Gale Knocks Over Chimneys, Rips University Hall Roof

"It blew the roof off University Hall all right, all right," chuckled the Maintenance Department man as he wandered about the seats of the great yesterday afternoon. "Boy, the old roof floated off like a new hat on a windy day."

The stout Maintainer was referring to the gale which whistled over Cambridge on the evening of Wednesday, December 26, and blew over two eight-foot chimneys on Holyoke House and ripped off numerous skylights on other buildings. The chimneys are now being rebuilt and the roof over the Cambridge Trust Company, struck by one of them as it toppled over, is having half a dozen new rafters put in. The piece of tin, about ten feet square, which was scaled from the top of University Hall is part of a temporary roof installed immediately after the war of 1812. Action to replace it with a somewhat more permanent protection for the learned pates underneath, although delayed for 122 years, has not been forgotten, and present officials hope to finish the work of their Puritan predecessors.