Harvard Square

Today I walked up to Harvard Square to see if the used video game store in the Garage still existed. They had all kinds of Nintendo and Atari cartridges for sale a few years ago. I remember it being an awkward storefront that was just some glass cases on the landing of one of the stairwells. Sadly, this place is long gone.



What I did find was Tokyo Kid. As the name indicates, this store sells almost exclusively Japanese products. Manga, anime, and all of the brightly colored toys and t-shirts that go along with the genre cover the walls and shelves. They have plenty of Nintendo and Mario themed accesories like wallets, dolls, and action figures, but there was little in the way of actual games. A glass case in one of the aisles held about ten Sega Genesis cartridges, two imported Super Famicom games, a half-dozen Atari 2600 games, and one Magnavox Odyssey2 game. The Super Famicom games were priced between fifteen and twenty dollars, and the Genesis and Odyssey2 games were around five bucks. I couldn't see any prices on the Atari carts, but hopefully they are reasonable.



Across the hall from Tokyo Kid is Newbury Comics. They have a Zoltar machine on the left as you walk in the store. You may remember Zoltar as the fortune-telling machine which grants the kid's wish in Big, turning him into Tom Hanks. The coin mechanism appears to be jammed. It could be legitimately broken, or the employees may be sick of hearing the thing talk.

Across the street from the Garage is an Urban Outfitters store. Amongst all the hip, faux-thrift store clothing and ridiculous tchotchkes you'll find two arcade machines. One is an original Centipede cabinet with what looks like a new, clean track ball. The other is one of the 20th anniversary Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machines. Ms. Pac-Man plays fast with the speed-up chip, and the monitor is huge but out of focus. Something in the settings made the whole thing fuzzy. They're located in between floors on your way to the bargain basement. The going price is fifty cents a game.

Tokyo Kid and Newbury Comics:
The Garage Mall
36 JFK St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tokyo Kid phone: (617) 661-9277
Newbury phone: (617) 491-0337

Urban Outfitters
11 J.F.K Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 864-0070