Tourist attraction
Harvard Square
Bustling plaza of bookstores and cafes, where sidewalk chess draws hustlers and scholars alike.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to Harvard Square in Boston centers on Murray Turnbull, a Harvard dropout who spent two decades holding court at the sidewalk chess tables here for two dollars a game, firing a pink squirt gun to start each match. In 2001, Harvard's own chess club sent a mathematics professor and a trio of players to challenge him, on the condition that they play early, before the square filled up. Roughly forty regulars still gather at those same tables today, trading nods instead of names.
This audio guide was created using AI.