Though it’s easy to forget when you spend all your time in an ivory faux-limestone tower, it’s easy to forget, Cambridge, Massachusetts is a unique (and wonderful) point in time and space. There are nicknames to match: some idiot Republican called Harvard “The Kremlin on the Charles,” semi-observant writers who’ve been to France sometimes call this city the “Boston’s Left Bank,” and everybody who gets a parking ticket will sigh and proclaim that that’s just life in the “People’s Republic of Cambridge.”

Actually, that has kind of a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Well, I do.

And apparently so did someone else. Situated right on the line where Central Square sketchiness gives way to Harvard Square gentrification, the People’s Republik is a bar for the ages.

The decor is three parts Soviet-themed kitsch — World War II-era propaganda posters in Cyrillic letters, space suits, a mockup of a hydrogen bomb (and as added bonus, there’s an unlabeled countdown timer on the wall. The first time I was there, back in December, we spent some time trying to figure out what it was counting down to. With the aid of pen and paper, we figured out that it hit zero at noon on January 21, 2009, which seemed weird. The next day, it occurred to someone that 2008 is a leap year. Then it made sense), three parts student-dive — wooden stools, high tables and bars, serviceable and not too crappy, but not the sort of place you’ll see cushions of any sort, and one part sports bar with just enough televisions (two, as memory serves) to satisfy people who want to catch the Sox game (though except during the world series, these people are generally a minority). The music is standard Cambridge bar music — somewhere between Band of Horses and Wolfmother, not too loud, though like all bars all the people talking make it plenty loud enough anyway. The bartenders are a mixture of sawed-off fifty-year-olds who look like they might have been in The Beast and bleached fratboys who like the idea of irony and not commuting too far from Harvard.

The liquids are pretty good; all local. They’re the only place I’ve been with Harpoon Hibernian on tap, which in turn is the only red ale I’ve ever liked. There’s a lot of Magic Hat (I’m not a huge fan, and by the way, avoid Magic Hat Circus Boy at all costs — it is to Hefeweizen as Josef Stalin was to Marxism), but enough Long Trail to make up for it.

The clientele are even more stereotypically Cambridge than the establishment itself: Harvard and MIT students (you’d better believe you can tell the difference. Unfortunately), hipsters who you just know own two harmonicas, packs of women who by all indications love piercings and baseball — in short, more hair and sexual orientations than you’d have thought possible. If you don’t like it, then go back to the business district.

For my friends and me, the People’s Republik tends to be the last stop of the night. For some reason I’m not sure of, it fills up a little more slowly (I’ve gotten a table at 9 on a Saturday before) than the establishments down Mass Ave, and that fits well with the obvious tendency to crawl away from MIT.

For better or worse, when the revolution comes, it won’t start at the People’s Republik — it’s just another bar, albeit one with a neat vibe. Such is life in the post-postmodern America, I suppose. Thankfully, beer is an acceptable consolation prize for failing to overthrow the global hegemony.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Bar, Boston.