Sprawling Adams Offers Proximity, Good Food to Incoming Freshmen

This is the first in a series of seven articles designed to acquaint Yard-dwelling Freshmen with the College Houses. Each of the other Houses will be described in future issues.

Sprawled haphazardly across two Cambridge blocks, Adams House offers incomin Freshmen a variety of advantages, squash courts, a swimming pool, and ready accessibility to all points on the University compass.

Unlike the other brash new Houses, Adams is an aggregation of two old and gaudy student apartment dwellings and one new structure that shelters the library and dining hall, all inter-connected by an elaborate tunnel system. The swimming pool, and adjacent sun deck, are hold-overs from the days when the West-merly and Randolph wings were part of the fabulous Gold Coast.

F.D.R. Slept Here

Although at least five suites have been touted as the one-time residence of Franklink D. Roosevelt '04, it is certain that the late President, preceded perhaps by William Randolph Hearst '85, occupied one of the Randolph or Westmorly rooms.

Intellectual features afforded by the dean of College Houses are a comfortable and expensive library and a respectable listing of associated tutors. Among the distinguished but not always available faculty members attached to Adams are Kenneth J. Conant '15, professor of Architecture; Donald K. David, Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration; Wilbur K. Jordan, President of Radcliffe College; Louis M. Lyons, Curator of Nieman Fellowships; and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Francis Leo Higginson professor of History.

Thanks to its individual kitchen, Adams offers what is probably the best cuisine among the Houses. Yardlings should find its fare a welcome relief from the Union offerings.

Nestled snugly within the Randolph courtyard is the most colorful Gold Coast tradition, Apthorp House, residence of David M. Little '18, master of Adams and Secretary to the University. The old white frame dwelling imprisoned General Burgoyne and his staff after they were captured at Saratoga in 1777 and later contained a thriving speakeasy during Prohibition