Harvard Square is a magnet for young people in boring suburbs. The Pit people are only the most colorful example-they’re the flock of pierced, dyed, leather-clad youths next to the T stop.

The Square is actually a hub of Boston’s cool factor, rivaling only downtown Newbury Street in terms of shopping, record stores and cheap eats like Au Bon Pain and The Wrap. Two convenience stores, Store 24 and 7-11, along with pizza joints Tommy’s and Pinocchio’s keep Harvard students caffeinated and fed through at least most of the night.

The Square is also pricey and corporate, with an Abercrombie & Fitch, a Gap and Urban Outfitters, a HMV and a Tower Records.

But if this weekend stays sunny, you will see Harvard at its best. Charles River’s is the most beautiful vista on warm days. Though this isn’t Stanford, with spastic Cambridge weather, if it isn’t the parties, the academics, or your fellow students that convince you to come here, let it be a sparkling pre-frosh weekend.