Good Eats, Sutured Lions, Stuffed Seals, And Other Highlights At Harvard

My plane leaves for San Francisco in a couple hours, but I wasn't about to leave Boston without revisiting some of my favorite Cambridge stomping grounds and checking-out how Harvard has changed since I lived here from 1987-1992. Harvard gets a lot of backlash when people start talking about "Best of," but even with just a whirlwind tour this morning, I recalled some fantastic memories. There are a lot of "Bests" about Harvard. Here's just a very personal list of my favorites:

Best Newstand: Out Of Town News in Harvard Square. Can literally find your hometown news and have it waiting for you.


Best Burgers: Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage on Mass. Ave. just outside Harvard Yard and behind the Wigglesworth freshman housing. Sometimes it's a long wait to get seated, but oh so worth it!


Best Quick Eats and Beer: Grendel's Den. A perennial fixture at Harvard. It's dark, usually quiet, and serve some fantastic kabobs with a pint.


Best Academic Library: Widener Library. Second only to the Library of Congress in sheer volume of holdings. For the serious scholar. Rumor has it that to be a true Harvard student, you must have sex at some time in your student career somewhere in the labyrinth-like stacks.


Best Old-School Natural History Museum: The Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ). Founded in 1859 by that old, irascible creationist Louis Agassiz, it remains a monument to the Victorian principles of collect and document all you can. There's far more tucked away in shelves, bottles, and drawers than you see on display, but in total it represents some of the best comparative animal collections in the world. Some of my favorites:

The Kronosaur

The Slowly Decaying Coelacanth

The Sad Dodo

The Sutured Lion Cub

The Smiling Seal

And the ever so extinct Sea Cow

What I always liked about the MCZ is they realize that the science they have on display needs to attract and interest future scientists as well. But honestly, with collections this cool, how could it not interest the child in everyone.