Porter Sqaure

Porter Square is located around the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Somerville Avenue, between Harvard and Davis Squares. The Porter Square station is one of the stops on the Red Line, and of the Commuter Rail, both part of the MBTA. The station is approximately 200 yards from the border with Somerville, so “Porter Square” inhabitants include residents of both cities.

Porter Square was named for the now-vanished Porter’s Hotel, operated by Zachariah B. Porter, who also left his name to the hotel’s specialty, the cut of steak now known as porterhouse. The square, formerly flanked by cattle yards that used the Porter rail head to transport their beef through the US, was an important center for commerce and light industry as early as the late 18th century. In 1984 the Red Line was extended from Harvard through Porter and Davis Square to its present terminus at Alewife, a project that also left Porter with its most visible landmark, Susumu Shingu’s 46-foot stainless steel kinetic sculpture entitled “Gift of the Wind.”

A prominent feature of the Porter Square skyline is the tower on the Art Deco-style University Hall building, which was a Sears, Roebuck from 1928 to 1985. In 1991, Lesley University began leasing classroom space there, and in 1994 it bought the building, known then as the Porter Exchange building, in which it now houses its bookstore and art and dance studios in addition to classrooms.

Lesley University continues to expand in the Porter Square neighborhood, with current plans to relocate the Art Institute of Boston to the site occupied by the North Prospect Church on Massachusetts Avenue across the street from University Hall.