooges expected to buy turkeys if the market is closed on Christmas Day?

I hadn't heard the rumors, but reportedly there was a bankruptcy filing at the end of November. That could just be a reorganization that let's them remain in business, we'll see. Between public works and new buildings, there has been a lot of disruptive construction across both Cambridge and Somerville that can't be good for small local businesses.