HARVARD SEEKING TO ALTER STREETS

Information discovered by the CRIMSON yesterday at the City Hall, together with a hitherto unpublished letter of President Lowell to Mayor Quinn indicates that the University's negotiations to close or alter certain streets in preparation for the new Houses are almost completed. Work on the first two Houses will be started in June.

The plan which was finally accepted calls for the completion of the Houses by the fall of 1930; one on a plot of land north of Gore Hall and bounded by Plympton, Mt. Auburn, and Holyoke Streets; the other on a triangular lot adjoining Memorial Drive just east of McKinlock Hall. In the case of the former, however, it was advisable to alter Holyoke Street at the southern end, where there is an awkward bend in it; while the construction of the second House would be hampered, if not prevented, by Colonial Way, which cuts the triangular lot into halves.

President Lowell, in a letter to Mayor Quinn, which has not previously been announced, requested that changes favorable to the University's plan be made. In part, he said that "The public streets which we should like to have discontinued. ...are neither many nor important to the city. They are as follows: Colonial Way (formerly called Otter Street); South Street between Holyoke and Dunster Streets...... changes in the line of the southern end of Holyoke Street, as previously indicated to you." The changes referred to will consist of widening and straightening the passage.

It was learned yesterday that Mayor Quinn has submitted these suggestions to the City Council; and a definite date has been set for the hearing, which is to take place on March 19. It is not expected that the University will encounter any opposition to its petitions, for it now owns all the property abutting on the streets affected.

President Lowell's recommendation, as seen in the extracts above, included the closing of a portion of South Street, which now runs between the Freshman Gymnasium and the new athletic plant. It is possible that if this thoroughfare can be eliminated the two buildings will be connected to allow safe passage from one to the other in all weather.

At the same time President Lowell requested that Jarvis Street, which runs between the Law School and Jarvis Field, also be closed. Reference was likewise made to the exchange of the city's rights to Holmes Place, in front of the Law School, for the triangular plot between Broadway and Cambridge Street, where a fire station is to be built. This latter matter is now in the law courts and will be concluded as soon as the titles are investigated and changed