The Garage in Harvard Square will be renovated next year. It’s the latest shift in the neighborhood’s changing landscape.

After 50 years as a retail and cultural hub in the midst of Harvard Sq., The Storage will quickly be redeveloped.

“We love the constructing,” mentioned John DiGiovanni, president of Trinity Property Administration. “It was and is a really cool place. However what I’d say is cooler than The Storage is Harvard Sq..”

DiGiovanni mentioned the previous constructing — which dates again to 1860, when it was a horse steady — is just not accessible for patrons with disabilities. He additionally hopes the redesign will reinvigorate the property to herald new clients, and that “40 or 50 years from now individuals might be speaking about how cool [the new] place was.”

Building plans filed with the town present builders plan to start renovations in 2023, rebuilding the inside whereas preserving the masonry facades on Mt. Auburn and Dunster streets. Trinity Property Administration is engaged on getting eating places, retail companies and workplace tenants into the brand new constructing, although leases haven’t but been signed.

However some present tenants and frequent guests to The Storage are involved about what this venture means for the way forward for the neighborhood. Comic, podcast host and Harvard Sq. frequenter Ken Reid joined GBH’s Morning Version this week to replicate on his reminiscences of the procuring middle.

Reid grew up in Melrose and would journey the Orange Line to spend time at The Storage, the place he recollects digging by crates at file shops searching for gold, getting artisan espresso within the pre-Starbucks world, and renting movies like “Eraserhead” from Videosmith.

“Virtually nothing of the Harvard Sq. I grew up with exists. Frankly, nearly nothing of the Boston I grew up with exists,” he mentioned. “That is not essentially for the more severe … however it’s dropping character.”

Reid mentioned The Storage stood out for its distinctive companies that clients could not discover elsewhere, particularly earlier than the Web. Now he expects some present Storage tenants will shift to on-line companies, whereas he hopes others will discover new bodily areas.

One present tenant, Chameleon Tattoo & Physique Piercing, is already raising money for relocation expenses.

“We’re working with the proprietor of the constructing to hopefully relocate us someplace within the Harvard Sq. space,” mentioned Rueben Kayden, a senior tattoo artist who will take over the storied store after the transfer as the present proprietor retires. “That’s the final word purpose. However that comes with a lofty value.”

Kayden, who has been tattooing at Chameleon for 17 years, mentioned he’s been leaning on the store’s neighborhood. Transferring prices might find yourself clocking in round $80,000-$100,000, he mentioned, not together with lease. However Trinity Property Administration is working with the enterprise, and shoppers are providing assist in no matter methods they’ll. Some are donating cash, others with carpentry or plumbing expertise have supplied their time.

“It’s about maintaining the tradition of tattooing alive in Harvard Sq.,” Kayden mentioned. “Small companies are closing consistently, and I really feel that there isn’t a lot taste left in Harvard. We’re one of many final creative endeavors obtainable within the space. And it turned my private mission to ensure it stays alive and stays true.”

Beneath is a transcript of Ken Reid’s look on GBH’s Morning Version. This transcript has been edited for readability and size.

Paris Alston: We noticed that you just, together with many others, had been lamenting the closing of The Storage. On Twitter, you mentioned, quote, “Wow, shocked and sad to see this news about The Garage in Harvard Square,” saying you spent a lot of your youth there noting that Video Smith alone took in all probability two full weeks of your life, which is like 336 hours. I didn’t try this math. I did that math forward of time.

Ken Reid: Very Harvard of you.

Alston: So stroll us by what you bear in mind about The Storage.

Reid: It is form of a shopping center. However, you recognize, rising up within the suburbs, I grew up in Melrose, the final cease on the Orange Line — rising up there and going into Harvard Sq. and going procuring, that was the closest we acquired to a one-stop store. It was it was like a — how would I say this for youthful individuals? — it was like a bodily Etsy.

Alston: Yeah, that may be a nice description.

Reid: It was type of the whole lot that you just thought was cool in a bit miniature mall. So Newbury Comics was in there, numerous companies over time, however together with the cool clothes retailer, there was a spot referred to as Allston Beat. There was additionally Video Smith, which was a video retailer spinoff of Booksmith. And it was type of the one place that you might lease LaserDiscs. In case you needed to see the film “Eraserhead,” you needed to go lease it from there. And I would take, you recognize, two buses and a prepare to lease it, go residence, watch it, take two buses and a prepare to return. There was additionally Strawberries, Data and Tapes within the basement and a few actually good meals shops.

It was additionally in a pre-Starbucks world, and was one of many solely locations that had a espresso store. There was a espresso place in there referred to as The Espresso Connection that really Marc Maron used to work at. And it is the place the Starbucks is in there now. You had Dunkin Donuts, however this was like excessive finish. , they made espresso.

