Old school New England 92 - Scanorama

PERFECT HARVARD
Student digs: Harvard Yard’s Matthews Hall and Hollis Hall
1. The walk
The Harvard campus is open to the
public during the day. Walk down Mill
Street and Dunster Street and check out
campus life at the student dormitories –
at least from the outside. Facebook’s
founder Mark Zuckerberg lived in the
Kirkland House on Dunster Street
although The Social Network was shot
elsewhere. If you see people touching
the foot of the John Harvard statue for
luck, don’t follow suit. At night, Harvard
students – so studious and well behaved
during the day – drop their pants and
pee on it. The Harvard Information
Center does guided campus tours.
Holyoke Center Arcade. 1350 Massa -
chusetts Avenue. Tel: +1 617 495 1573.
www.harvard.edu
2. The class
Harvard teems with high-profile professors
and guest speakers. Walter Isaacson,
author of Steve Jobs, the authorized
biography of the late Apple CEO, stops
by at winter break to teach a class on
“how to write.” The Harvard School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences has
had Ferran Adrià of El Bulli in to chat
about molecular gastronomy. And that
crimson piece of fabric that snapped
around the corner was not a research
graduate student but the Dalai Lama.
Some talks are open to the public. Check
the events calendar at the Office for the
Arts at Harvard or the Harvard Gazette,
the university’s official newspaper.
Harvard Gazette
www.news.harvard.edu
Office for the Arts at Harvard
www.ofa.fas.harvard.edu
3. The exhibit
The Glass Flowers at the Har vard
Museum of Natural History might be
the world’s most exquisitely crafted
teaching aid. This permanent collection
consists of thousands of anatomically
correct models of plants made entirely
from glass by Leopold Blaschka and his
son, Rudolph. The German glass artists
spent 50 years molding delicate petals,
tufts of bluets, and shimmering lily pads
for Harvard’s botany classes.
26 Oxford Street. Open daily 9am-5pm.
www.hmnh.harvard.edu
The Glass Flowers,
Harvard Museum of
Natural History
4. The bookstore
Looking at the brightly lit window
displays of glistening books, you can’t be
sure if this is a celebration of American
words or graphic design. The Harvard
Book Store makes you forget your
Kindle and appreciate weight. This
independent bookstore has supplied
students with textbooks since 1932.
Today, alongside the classics and
academic texts, its book tables sum up
most dinner party conversations in
town. Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk,
Salman Rushdie, and Stephen King have
all participated in the weekly readings.
Bargain, used and print-on-demand
books (almost five million titles) can
be found in the basement. It even does
same-day deliveries of books to your
picnic blanket. It’s often a good idea to
ask one of the salesclerks reading behind
the counter if you can have whatever
they are having.
1256 Massachusetts Avenue. Tel: +1 617
661 1515. www.harvard.com �
94 DECEMBER 2011/JANUARY 2012 SCANORAMA