People like to play up the rivalry between the two Cambridge-based Universities, but historians say the bridge was named in 1891 after Rev. John Harvard (not the school) before MIT even moved its campus from Back Bay.
The funnier story that persists to this day is that authorities offered to name the bridge after one of the local schools. Harvard petitioned for the naming rights because it argued it was more “prestigious” and MIT, after finding the structural integrity of the bridge wanting, agreed that the bridge deserved to be named after Harvard, too.
Today, most people call it Mass Ave Bridge, anyway.