Published 21:48, May the 13th, 2009
City blocks
Bow and Arrow streets, Cambridge
BOSTON. The bell tower of St. Paul Church tolls each half-hour, drawing a few lazy looks from those settled outside Cafe Pamplona on Bow Street below.
Otherwise, everyone is content to while away the afternoon with coffee and conversation at the venerable cafe, now in its 50th year at the heart of the Bow and Arrow neighborhood.
Pamplona operates in the ground floor of a red frame house known as one of the oldest commercial buildings in the region.
“We like being in the little red house,” said Brian Beaucher, co-owner of WardMaps, which offers a vast collection of 19th and 20th century real estate maps just one floor up. “It’s a side street but we don’t necessarily feel hidden.”
Across the bow-shaped street is a Harvard dorm, the school’s public health department and the requisite Dunkin’ Donuts.
Moving away from curvy Bow Street and up straight-as-an-arrow Arrow Street one encounters the trashy backsides of several Mass. Ave. businesses along with an antiquarian book dealer and Harvard’s Catholic student center.
Before the neighborhood is lost at Mass. Ave, there’s a bright wooden building housing a pair of eateries and Guffey Park, appropriately shaped like the tip of an arrow, in this case aimed at downtown Boston.
