T.T. the Bear's Place, Music venue in Central Square, Cambridge, US
T.T. the Bear's Place was a music venue on Brookline Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, housed in a small, plain building. The room held around 300 people and offered a direct, no-frills stage for rock, folk, and indie concerts.
The business started in 1973 as a plain bar and moved to Brookline Street in 1980 before shifting its focus to live music in 1984. It closed in 2015, leaving a gap in the Cambridge concert scene that many regulars still talk about.
T.T. the Bear's Place was known for putting local bands and touring acts on the same small stage, which gave the night a particular energy. The audience often stood right in front of the stage, with no real barrier between listeners and musicians.
The venue no longer exists, but Brookline Street in Cambridge is easy to reach by public transit and sits in a neighborhood with other concert spots and bars. Those tracing the local music history of the area will find several related stops nearby.
The name came from the owners' pet hamster, nicknamed Tough Teddy, which is a very unusual origin for a concert club. Many regulars assumed the name referred to a person, and the real story often caught them off guard.
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