What should Harvard Square’s KiOSK be? A new residency model revives an old debate

On a recent Wednesday evening, a handful of strangers sat around a table inside the Harvard Square KiOSK, cutting up old magazines and turning the scraps into postcards. The free workshop, organized by local artist Missy Arellano, was one of five weekly sessions hosted this fall by the Radical Collage Collective, a group she founded.

Among those who wandered in was Dawn Akers, who remembered visiting the building as a child with her grandmother to pick out newspapers from Out of Town News. For Akers, the gathering recalled the sense of community she remembered from those days. “We’re still having that kind of camaraderie of community and people still utilizing this space,” Akers said. “This gives it a new history.”

More than a year after the renovated KiOSK reopened as a shared cultural space and visitor information center, the question of what that new history should look like remains unsettled. CultureHouse, the nonprofit hired by the city to operate and program the space, is preparing to overhaul its approach with a new series of 10-week seasonal residencies. This comes after an experimental first year that its own staff acknowledges sometimes left visitors confused about what the KiOSK was.

The change also comes after criticism from some city councillors and the Harvard Square Business Association, who argue the problem runs deeper than CultureHouse’s programming. They question the city’s decision to ask the tiny former newsstand to serve simultaneously as a cultural venue, community gathering place and home to the Cambridge Office for Tourism’s visitor information center. That combination comes with restrictions on programming while tourism volunteers are present.

CultureHouse says the residency model is, in part, a response to criticism. “We are always listening to the community around us about what’s working and what’s not,” CultureHouse community engagement director Paxtī Martinez said. “Our response to that critical feedback is this new model.”

Finding the right rhythm

CultureHouse KiOSK manager Cleo Brigham described the KiOSK’s first year as a deliberate experiment, cycling through exhibitions, performances, workshops and other programming. “There were a lot of really big successes, and there were also a lot of things that fell flat,” Brigham said. “The space was changing all the time, and it kept the space dynamic, but it also led to a little bit of this inconsistent and disjointed feeling.”

The residency model is intended to replace some of that churn with a more recognizable rhythm. Each season will have its own theme, with CultureHouse selecting an individual artist or collective to transform the KiOSK with an installation that remains for 10 weeks, alongside a broader group of creative residents who will host workshops, performances and other programming. The remaining 12 weeks of the year will be used to remove old installations, select new residents and prepare the next exhibitions. Brigham said the longer stretches will allow artists to make more ambitious use of the space while giving visitors a clearer sense of what they are walking into.

The first residency, scheduled for this winter, is themed “Mycorrhiza: Unseen Connections,” a reference to the symbiotic relationships between fungi and plant roots. “Mycorrhiza is the point of connection between the fungal network and an individual plant or tree,” Martinez said. “So the KiOSK, we’re hoping, is that point of connection between that larger network that makes Cambridge so rich.”

Whose KiOSK is it anyway?

Whether more consistent programming can resolve the KiOSK’s larger challenges depends on what one thinks the problem is in the first place.

Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association (HSBA), said her criticism is aimed not at CultureHouse or the Office for Tourism, but at the city’s vision for the building. “The city’s vision is different from our vision, and our vision is one where that structure is used to promote the district and promote the community,” Jillson said.

The HSBA previously sought to operate the KiOSK but withdrew its most recent application after Jillson concluded it could not comply with the city’s requirements that the space be shared with the Office for Tourism.

The city specified that while tourism staff or volunteers are present, programming must maintain clear sightlines and remain at a “conversational noise level.” Those restrictions do not apply when the tourism desk is closed.

For Jillson, that distinction misses the larger point: the visitor information center should not be inside the KiOSK at all. “I think the space belongs to the public,” Jillson said. “It shouldn’t be an office, because in an office it’s appropriate that you’re at conversation level, and I’m saying that that’s just an inappropriate use for the kiosk.”

That view is shared by city councillor Marc McGovern. He said Harvard Square has lost much of the spontaneous street life he remembers from earlier decades, when his family could head there without plans and encounter singers, jugglers and other street performers. “That’s gone. That does not exist in Harvard Square anymore,” McGovern said. “Having, in the center of the square, a structure that is subdued and quiet and not lively and not exciting and not loud and drawing people in, that’s the wrong vision, in my opinion.”

McGovern said even a successful seasonal residency risks becoming something residents visit once before waiting for the next installation. “If I live in Cambridge and there’s going to be this thing that’s going to happen four times a year … I’m going to visit the kiosk four times a year. I should be visiting the kiosk 25 times a year,” McGovern said. “It should be a place that is so exciting and such a draw that I want to go all the time, not just go once.”

A work in progress

City officials and the two organizations sharing the KiOSK say the arrangement has been less restrictive in practice than its critics suggest.

Candice Beaulieu, executive director of the Cambridge Office for Tourism, described Harvard Square as “the gateway to Cambridge” and the KiOSK as the tourism office’s “welcome mat.” It is staffed by a rotating roster of about 25 volunteers who direct visitors to destinations throughout the city.The visitor information center welcomed more than 15,900 tourists during its first year of operation, according to figures provided by the Office for Tourism.

Beaulieu said the noise restrictions initially concerned her, but that fear faded once the two organizations began operating alongside each other. “I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that there have been no issues with CultureHouse and their programming, their noise levels,” Beaulieu said. “We want CultureHouse to succeed. We want this programming to be something that people look forward to and they come to. We don’t want to be the organization to stifle any of that. We want to amplify them and help them.”

Participants take part in a Radical Collage Collective workshop at the Harvard Square KiOSK. Credit: Nathan Metcalf

Daniel Messplay, Cambridge’s director of Community Planning & Design, said the Office of Tourism was there because people wanted it. “One of the things that we heard from the community repeatedly was that the kiosk would be a great place to have the Office of Tourism,” Messplay said. The language in the request for proposals (RFP) was not meant to be restrictive but practical. “We wanted to make sure that if that space was going to be shared, that there were some kind of guardrails or guidelines in place.”

Brigham also pushed back on the idea that the rules have constrained CultureHouse from bringing the kind of activity critics want to see. She pointed to a three-night music and poetry festival that drew nearly 500 people this summer, with passersby stopping to listen and dance on the sidewalk. “We’re allowed to get loud in here,” Brigham said.

Both Brigham and Beaulieu said criticism of the KiOSK’s foot traffic has overlooked the impact of construction on the surrounding plaza, which is scheduled to wrap up later this year. “We know foot traffic will improve once we’re not shrouded in all of this fencing,” Brigham said.

City Councillor Cathie Zusy, who visited the KiOSK shortly before speaking with Cambridge Day, said she was encouraged by what she saw but believes the space has yet to realize its full potential. “Harvard Square deserves something extraordinary there,” Zusy said. “It’s very hard to accomplish that under the circumstances of the plaza being under construction.”

For Zusy, that means recapturing some of the sense of wonder the building provided in its previous life. “You know, when it was Out of Town News, here you were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but you were transported to the world,” said Zusy, who spent 20 years as a museum curator. She praised the art CultureHouse has brought to the KiOSK, but said she envisions a more expansive role for the small space. “I don’t want the kiosk to be a museum,” Zusy said. “I want it to be a living place that showcases Cambridge.”