Friday, April 26, 2024

The Kendall Band art installation, called Pythagoras, is working again at the Kendall Square T stop. (Photos: Marc Levy)

The Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop is open at 1380 Massachusetts Ave., in Harvard Square, once the home of the poet Anne Bradstreet.

Well in time for summer tourism and somewhat-permanent enjoyment by residents, the musical installation is working again at the Kendall Square T stop — celebrated with a 2 p.m. Saturday display — and Pinkberry is open in Harvard Square.

The Kendall Band, called Pythagoras and well described by NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer as “an elaborate system of pipes, mallets and hammers connected to a network of rods, cables and gears,” makes pleasing tones when caused to swing by bored commuters working a lever on the train platform. It’s been missing for years, but students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calling themselves the MIT Kendall Band Preservation Society, and empowered by sculptor Paul Matisse (grandson of Henri Matisse), have been working for months to fix and reinstall it.

Two T stops away, Pinkberry is open and serving about a year later than expected — a starting point for what is quickly becoming an unofficial walk of Harvard Square desserts. Head down Massachusetts Avenue from Pinkberry and you’ll come across ice cream shop J.P. Licks (1312 Massachusetts Ave.), Cambridge-based frozen yogurt shop Berryline (3 Arrow St.) and, apparently by July 1, although its opening also is off by six months, will be Zinneken’s Belgian waffles (1154 Massachusetts Ave.).

Visitors to the frozen yogurt shop should keep an eye out for the plaque identifying the address as the home of Simon Bradstreet (1603-97), a founder of Cambridge, and poet Anne Bradstreet (1612-72), identified as “the first American woman writer.” So they can get some dead culture while eating some live cultures.