University Applies for Fort Devens Area for Married Veterans' Housing

Culminating a series of measures designed to relieve the current shortage of housing for married veterans, the University has applied to the Federal Housing Authority for use of sections of Fort Devens as a "Harvard Colony." Supplementing this request, announcement was made yesterday of plans for erection of Quonset Huts contingent on available FPHA facilities.

If the Fort Devens plans materialize, one-time ward buildings of the Lovell General Hospital, located on a hill overlooking the Nashua River, will become complete apartments for students and their families. The single-story wooden structures will be altered to provide living rooms, baths, kitchens, and one, two or three bedrooms, equipped with steam heating, electricity, and hot water. Furthermore, halls utilized during the war for recreation centers, post Exchanges, and processing buildings will be available for use by the community.

Such projects as study halls, kindergartens, libraries, and local stores can be undertaken by the 520 to 820 families that will be assigned to the area. The railroads have promised to "do their utmost" to provide adequate transportation to and from Devens, 32 miles away, with possible use of spur tracks. Regular bus service and car pools should supply the remainder of the necessary facilities. Rents lower than those paid in Cambridge will make up some of the increased expense involved. With expeditious action by the FPHA, the community should be ready for occupancy at the beginning of the fall term.

The Quonset Huts, if allotted to the University, will be erected on University lands in Cambridge and Boston, unspecified as yet. They will be two-family structures, presumably similar to those in use at Yale, and will add to the other various costs involved in activities dealing strictly with veterans, ontailing a total expense of close to $1,000,000 by the University during the next three or four years.

The proposed cafeteria for graduate students which will probably be set up in the radio research annex of the Biology Building will cost more than $100,000. It will be on the same basis as other University dining halls, and not on the cooperative plan utilized for a Divinity School mess several years ago.