New book offers glimpse of history behind Cambridge’s Andover Shop
A tiny shop with an unassuming storefront on a side street in Harvard Square altered the history of men’s fashion in the 20th century, and Charlie Davidson was the man behind it. Davidson founded the Andover Shop in 1948 and dressed not just Supreme Court justices and Harvard bigwigs, but Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Ralph Ellison, among others. The shop became a cultural hub as well as a clothing store, a jewel box of tweed, jazz, and literature. A new book, “Miles, Chet, Ralph, & Charlie: An Oral History of The Andover Shop,” put together by Constantine A. Valhouli, gives a glimpse into this singular spot, and the inimitable man who ran it. The chorus of voices includes Roger Angell, Ellison, Nat Hentoff, Davis, Malcolm Gladwell, and Harvard Square legends like Mary-Catherine Deibel. The book includes firsthand interviews as well as archival materials — letters, newspapers, unpublished memoirs, and manuscripts — and the feel is of being at a gathering, people chatting away about Davidson, part gossip, part praise, sharing anecdotes, sharing stories, about his wisdom, his generosity (he was the “unofficial therapist for some of the leading figures in Boston,” says Mor Sène), his welcoming spirit, along with his unassailable taste. As B. Bruce Boyer says, the place marked the intersection of “the Establishment and the iconoclasts . . . many of the Shop’s most celebrated clients were consummate outsiders.” The book is a kaleidoscopic celebration of a man, an engaging look at fashion, jazz, and politics, and a lively history of Harvard Square, all sewn together by Valhouli in a well-tailored, timeless fit.
On a Saturday last month, a small group of close friends and family gathered at the retirement home of poet and translator David Ferry and an impromptu reading took place from Ferry’s final, forthcoming collection of poetry, “Some Things I Said” (Grolier Poetry) as Ferry lay listening from his bed. He died, aged 99, the following day. “Right there before my eyes was the one who said/ where are you now?” he writes in the title poem. “I said the brain in your head whispers . . . I said how beautiful is the past, how few the implements,/ and how carefully made . . . I said better not know too much too soon all about it.” The new book comes out this week, and the Grolier is hosting a launch celebration Wednesday, December 13 at 7 p.m. at 113 Brattle Street in Cambridge. Ferry spent almost 4 decades teaching at Wellesley College. His renown as a poet happened late in life: between age 65 and his death, he wrote ten books, translating epics including “Gilgamesh” and “The Aeneid,” and his collection “Bewilderment” won the National Book Award in 2012. “I wish I could recall now the lines written across my dream is what/ I said/ I said the horse’s hooves know all about it, the sky’s statement of/ oncoming darkness.” For more information and to register for the event, visit grolierpoetrybookshop.org.