Harvard Book Store announced on Monday “a new chapter” in its 94-year history in the construction of a second store – opening in the fall in Boston, near historic Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.
The new store, at at 33 Union St., will occupy 3,500 square feet in the Yankee Publishing Building in Boston’s Blackstone Block, the city’s oldest commercial district, Harvard Book Store said in a press release.
The release emphasized the storied past of its location along the Freedom Trail:
The Blackstone Block, our store’s neighborhood, is named after the man who owned the largest library in early New England. The great colonial radical publication, The Massachusetts Spy, was published just a few doors down. Built in 1874, the building formerly housed offices of Yankee Magazine, and the iconic “Yankee Publishing Building” sign remains in place. Our new store is just a half mile from Elizabeth Peabody’s renowned bookshop, where Margaret Fuller, editor of the Transcendentalist journal The Dial held her famous “Conversations.”
It’s the store’s second attempt at a Boston location after looking at expanding into the Prudential Center. That effort was announced in 2022 and ended in 2023 with rising construction costs and Covid-era supply chain problems, said Jeffrey Mayersohn, a co-owner of the shop with wife Linda Seamonson since 2008. A dozen years later, a stake in the store was sold to Boston Red Sox and The Boston Globe owner John Henry.
Ending the earlier attempt at expansion allowed the store to put more resources into its Cambridge location at 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, across from Harvard Yard, which paid off.
“To be clear, our flagship store in Cambridge isn’t changing. It will continue to offer the same extraordinary combination of academic and popular books, customer service, author talks and community engagement that has made it a destination for book lovers from around the world,” the store said in its press release.
But “opening a store in Boston proper has been a dream of Harvard Book Store for many years. We’re now confident that dream will become a reality.”
Rode Architects has designed the space and construction has begun. The Boston location will offer many of the same services as in Cambridge and “a few additions”: a dedicated children’s area and a 1,500-square-foot café area run by Lakon Paris Patisserie in an adjoining space. “We will also offer wine at book talks and other events,” according to the press release.
The expansion is made possible by good times for independent book sellers and, “in part, an affirmation of the critical role that independent bookstores play in supporting the free expression of ideas, through public discourse and the printed word, at a time when such discourse faces increasing challenges,” the release said. “We hope, when visiting either store, you will experience that commitment.”
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