HLS in Focus

I really enjoy living just outside Boston, with easy subway access to all the culture, food, and entertainment of a city that size. Long weekends and the odd school holiday when I don’t head home to Texas make great opportunities to shop, eat out, attend festivals on Boston Common, or spend time on the beaches of the North Shore. In a city with so much history, there’s no shortage of things to do.  

Realistically, though, a rigorous schedule of HLS classes and extracurricular activities can make it hard for students to find time to visit Boston as often as we’d like. So we’re lucky that Cambridge offers plenty of things to do without so much time spent in transit.  

First off, there’s always the option to eat out. The variety of places here is great—I live next to a great Indian place and an acclaimed tapas bar, and just steps from the Law School are a tasty sandwich shop, a Starbucks and a Berryline, and a restaurant and bar called Cambridge Common that’s especially popular with students. In nearby Harvard Square are dozens of restaurants ranging from an Au Bon Pain and the local pizza chain Upper Crust to pub fare at Grendel’s Den and Grafton Street and upscale Asian at Om.  

Plus, there are three ice cream places in the Square alone (I think it really says something that my favorite, JP Licks, gives my hometown’s famed Amy’s Ice Creams a run for its money!) And in every direction there are small sandwich and coffee shops more appealing to the student schedule and budget than a big dinner out. Two of my personal favorites are The Biscuit and Darwin’s Ltd.  

As a big moviegoer coming from the city the best theater in America, I especially appreciate having multiple ways to catch a movie without heading into Boston. Harvard Square has a Loews theater showing five or six mainstream movies at a time, just blocks from school. There’s also the quirky Brattle Theatre, which charges a little less, serves local beer, and offers balcony seating at its screenings of older movies and art films. And just a short bus ride away, near MIT, is the art house Kendall Square Cinema where I saw most of last year’s Oscar nominees.  

The nightlife here is also decent, with a good number of bars and clubs within walking or bus distance of the Law School. Our social organizations have a lot of events at Redline and the Irish pub Tommy Doyle’s, but I prefer the chill atmosphere and cheap (Harvard-subsidized!) prices at the Cambridge Queen’s Head on campus.  

This is such a partial list of my own favorites that I really suggest checking out http://www.harvardsquare.com/ for even more things an HLS student can do with just a few free hours at a time. There’s shopping, theatre, live music, public events, and a lot more to eat and drink. Better yet, that site covers just one small part of this “City of Squares.” Porter, Inman, Central, and many others each have their own unique character and make quick, easy outings to blow off some of that law school steam.

- Lea