Cambridge: City of Education and of Slums; Its Experts Plan, Hope but Rarely Get Results

Since Cambridge is not a wealthy city, the development plans of the past have often not gone beyond the talking stage. Some of the middle-aged proponents of the transfer of the subway yards say that they "hope to see the proposals carried out in their lifetimes."

Money from the state or federal governments could help to bring about part of the program.

Cambridge faces gradual decay, civic leaders warn, unless it begins aggressive reform of its slums and misused land.

Most people have dismissed the slums as a necessary by-product of an industrial city. But city planners claim great progress can be made through long-range planning and more important, "fortitude to carry out progressive programs." The planners see little excuse for a city with two great educational institutions to have so much "blighted area."

Several planning groups are formulating the basic outlines for the reform. One, the Cambridge City Planning Board, makes studies and recommends specific proposals to City Manager John B. Atkinson and the City Council. Another, Harvard's Graduate School of Design, contributes additional ideas. Plans have been drawn up for building an expressway from downtown Boston through North Station and Cambridge to the Concord Turnpike, for moving the Cambridge subway yards north, and for eliminating many of the Harvard-owned tenements. As a first step, the state has just approved construction of the section of the proposed expressway from downtown Boston to North Station.

The plan to extend subway from Harvard Square to North Cambridge and to move the storage yards and repair shops now located at the corner of Memorial Drive and Boylston Street to the new location was released by the City Planning Board at the beginning of this year. They suggested building a municipally-owned garage on the present site.

Atkinson thinks the long-range idea is sound. The addition to the subway route will open a large new area for efficient subway transportation. The new subway tunnel may be built with reinforced walls so that it could serve as a bomb shelter, like one being planned in New York City. But, even more important to Harvard, the transfer of the yards will remove an old eyesore near the College and make available for constructive use valuable land equal in size to Eliot, Winthrop, Kirkland, and Lowell Houses combined.

State Study

The best guess of the expense of extending the subway and moving out the yards comes to many millions. Several years ago a study was made of possible routes and costs, but is was not accurate. A bill providing for a new study and estimate of costs by the M.T.A. has been reported favorably by the Committee on Metropolitan Affairs and is now pending in the House Ways and Means Committee.

It authorizes the M.T.A. to issue up to a $200,000 in bonds for the study. If the new bill is approved, it will be eight or nine months before the preliminary study is finished. Detailed plans will take another year. Then--if approval is given for the project--two or three years will be needed for the actual construction.

The possibility of developing the land now occupied by the yards has excited many planners. The City Planning Board originally suggested building a city-owned garage, but Atkinson emphatically disagrees. He said, "I would never go for a municipally-owned garage. If the yards are moved, the best use for that property would be an apartment."

He indicated that several insurance companies were interested in the project and that he "would make every effort to bring someone here" to build a development that "New York's Riverside Drive would take notice of." The tax-exempt yards cost the City $80,000 annually in lost revenue. The City would also benefit from the gain in real estate value on such a development.

Students Suggest

Another group that has worked out plans for that land is the Graduate School of Design. One assignment two years ago was entitled the Memorial Drive Apartment Development.

The brief read: "The shortage of good apartments near Harvard University, combined with the availability of an unusual site on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, suggests ... excellent opportunities for the development of high grade housing for Harvard faculty, married students, and others.

The assignment followed the idea of covering the subway yards with a terrace and building a housing development on top. Moving the yards out altogether, however, makes the plan much easier and more practical. The development might also include badly-needed parking space, a theatre, a few attractive first-floor shops, and a hockey rink.

But this is only one step in the "redevelopment" of Cambridge; another is the extension of the Concord Turnpike to Lechmere Square. The new road will divert many of the 36,000 cars and 6,000 trucks that pass Harvard Square daily, and make possible a conversion of the Square to a leisurely shopping center.

Other improvements fall under the heading of slum clearance. Much of Cambridge's "blighted area" (as the City prefers to call it) is absentee property and land that is so tied-up in wills that the present heirs cannot sell it. The only way these properties can be improved is by the City buying the land under eminent domain.

Over the years, Harvard has followed a policy of buying up land around the University, even though it had no immediate use for it. The University has had to do this to provide for future expansion.

Knowing this situation, people demand fantastic prices for their lots if they are near Harvard buildings. These people think the University will have to buy their land eventually, and that they will then get their price. Usually their properties fall into disuse and serve only to mar the landscape.

But often the University is forced into a paradoxical situation. After it buys a property, it sometimes finds that it cannot just evict the tenants, even though they may be living in old, run-down houses. The University ran into this problem when it bought 16, 18, 20, and 22 De Wolf Street, a block of ugly tenements behind Dunster House. The rest Harvard collects covers only maintenance costs.

ILL-WILL

Obviously, Harvard would create much ill-will if it tore down these buildings and the people had no place to live, although a year ago it was able to demolish one of its tenements at 7 Cowperthwaite Street.

The University has debated tearing down or remodeling 44-46 Mount Asburn, but recent estimates of restoring it to present living standards approximate $10,000. So far it has decided to do nothing.

These are only a few of Harvard's non-college properties in Cambridge. Most of the buildings have outlived their usefulness, and the University receives practically no return on its investment. It seems sensible to planners to put some of this land to constructive use. Even a parking lot nets a fair return on the land, while leaving it ready for future building.

With so many possibilities for "redevelopment" in every part of Cambridge cviic leaders say that Cambridge need not fall into the gradual decay of a static industrial city.