Thursday, 4:30 PM
Mass. Ave. closed this weekend in Cambridge for big Harvard move
By Globe Staff
Massachusetts Avenue north of Harvard Square will be closed from 6 tonight until early Monday while three 19th-century buildings are hoisted with hydraulic lifts and moved two blocks.
Harvard University has spent five years planning the $1-million move, which will require the dismantling of two light poles, several traffic signals, and overhead wires that power buses.
Trees have been trimmed along the route to make way for the 57-foot-high Ukrainian House, which is so wide it will straddle the median on Massachusetts Avenue during the trip. The structures, which also include the Baker House and a carriage house, are being relocated next to a Harvard Law dorm at Mellen Street to make way for a 250,000-square-foot academic building.
Traffic will be detoured on local roads. Harvard has also hired 30 Cambridge police officers to help in part with crowd control.
"We are expecting a big turnout," Michael Armini, a Harvard Law School spokesman, said today. "It will be quite a spectacle."
