 |
| Harvard Square |
I do remember the Harvard Coop (pronounced like a chicken coop): a large, four story bookstore of joy and wonder (the folks who are in the crosswalk in the above photo are facing the Harvard Coop). The Coop has a great book selection and knowledgeable employees. The Coop sponsors events and activities, they sell board games, they have a really cute children book's section downstairs, and there's a cafe on the third floor.
I had assumed that everyone who goes to the Coop is in the place because of all these wonderful features. Browsing a large bookstore in a beautiful building with marble floors is a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Heck, it's a wonderful way to spend many an afternoon! You would assume wrong. The Coop is most well known for having one of the only usable bathrooms in Harvard Square. They have always been reasonably clean when I went in, and there's always a line of at least three people. Even the men's room is less disgusting than I had expected. Yes, I have been in the men's room. When there's a super-long line for the women's bathroom and nobody is using the men's bathroom, I will go into it. They are single-occupancy bathrooms so I won't be making any men uncomfortable. As with the majority of men's rooms, the area surrounding the toilet tends to be a bit... moister.. than the women's room, but other than that, the bathroom is well kept and clean.
that they have a bathroomI love going to Harvard Square for a cup of tea. Tealuxe is a delightful, tiny teashop that won't let you use their bathroom. So what's a woman full of tea supposed to do? When you ask, the employees suggest you visit the Harvard Coop.
If I owned or managed the Coop, I'd be pretty annoyed. In 2014, Boston.com reported that between eight and ten million visitors go to Harvard Square each year. That's a lot of potty breaks running through the Coop - it's really impressive that they keep two single-occupancy bathrooms so clean and well maintained! Even with that many people in the area it's never once been out of toilet paper when I stopped by.
I almost always attempt to give the Coop business when I run over to pee, but honestly, I don't buy something every time. The last two times I was there I fell for books whose fonts were so small that I couldn't purchase them.
There are other businesses with usable bathrooms, but I have only been to two others who 'fessed up to having bathrooms for customer use - Peet's and Crema Cafe (both coffee shops, but I recommend Crema because they have a better selection of everything and a really nice sized menu).
10 comments:
Omg! It's true, so true! I even had a dream about running through Harvard square in need of a bathroom. Unfortunately, I forgot about the coop!
Glad to refresh your memory, Lovely Laila, since you're about to have another Boston-area visit and will be in the Harvard Square vicinity again. I'm going to make sure we have much easier to answer trivia questions. The lit trivia we picked up at Black Ink in Harvard Square were awesome, but only our waitress was knowledgeable enough to answer them! Maybe she went to Harvard.
I came across your blog through Notebook Stories and this post made me smile! I had a similar experience with the restrooms at The Coop. There was almost always a long line of women to the women's room, and on several occasions I had fearlessly cut the line and used the men's room instead (I remember the women gave me funny glances, but the bathroom is a single room so I don't see why both men and women can't use it). The last time I was there, a man browsing in the foreign books section behind the restrooms opened the emergency door and set off a loud alarm and it was quite funny because there were so many people waiting to pee they had to close their ears with their fingers...the man, of course, sneaked away without getting noticed when security came up about a half hour later....
Please tell me you're exaggerating and that it didn't really take security thirty minutes to get to the third floor!
eh eh, it sure did feel like it was that long at the time :-)
Everything seems to take forever when in line at the Coop! I wonder why the Coop is so willing to let everybody use their bathroom. They must be paying the water and cleaning and TP bill. I'm not complaining, though. I tried to use the train station bathroom once. I couldn't even get all the way into the room before I backed out and ran away.
I think it's mainly because it is a high traffic area and there are no other bathrooms available, except for the cafe and restaurants. I live in Boston too :-)
Oh, I know why everyone uses the Coop, but what I don't understand is why all the other places can just say, "Nope, we don't have a bathroom - go bother some other business." Even the tea shop that purposes fills us up so that we have to go hunt some other business down.
I like the Boston area :-)
I wonder if it's because the staff at the Coop don't ask people where they are going, whereas in other places people specifically ask the staff where the bathroom is and they have that option to say no. I've seen that in Starbucks throughout, especially the one by the garden downtown, I've had staff tell me you can't use their restroom unless you are a customer...
Boston is great :-) I like how everything I need is within walking or train distance, and I can go from a busy city environment to a walk in a forest within minutes.
I like the same thing about the Boston area! I do have trouble getting to some locations because they'll be three miles away, but I've got to take a V to get there so it's 1.5 hour via public transport (try getting from Watertown to Waltham on a weekend). Overall, though, it's great. I sold my car!
A lot of the Starbucks locations along the redlines require a code to get into the bathroom, and when I asked for the code once I was asked to see my receipt when I asked for the code. I think that was somewhere around Porter... I can't remember where it was.
Post a Comment