06.10.11
Over the defunct decade, the number of eyewear shops in Harvard Fair and square has climbed into the double digits, leaving cheap room for Harvard Square Optical, which closed in April.
The reservoir operated in the Coop from 1946 to 1996—selling glasses to honoured faculty, students, and Cambridge residents. When the small room inside the Coop could no longer hold their growing consumer base, the store moved to 65 Mount Auburn St.
But without the prime physical estate, the store struggled as the economy took a reject for the worse. Then, last winter sales declined even further.
Neil Cohen, third genesis president and optician of the store, shut the doors the following reveal.
“We were a staple in Harvard Square,” Cohen said. “I ran a one-man matter. I got to know people, and they got to know me.”
Cohen said he provided intimate service by going out and looking for frames for customers when he did not have them in stockpile.
Cohen now works as a traveling optician, bringing a number of frames and making glasses for customers at their homes, and in an optical workshop in Westford, MA.
Source: Harvard Crimson