CREATING A SQUARE
IN THE SQUARE

A decade’s long dream in the making

Starlight Square is a temporary intervention created by the Central Square Business Improvement District, Flagg Street Studio, and Boyes-Watson Architects, designed to build capacity within the Central Square community for outdoor performance, learning, dining, and dialogue during COVID-19. Before the pandemic, however, this idea was pitched as something much simpler. Still using scaffolding and scrim, these three teams imagined using a portion of Lot 5 to create a square in the Square, a civic commons in the heart of the city.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the idea was reimagined to meet the scale of the crisis, still holding true to the original intent. What you see at Starlight today realizes decades’ worth of city planning and participation from the Central Square community.

For a detailed timeline of the Starlight Square project, its partners, and process, click here.

Creating Starlight was a DISTRICT-wide effort.

A version of Starlight was originally proposed to the City of Cambridge on March 9, 2020, the day before Governor Baker declared the state of emergency in the Commonwealth. Over the last few months, the Central Square community has rallied together to bring Starlight Square to life, centering first the cultural institutions in Central Square who lost access to their indoor performance venues, and then layering on abutting businesses and community centers.

Our sincere gratitude goes to our sponsors and partners at the City of Cambridge, ReevX Labs powered by Berkshire Bank, MassDOT, BioMed Realty, Suffolk Construction, Cambridge Community Foundation, MIT, MassDevelopment, the Solomon Foundation, Cambridge Savings Bank, Nauset Construction, Siena Construction Company, Cambridge Arts Council, and 907 Main. We said many times over throughout the course of the project, “This will take everything we got, but we got everything we need.” From donated jersey barriers and pro-bono legal advice, to burrito lunches and extra hands for mulching, the extended Central Square family stepped up in a big way to create Starlight.