After which within the basement there, which I consider is the place Tasty Burger is now, was Catch a Rising Star comedy membership. And that is the place individuals like David Cross, Laura Kightlinger, Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, Dana Gould — all of those form of alt comics from the Boston-Cambridge space — Jonathan Katz, all had reveals and carried out at that place. So once I was rising up and was a young person, they used to have a tannoy speaker out on the sidewalk, I believe to get individuals to return in and take heed to the present or pay to go see the present. However I used to be 11 or 12, so I’d simply sit on the sidewalk and take heed to the comedy reveals. [Editor’s note: The club was right next to The Garage, though not part of the building.]

Jeremy Siegel: I have been studying Yelp critiques of The Storage, that are fairly entertaining, and a variety of them form of fall consistent with what you’ve got been saying. Lots of people are saying, “In case you’re caught within the Sq. and have to kill time, that is the place to go.” One among them cracked me up, they mentioned, quote, “There’s nothing right here I need and but I wish to die right here,” they mentioned, “I coronary heart The Storage, even the nasty — phrase I am not going to say — loos.”

Alston: So Ken, you bought to inform us about these loos.

Reid: It was the beautiful a lot the one place in Harvard Sq. that had a public restroom, and it had a lock. It was the primary time I ever encountered a type of lavatory doorways that had like a code that you just put in. And the code for that door was prized info once I was a young person, as a result of they modified it usually. However, you recognize, with out smartphones, it was like a whisper community.

Siegel: Passing phrase round.

Reid: “It is 2070 this week, if you want to go to the toilet.”

Alston: That is hilarious.

Reid: You by no means knew what you’d discover in there.

Siegel: Listening to you speak about this and studying these critiques, I imply, it’s wonderful. It similar to feels like a slice of nostalgia in so many individuals’s minds. However I’ve to ask, why is it referred to as The Storage?

Reid: It was a storage. So it opened in, I believe, the 1700s or 1800s as like a horse stall. After which it was a parking storage in Harvard Sq. till 1972, after they determined they had been there was a giant motion in Harvard Sq., particularly to make it much less of a car-culture space. And they also they modified it into this mixed-use procuring middle, which is even why the ramp if you stroll in that was for automobiles. The rationale why it seems to be such as you’re exterior nonetheless if you’re inside is as a result of it was designed for automobiles. And it did not park that many automobiles, so it made extra sense as this form of mixed-use place for companies.

Alston: So with the closure of The Storage, Ken, what is going on to occur to the companies there? Any concept?

Reid: I am unsure I do know. The Chameleon Tattoo, which is was the primary authorized tattoo parlor in Massachusetts, I consider — actually in Cambridge — has a GoFundMe going. They had been a piercing place earlier than they had been a tattoo place.

Newbury Comics, I assume, will in all probability transfer into a special location. They have been shifting that approach in the previous couple of years, shifting a variety of their standalone areas into procuring malls, sarcastically, with this explicit occasion.

Plenty of the companies have form of closed and been transient over time there, as effectively. However I do not know the place they will go and I do not know the place the brand new place for these sorts of companies are. … However a variety of these locations in all probability can transfer on-line or, you recognize, go to locations like Etsy.

Siegel: Harvard Sq. is a spot that is going by a variety of change. This is only one marker of that. How do you’re feeling about what you are seeing occur in that space?

Reid: It is a bit bit how I think about individuals who used to hold round in Instances Sq. within the ’70s felt when that acquired tremendous Disney-fied. Virtually nothing of the Harvard Sq. I grew up with exists. Frankly, nearly nothing of the Boston I grew up with exists. That is not essentially for the more severe. There have been a variety of form of sleazy, inappropriate locations that I’ve a nostalgic fondness for as an grownup that in all probability weren’t good locations to be hanging round. And so I am type of glad a era of children does not should go to these locations to get the cool issues that they need. However it’s dropping character — like Out of City information is gone — and you recognize, you are lacking the explanation to go to Harvard Sq.. So the explanation to go to a spot was as a result of there have been companies and experiences you might solely bodily have there. And when you’ll be able to both try this nearly or go to any mall that exists or, you recognize, a mixed-use procuring middle and so they have 90% of the identical shops and eating places … until you are bodily in that space already, there’s not a giant purpose to be there.

There was in all probability 15 information file shops in Harvard Sq. once I was rising up. And you’d go dig by crates and attempt to discover gold — and now you simply search it and you could find it. So I am unable to fault individuals for embracing the simpler and the higher. However there’s something lacking if you bodily stumbling upon a factor and that you may solely get in that place.