Harvard Square aims to be your valentine

Harvard Square wants you to feel the love.

During February, the Harvard Square Business Association is creating a series of one- to three-minute Video Valentines and airing them on harvardsquare.com/valentinesday/2007/ and YouTube.

There's a valentine for each of the 28 days, featuring off-the-cuff lecturing, singing, ranting, raving, and everything in between from the streets of Harvard Square.

Featured valentines will include Mr. Bartley of Bartley's Burger Cottage, Actors Shakespeare Project artistic director Benjamin Evett and company performing sonnets from the balconies above the main hall of the Harvard Coop, and the Hasty Pudding woman of the year, Scarlett Johansson.

Today, Mieka Pauley serenades us with love songs from Club Passim.

"It gives a real sense of the genuine people and the diversity in Harvard Square," said Denise Jillson, executive director of the association, which has nearly 100 restaurants, more than 40 cultural organizations, and hundreds of retailers. "We'll all be feeling the love."

The videographer and coproducer for “With Love from Harvard Square” is photographer Mark Ostow, who lives and works near Harvard Square.
(By Jenn Abelson, Globe staff)